Plants

[HM]

As Easter weekend is approaching, and we're entertaining on Good Friday, I wanted to make our garden look a bit more attractive by planting some flowers in our pots.  Can anyone recommend anything that we could plant now, that will be safe if we have any more frosts?  We usually go with pansies but I'd like to plant something different.  But we don't want anything that grows too big as they'll only be in pots.  Any suggestions?

Thanks

[Impret-Sir]

The garden centres and markets stalls are full of polyanthus at this time of year, lots of lovely bright colours to chose from, and the wonderful little plants will withstand frost and wind and rain, plus when they have finished flowering you can move them to a quiet spot in the garden to live on through the summer, then they will flower again next spring. Their only trouble is that the slugs do like the leaves during the summer months, but even this does not usually kill them.

[Clanad]

Annuals with shallow root systems will thrive best in containers. Try alyssum, coleus, geranium, impatiens, lobelia, marigold, nasturtium, pansy, petunia, salvia, snapdragon, thunbergia, verbena, zinnia, dusty miller, and short types of cosmos.Granted, some of these are usually started from seed, but your DIY or garden centers should have many of them growing.

We especially like geraniums, since they will provide color all summer if you dead head the blooms.  There are varieties of perennial snapdragons that can be transplanted to the regular garden later.  These provide a nice vertical dimension to container plantings. Cosmos is a trusted standby and comes in many colors. My Mother's favorite was nasturtium, but beware, they become quite invasive before summer is through.

 Dwarf varieties of sunflowers, such as Teddy Bear and Big Smile, make wonderful container statements! Enjoy your green thumb!