Winter Container Gardening
Autumn and Winter are a great time to think about adding brightness to your home through colourful containers. Powerscourt Garden Pavilion has the plants you need to do just that. Shrubs such as Heathers, skimmia, choisya, hellebore, euonymous and the very fragrant, richly green-leaved Sarcacocca can be combined together or with some of our bedding plants like cyclamen, violas and rimroses.
When you have chosen your pot (or plastic lined basket), be sure to add something to help with drainage, such as broken pots or gravel, to the bottom of the pot before adding your compost. This ensures the hole will not become blocked when the plant is watered.
Here are a few suggestions to start out with and you can niggle this around until you find what works for you:
Variegated ivy with pink berried perettya softened with heather colour of your choice
Go bright and shocking with Solanum Christmas Cherry mixed with bright red Skimmia berries or use the Solanum as an underplant to the yellow variegated topiaried Holly.
More traditionally, plant the amazingly fragrant Sarcacocca surrounded by red cyclamen or create a combination of cyclamen with ivy variegated or dark green draping down over the pot.
Silvery combination of mini standard olive with white variegated ivy and senecio.
The best way to choose your best plant combination is to come down to the Garden Pavilion with your pot and try out the different arrangements until you find the one that most pleases you. Once you have found what you like, we can even pot it up for you! Once home, remember to water regularly and dead-head the flowers once they start fading to keep your arrangement lasting until spring.
Don’t forget you can make beautiful combinations for the inside of your home choosing from our hot-house plants!
Mary Weiss, Horticulturalist at Powerscourt Garden Pavilion