by Yvonne Mccormack

Created on: June 02, 2009   Last Updated: June 03, 2009

You don't have to be the owner of acres of gardens to have beautiful plants and flowers. Even if you have no garden at all, you can still have the pleasure of watching your favorite flowers bloom.

You can have a beautiful container garden, no matter how small your space is. What it takes is just a little imagination, and a little planning.

The container you use can be anything at all. For example, if you have an old wheel barrow, you can paint it up and it will make a perfect flower planter. I have done several of these and they look really fantastic when they are full of flowers in bloom. If you plan your flowers right, it will flower all through the summer months. I find Busy Lizzies and petunias are brilliant in this type of planter as they fill out perfectly.

Another good idea for a planter is an old watering can. These look lovely with daffodils or tulips planted in them. It's easy to do these types of planters as all you need to do is fill up the watering can with compost and put in your bulbs. If you get this ready in October, you will have lovely daffodils and tulips in the spring. When the daffodils and tulips are finished, you can lift the bulbs and put some summer pansies in their place - they will last all summer. Make sure you put the bulbs somewhere dry to keep for the next year.

If you live in an apartment, you don't have to be without flowers. You can have some lovely window boxes filled with all different-colored summer flowers. Trailing petunias look very attractive, as do geraniums and a mix of marigolds in between. Finish the window box, leaving it looking beautiful the whole summer long.

If you just have a yard and no lawn, a few well placed ceramic planters look good. Plant different flowers in each of the planters to have a bit of variety. You can plant almost anything in containers - even vegetables. Strawberries do quite well in containers, too.

Always remember that plants and flowers that are in containers dry out quite quickly, so you must make sure you water them every day. Also, they will need feeding. This should be done every fourteen days. Always take the dead heads off the flowers, this will stop them from seeding and encourage more flowers to form.

For the more adventurous container gardener, there is always the option of making your own containers. Wooden containers look very rustic, and look really lovely with different heathers growing together in them. You can get quite a few different types of heather from the garden centers. Alternatively, you could plant rockery plants in wooden containers. These, too, come in so many different varieties.

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