I’ve shared this container before, but I wanted to revisit it with some tips for keeping your fall-to-winter containers looking fresh. The Rudbeckia ‘Cherry Brandy’ blooms don’t last long, so when I put together a container like this, I place the whole potted plant right into the soil and arrange the longer-lasting plants around it. I choose healthy plants in one-gallon pots because they won’t grow much during the colder months, so I pack them in tightly.
When the Rudbeckia flowers fade, I lift its pot out and swap in another one-gallon flowering or foliage plant. It takes a few seconds, and it’s done. A nice no-dig method that doesn’t disturb the other plants’ roots. If you choose perennials like hellebores for their winter flowers, you can plant them later in the garden and keep your investment growing for years. A trip to the nursery each season can provide perennials or shrubs that add colorful foliage or flowers to dress up the colder months.
Come spring, you can dismantle the whole container, tossing out the kale and plants that won’t be useful anymore. For this setup, you can transplant the Euphorbias into your garden. However, the roots are a bit finicky about transplanting, so I would keep this in its one-gallon pot while on display in the container and bury it in the container’s potting soil. The only catch is that you won’t change this pot until spring, since it will provide buds and then flowers in mid to late winter.
You can also keep the Schizachyrium ‘Prairie Blues’ grass—the tall grass in the back—and either plant it in your garden or reuse it in your summer containers for its blue blades. Many perennials, ferns, grasses, and shrubs can start out in containers as seasonal displays or stay in their pots for over a year before you move them into the ground.
Container Recipe
- 1 Schizachyrum ‘Prairie Blues’ (The grass turns tan in the winter. Cut it back in spring for new growth.)
- 4 Pennisetum ‘Fireworks’ (treat as annuals)
- 1 Kale ‘White Peacock (treat as annual)
- 1 Kale ‘Tuscan Black’ (treat as annual)
- 2 Euphorbia ‘Glacier Blue’ (evergreen perennial)
- 1 Rudbeckia ‘Cherry Brandy’ (A marginal perennial that will die down after frost. Change it out for another plant.)
If you want to see this funny video made after a trip to a local garden center, you’ll have to view it on YouTube. I marked it as 18 or older so I can’t embed it into this post. Click on the image below to go there.
