Connecting with the great outdoors can boost your mood and overall wellbeing whatever the weather. Container gardening allows for a manageable plant display that can be changed with seasonal annuals throughout the year. Wrap up warm and get planting without ground hardened by frost to hamper you! Here’s our top five tips on container gardening.

SEASONAL COLOUR AND INTEREST

Adding planters and urns to your garden creates more areas for colourful bedding plants throughout the seasons. Pots add interest to gardens with the flexibility to easily make changes without the effort of digging! Brighten up the wet and dismal, autumn and winter days with bright cyclamen. These flame shaped blooms brighten up pots and beds with just a few plants.

Our mossy vintage planters are highly sought after and often raise more at auction. This Oakley urn has petite elegance for patios, paths and pedestals.

Our cast stone urns are a feature in themselves. They weather beautifully like carved stone, and encourage moss and lichen growth.  The deep patina it develops over time, creates contrasting tones on the the stone surface that accentuates the fine handcrafted details. Basket weave, fluted designs and classical frieze style planters become more defined as they weather. During winter these details catch the light during frosts, adding sparkle to garden landscapes.

A Chilstone Harewood Jardiniere on lion’s feet and plinth planted with evergreen topiary and winter bedding plants.

A statement planter can be planted with a striking evergreen shrub as a constant feature with bedding plants added around the base throughout the year for colour.Why not buy one this festive season and plant a holly bush inside as a wonderful Christmas gift?

As the weather warms up,contrast this with perennials and overflowing summer bedding plants in smaller, traditional tazza styles for pretty displays that are at an easy height to plant and maintain.

Our Preston vase is a smaller version of our bestselling George IV Tazza. This small urn is perfect for brightening up patios and even gate piers!

For a more contemporary garden use simple planters with a single plant type to make an understated but beautiful feature. Use them in pairs to line a garden path or patio entrance for a welcoming feel. Our small Hadlow Trough has been planted with easy care perennial, Erigeron to create pretty floral pockets in our garden that flower throughout summer into autumn.

Small Hadlow Trough helps to create pretty floral pockets in gardens. Plant with perennials like erigeron for easy care planting.

LAYER BULBS

New Tulip bulbs should ideally be planted each year, especially in pots where there’s a limited nutrient supply. But these easy grow plants offer the hope of colourful blooms in the new seasons ahead. Something to look forward to through the bleakness of winter. Whilst it is late for traditional daffodil and tulip planting there are many spring and summer bulbs to choose from and many lilies and amarines can be planted in spring.

Our urns can be planted with bulbs beneath seasonal bedding plants to grow pops of colour to look forward to in spring.

Bulbs have a range of requirements. Large alliums need a deeper pot while smaller hyacinths are happy in shallower containers. A wide diameter or a trough will provide more space to plant a bright display.

Our Chilworth Jardiniere has a wide area for planting. It could also be used for growing herbs.

For those living in the countryside or semi-rural areas where badgers like to dig up bulbs, choose a large, heavy pot that is difficult for badgers to knock over. Or raise planters on garden walls or pedestals. This also adds pops of colour to make a feature of your garden boundaries.

We hand make a range of urns, planters, pedestals and balustrades to help you create a beautiful garden.

RAISE THEM UP!

Raised planters create more opportunities for flowers! Displayed at eye level for maximum impact! Cascading with blooms, these really have that wow factor!

The classical combination. A George IV Tazza and pedestal. Our bestseller!

Planting on pedestals makes it easier to weed and maintain your urns and pots too! For those with mobility issues or back pain, a raised planter garden could reduce the need for digging and bending that can take a physical toll. An ornate urn or planter on a classical stone pedestal can make an impressive focal point all year round. It can compliment formal hedging. Plant your favourite colour flowering plants to contrast the clipped evergreen designs.

A formal garden with an interesting design using a large planted urn on a pedestal to add colour to the space.

Try using a range of planters and urns in different heights to accentuate contrasting areas of your garden. Taller vase shapes open up under utilized corners while wider tazza styles allow for flowers to spill over the wide rim to soften hard landscaping. Add them to walls and balustrades with coping stones for a polished finish with the joy of more places to plant up!

Our Elizabethan Urn has a traditional basket weave design. Small enough to secure to coping stones to adorn walls and balustrades to create planting opportunities at eye level.

MATCHING PAIRS

Another smart way to use planters and troughs is to set them in ,matching pairs around entrances to garden paths and flanking front doors. Grow standard roses, olive trees, long blooming perennials like agapanthus and rudbeckia.

Highlight the entrance to your garden path with a pair of matching garden planters either side. A smart but beautiful way to guide the flow through a garden.

Match the planters to your property style with Gothic or contemporary styles. There are a range of options to inspire you at our work shop and gardens in Kent. Pop in and take a stroll around.

A pair of standard trees in matching Gothic Jardinieres flanking the entrance of a smart, Tudor house.

Or go full on Bridgerton-chic with rounded tazzas with fluted necks bursting with blooms on matching pedestals. For the formal garden design in all its heritage glory! You can even engrave the pedestals with your house name, number or family names! Make your planters your unique style. Mix and match to get your look. You can even paint our cast stone!

Our best selling George IV Tazza on classical pedestals for the traditional garden design.

GO LARGE!

If you are growing trees or large perennials you will need a larger planter. We make sure we add drainage holes so the wet winter weather doesn’t water log the soil. It’s always worth adding extra crocks to make sure your plants are well drained and happy.

For optimum tree health we can even make planters and urns with an open bottom to get the potted look whilst allowing the trees to grow roots into the soil. Just ask our team.

Out large Kent Bowl planter was engraved for Prince William’s opening of a project for charity, Centrepoint.

SIT BACK AND ADMIRE THE VIEW

Once you have done all the hard work, designing and planting up your new garden urns and planters, don’t forget to invest in a long lasting bench to sit and admire your handiwork! Our handcrafted benches come in a range of styles and they won’t like traditional garden benches. The benchtops can be engraved like the rest of our range.

We make a wide range of benches in traditional and contemporary styles.

All our stone is made by hand, just as it has been for seventy years. Pop in to see us to discover how we make our stone and gain some inspiration for your home and garden. Talk to our team to order your fine cast stone.

All our cast stone products are made in our Kent workshop by hand.

For more information on TOP FIVE CONTAINER GARDENING TIPS FOR WELLBEING talk to Chilstone Architectural Stone & Garden Ornaments