Create your own colorful summer Container Garden

Story by Joanne K. and Ann H., NC State Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers. All photos by Ann Hamze, CC BY 4.0.
With local nurseries and big-box stores overflowing with colorful blooms and leafy greens, gardeners are ready to create their summer container gardens.

Dusty Miller, Snapdragon, and Chinese Sedum provide height and depth in this container.

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Heuchera, Coral Bells, and Creeping Charlie gracefully cascade from this container.

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These gardens offer you the opportunity to create a new look every summer, combining old and new plants, annuals and perennials, or vegetables and herbs.

If you have a small yard or live in an apartment or want to downsize your garden, containers allow you to grow flowers, vegetables, and herbs for your own enjoyment with less work.

Containers are good for patios, small spaces, walkways, and as garden accents.

Each season Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers create a display at the Pitt County Arboretum in a set of three large containers by the entrance to the Eugene James Auditorium at the Pitt County Extension Building.

The container team selects plants that do well in full sun and follow the theme of thriller (tall plants), filler (medium-size or mounding plants), and spiller (trailing plants) to add a display that will last a full season, in this case, from spring to late summer.

Bedding Begonia, Ascot Rainbow Spurge, American Winterberry, Stonecrop, and Elephant Ears provide variations in height, texture, and form.

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The container gardens featured here were displayed at the Arboretum in the spring and summer of 2023. Other Arboretum container gardens can be seen in front and on the sides of the building and under the green canopy.

We hope that these gardens will inspire you to create your own colorful container garden. And be sure to visit the Arboretum to see what's growing this year!

For more information on creating and maintaining container gardens, go to the NC Extension Gardener Handbook.