Outdoors Plants

Im going to get some plants that I can keep in large pots/comtainers for my back yard. Which are the easiest to care for, and will be forgiving of any mistakes I make?(Im an absolute begginner)
Which soil, and plant food is best to get for me to re-pot what I buy into bigger pots.
I have perlite here.... is that good to mix with the soil I buy???
Thanx in advance for any help.
DEN
PS Any Books anyone can recommend to me also appreciated

 

Hi Den you can grow anything you like in containers the bigger the container the better it's a more stable environment for your plants, if you have small containers they quickly dry out, make sure your containers have good drainage, people use different mixtures of compost for their containers I mix 50% multipurpose with 30% john innes 3 add 10% vermiculite (perlite will be fine) and to this I add 10% well rotted manure (you can get this from the major diy stores if you don't have a horse),you can grow anything in this,shrubs, bulbs,tropical plants etc some of the palms will stand -10c . the readers digest encyclopedia of garden plants and flowers is good, the best one is the rhs a to z encyclopedia of garden plants but it is expensive

 

Den. Sound advice from Walnut. As he says you can grow anything - shrubs, bulbs, annuals, hardy perennials or tender perennials. That over a million plants to chose from. And I would second Walnut on the Readers Digest book - I think it is excellent. But I would start with 'The flower expert' by Dr DG Hessayon. I suspect its on sale at most garden centres. Its the smallest and simplest book - but very good.

If you are just looking for some colour, I would suggest you look at tender perennials as a group. These are plants that come from warmer climes than us, and so often won't survive the winter. However as a result of coming from warmer places, they flower for a very longer period of time, and they are easily available. In this group you have :-

Pelargoniums (but everone calls them Geraniums) - very long flowering - they like it dry so don't need much watering.
Petunias (very free flowering over a long period) - you have the ordinary upright ones and trailing ones (Surfinas - bit more expensive) - need quite a bit of feeding and watering.
Buzzy Lizzies -(very free flowering) but need a lot of water and hate to be dry.
Fuschia - really a small shrub - not quite so 'in your face' as Petunias. You have upright and training ones.
Then you have Osteopermum, Argyranthemum, Felicia, all of which will grow into fair sized plants. And Diascia, Bacopa and others that are smaller and floppy. Except for buzzy lizzies I have all of them in my garden in pots and I love them.

Because they are so popular you can (or could until recently) buy all of these as single plugs at larger garden centres. They will all grow a lot during the season, but generally won't survive the winter. Chuck them and buy new plugs next year. Remember to water and feed them.