Container Garden Companions

Finding good companion planting is even more important when the plants are stuck together in a container. I watched the denizens of assorted pots fight for dominance many a time and more often than not one species brazenly asserts its rights over the sun, water and nutrients and ends up owning the planter by the end of the summer.

If you don’t want to end up with a monoculture, here are a few compatible flower combinations.

For shade, a mix of impatiens, wax begonias, tuberous begonias and asparagus fern will maintain themselves in balance. For a sunny spot, sweet alyssum won’t mind sharing with most low growing annual flowers, like petunias, sweet williams, or stock. Cherry pie plant gets along with verbena and celosia, moss roses with petunias and snapdragons and nasturtiums with marigolds. Wishbone flowers with lobelia and petunias. Impatiens are nice to all the other plants.

I tried the following in mixed containers and they always end up owning the pot alone: lantana, silver miller, coleus, four o’clocks, zinnias and nicotiana.

I cheat. If I like a certain flower combination but I don’t want the plants to end up fighting each other to the death I plant them in separate containers and pack the containers tightly together. By the time their foliage starts to assert itself in mid summer it gets kind of hard to tell what grows where.