Ideas for Flower Containers for Shaded Entrances

Potted flowers brighten shaded entrances and welcome guests with refreshing colour or scent. Portable containers may be removed easily after a flowering show finishes, and permanent planters hold seasonal colour according to your preferences and whims. Shade-tolerant shrubs, perennials, vines or yearly flowers can fill pots, hanging baskets or urns with individual specimens or in stunning seasonal combinations. Arrange to get a steady water supply to keep your container garden perky since containers tend to dry out quickly.

Flowering Shrubs

Obviously modest, container-grown Japanese maple trees (Acer palmatum), for U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 3 through 9, retain their diminutive height over several phases. Heavy pots that are 2 or 3 inches wider than the root ball and wider than they are heavy work best for slow growing, weeping varieties, like “Red Dragon.” Spring blooms and extravagantly colored leaf make for year-long interest. Rhododendrons and azaleas (Rhododendron spp.) , for USDA zones 4 through 9, come in every flowering shade except true blue. Plants vary from under two feet tall into towering, 20-foot-high giants, but the small and medium ranges bring reliable spring shade to shaded entryways. Move off-season “rhodies” out of sight or plant them in permanent garden places to make room for summertime entryway shade.

Perennial Flowers

Pots restrict the vigorous development of fragrant, tropical ginger lilies (Hedychium spp.) , which can be most attractive from the moist, coastal areas of USDA zones 8b through 11. In late summer through early fall, bring spectacular, 3- to 7-foot-high potted butterfly ginger (H. coronarium) seeds into the entryway because of their 12-inch-long clusters of fragrant white blossoms to welcome guests. Try grouping different-sized pots together with a variety of colorful flowering perennials. Trailing tuberous begonias (Begonia), for USDA zones 6 through 9, overflow pots with brilliant summertime shade. At USDA zones 5 through 9, hardy cyclamen (Cyclamen hederifolium) plants bloom in early fall with pink or white winged flowers one of silvery green, heart-shaped leaves. Lenten rose (Helleborus orientalis), for USDA zones 4 through 9, blossom in winter with colour choices in pink, white and plum shades. Consider including colorful, spiky, 18-inch-high “Red Baron” blood grass (Imperata cylindrica) for textural contrast.

Flowering Vines

Permit perennial vines spill from hanging baskets, window boxes, wall containers or tall urns in nesting entrances. The evergreen bleeding glorybower (Clerodendrum thomsoniae) graces entryways in USDA zones 9 and 10 with showy red and white flower clusters from summer through fall. The intoxicating scent of Chilean jasmine’s (Mandevilla suaveolens) whitened to blushed-pink blossom clusters welcome guests from late spring through midsummer in USDA zones 9 and 10 or within an annual everywhere. Charming orange, white or yellow cedar trumpet flowers marked with dark-chocolate-colored center dots cover black-eyed Susan (Thunbergia alata) vines in summer as an annual or in perennial pots in USDA zone 10. For striking entry shows, install classes of hanging baskets at different speeds with mixed or matched flowering vines.

Annual Flowers

Annual wax begonias (Begonia spp.) , with succulent foliage, flower in red, pink or white from summer through frost on shrubby plants beneath a feet tall and broad. Tropical coleus (Solenostemon) plants blossom with alluring blue flower spikes, but since their real glory is in their brilliant leaf, pinch flowers right back for dense, bushy growth. The crops grow 2 feet tall and broad and match mixed flowerpots or hanging baskets, leading velvety leaves splotched with vibrant reds, greens, pinks, oranges and yellows. Low-growing impatiens (Impatiens walleriana) cover themselves with masses of all 2-inch-wide spurred blooms in shades of pink, red, white or peach from spring through frost. Pansies (Viola cornuta) bring winter and spring cheer to nesting containers with their smiling “faces .” Edge a big perennial flowering tub with dark begonias, coleus, impatiens or pansies.

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