Cottage garden evergreen plants for pots

afternoon all,

We have finally finished sorting our garden out, its a cottage garden but with kids stuff in like playhouse swing etc, also a chicken run.

Anyway i want to add some colour to the garden bit and want to do it via chimney pots/ liners/ terracotta pots. My plan is to have four lots of bundles of 3 or 5 pots arranged around the garden to breakup the green colour of grass / conifers/ hedge.

what would people plant in them, i want something ideally evergreen so still look decent in winter. also what would people group together in the 3 or 5 pots.

also can you something like ivy to grow over the top of the pots so they blend in with the surrounds, but not over kill growing and i have to chop it back every five mins.

regards
James

 

I bought in 2020 an Euphorbia as a pot version for £2.50 and it looked all year round marvellous.

 

Hello James, is there any reason why you want to plant in pots rather than the ground? It’s just that most things are easier to look after in the ground rather than pots, where they are more reliant on you for food and water.

Groups of either 3 or 5 will work, mixing up up sizes works well. If same size, I would go for groups of 3 but it’s a personal, subjective thing really. I would try and have some as big as you can as they will have more impact and be easier to care for (less watering).

Either way, I’m assuming nothing too big if it will be in pots so some suggestions - smaller Hebes, Heuchera, agree Euphorbia (Blackbird and Humpty Dumpty are nice small ones).
Some hardy geraniums are semi evergreen such as the macrorrhizum varieties.
Cistus have lots of flowers and should be ok, but it’s one short blast of flowers rather than a long show. Erysium (think that spelt right - wallflowers) will flower on and off for months. Sysirinchium and libertia grandiflora have good structure and the latter has attractive seedheads.

You could plant trailing ivy in the pots. I would avoid planting it in the ground, or if you do research varieties carefully. I inherited lots of native ivy as groundcover and it will smother anything and I usually have to trim it back several times a year.

 

Some little topiaries could add a bit of variation and are evergreen, ligustrum, bay and yew are readily available and don't need that much work to look near and can add height to a pot arrangement.

 

Ooh, the mention of bay reminds me. Herbs are good for pots and would help with a cottage garden feel. Sage, thyme and rosemary are all evergreen and pretty when in flower. Easy and cheap to grow from supermarket fresh herbs as well, just root in water

 

Agreed @Butterfly6 and there such diverse cultivars of each, they can add a lot of interest and great for cooking too.

 

Erigeron karvinskianus will flower from May until December and it remains semi-evergreen in mild areas. You could combine it with a small evergreen grass like Stipa tenuissima for extra interest. I’ve planted them above a low sandstone wall in my front garden but they will both be happy in containers if you use a soil based compost and keep them well watered during dry spells.

 

Brilliant to give a go at your new garden. We made a herb garden many decades ago some of the herbs still in situ. It always depends on how large the area you have for what you want to do.
Our garden is a wilderness garden. We grow for us to eat but also for the wildlife to continue.

 

Thank you all for you replies, I will look into the plants suggested.

Reason for pots not in the ground. We have collected a number of old chimney pots of different sizes and shapes, so think they would look nice, they are all well aged grouped together in 3/5 groups around the garden. Plus the layout of the garden make it almost impossible to have a natural looking section for planting in the ground.

 

Bear in mind that your location [which we don't have] is a factor. Most Sages, and Bay, for example, don't readily thrive here over winter, so your climate and conditions are always helpful for giving suggestions. You can add it to your details on the left by going into your settings.

Lavender is another plant that's often suggested for the kind of look you want, but it gets lush in summer here, then suffers in winter, so it can be difficult to keep looking decent long term. Again, that's why your location is important.
Lots of Saxifrages will provide 'green' all year round, and flower in early to late spring. Easy to propagate too, and low maintenance. There are quite a few alpine type plants which will do the same - Arabis and Aubrieta are just two. They need good drainage and a fair bit of sun, but could be useful nearer to the house if the site was suitable, and could accompany other planting.
Use a good gritty mix for the pots if you decide on any of those, and you don't need to fill the whole thing with the soil mix- you can fill part way [depending on the overall height] with other things like old pots etc., but put a layer of landscape fabric or old cloth, or similar, over that before adding the soil mix, to avoid it all washing through the gaps.

 

We are in Matlock, Derbyshire with a South facing garden.