How to make the perfect container garden for Mother’s Day

This year, give your mom a personalized Mother’s Day gift — something bright, pretty and handmade. Give her a container garden.

The eye-catching creations, which consist of multiple types of plants and flowers in one pot, are perfect for adding color and texture to a tiny balcony or drab deck. And they can add a little something extra to a lush yard, sitting next to a garden bench.

Give Mom one with her favorite flower or color, and she’ll have a bouquet that will last for months. And it won’t cost more than an arrangement from the florist.

Ready-made ones are available at most nurseries and national hardware retailers. But here’s how to make your own.

Find inspiration

Here’s where Melissa Farrand of Farrand Farms in Kansas City can help.

She estimates she has planted 2,500 mixed containers over the past 12 years. It’s her favorite task at the family-owned business near Independence. She places the dozens of pots — each with a different combination of flowers and plants — around the nursery to inspire customers.

“We would spend a lot of time with people who would walk in the door and want to know what to put together in a pot,” she says. “Putting the sample pots around the nursery cut our time with them way down, because they can come in, find a pot that they like and copy it.”

Farrand recently created a red, white and violet arrangement following the simple, can’t-miss thriller-filler-spiller design concept, which calls for a tall plant or flower as the centerpiece, surrounded by a thick bushy filler and a leggier plant that drapes over the sides of the pot.

Farrand filled the 18-inch clay pot with Velocity Blue, a new type of salvia that has purple stems and can reach 16 inches high, for the thriller; Diamond Delight, a lush green and white euphorbia hybrid; and Black Cherry Supertunia, a thick hybrid petunia with dark red flowers that spill over the edge of the pot.

Topiary plants, including rosemary, that have been shaped to look like a ball on a stick also make great centerpieces. So do climbing plants such as ivy, clematis and mandevilla, trained to grow up a wire or wood form.

Most of Farrand’s ready-made pots sell for about $80, pot included. But you can easily fill your own planter for $30 or less. One of the more inexpensive ones she created includes a frothy green caladium and three Dragon Wing begonias, which are perfect for the shade.

The nursery also offers a wide selection of confetti pots, which are planted with a variety of annuals that provide instant color.

When creating a pot, Farrand suggests starting with a theme. Mix brightly colored flowers to attract hummingbirds and butterflies; use all herbs or mix them with flowers; combine all foliage in contrasting colors and textures; use your team’s favorite colors. Farrand has created pots in Royals and Chiefs colors.

Feeling overwhelmed?

“Pick one thing you really love, whether it’s for its color or your mom’s favorite plant, then choose the other plants to go with it,” Farrand says. “Sometimes I will carry a plant up and down the aisles until I have that ‘Bingo!’ moment.”

Tips to consider

Yellow, white and blue or violet are the most popular combinations, Farrand says. So are pots with all white flowers, which are especially elegant.

Dark plants, such as deep purple sweet potato vine, look great with jewel-toned flowers. Silver-leafed plants make for great filler with almost any other color. Contrasting bright colors are exciting; soft shades are soothing.

Using an odd number of plant types usually works best, Farrand says. And while pots are typically planted in a circular design with the thriller standing at the center, planting asymmetrically or from front to back can also be beautiful.

For a touch of whimsy, Farrand also adds statuary — angels, bunnies, snails — to container gardens.

Annuals are most popular for container gardens because they bloom nearly all summer, while pricier perennials bloom for only a few weeks. Perennials also don’t always survive cold Midwestern winters in pots.

If you want your container garden to not only survive, but flourish, you’ll have to follow some rules. According to Farrand, you should:

▪ Decide where you’re going to put the pot and determine what kind of light it gets throughout the day. Then make sure that all the plants in that particular pot have the same sunlight requirements. You don’t want to mix plants that need a lot of sun and dark shade in the same pot.

▪ Read the tag that comes with each plant. It will tell you its light requirements, when it will bloom, how tall it will grow and how much space it needs.

▪ Start with fresh, lightweight soil every year for best root development.

▪ The bigger the pot, the bigger the plants need to be to keep things proportional.

▪ Make sure the container drains well so roots aren’t standing in water.

▪ Keep a record of your best combinations so you can quickly replant each year.

This story was originally published April 24, 2015 at 7:00 AM with the headline "How to make the perfect container garden for Mother’s Day."