Put flowerpots to work in your garden this summer. Pretty pots, bursting with flowers and foliage, are a great way to put the spotlight on favorite plants and flash some of your style.

No garden is too large or too small for a few well-placed flowerpots. A handsome container perched on a pedestal right in a flower bed or a cluster of pots by the garden gate capture your attention and draw your eye into the garden. Pots full of fresh herbs near the kitchen door are handy for snipping, and their fragrance will follow you into the house. Flowerpots can be placed strategically to direct traffic in the garden, to screen views or to fill in bare spots. They demand a little more attention than plants in flower beds, but they reward the extra work.

Pots are "a way to pull people in -- if you're looking to highlight a delicate, interesting or fragrant plant, try it in a pot," says Erin Presley, a horticulturist at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin. Olbrich is a 16-acre botanical treasure in the heart of Madison, bursting with inspiration. Every year, the gardeners plant about 500 containers, displaying them all around among the lush and exuberant display gardens. Each horticulturist is encouraged to design containers with new plants and interesting combinations, and they all develop and contribute their own individual motifs and styles to the garden.

Thoughtful design and great plants turn ordinary flowerpots into exceptional accents in a garden, Presley says. In the winter, she and the other horticulturists pore over plant catalogs, make digital inspiration boards with possible combinations, and collaborate to refine their ideas. Coming up with a theme -- which may simply be a color choice or combination -- helps focus your intentions, she says. Presley is in her second year of exploring the color red in her flowerpots.

"People are hesitant to use red," she says. "Mixing different reds can be difficult." She's experimenting with a red-and-purple color scheme, adding silver and tan accents with ornamental grasses and other plants with textural foliage. Her pots in the courtyard of Olbrich's herb garden will feature a dozen plants, including red-flowering dahlias, red-leaf ornamental cotton, silver sage, and red gladiolus. She's using a wispy, bronze-leaf carex to "knit the look together and give your eye a rest," she says.

Putting together combinations for pots is fun, and that's the whole idea behind Olbrich's Pro Potting Bench, staffed by garden horticulturists, at the garden's annual spring plant sale. Visitors shopping for plants can ask the pros for advice on combinations, refine their ideas and take home a lot of confidence, along with their plant purchases. Even experts need encouragement, Presley says, which is why the staff members bounce ideas off each other in the winter, as they are developing their designs for pots.

"If something doesn't work the first time, revamp your idea instead of trying something completely different," Presley suggests. Even after putting a lot of work into a combination, it may still need just a few refinements. She is taking her own advice in a design for plants near Olbrich's entrance, making use of her traffic-stopping red palette but adding even more texture and bright splashes of contrasting colors.

"We always try to expand on things we have done in the past and get new ideas going," Presley says.

She recommends using glazed pots in shade gardens, where a shiny color adds sparkle in the dappled light. In clusters of pots, she suggests one bold, attention-grabbing combination in a dominant container, and smaller pots full of plants with interesting flowers, foliage and textures worthy of closer inspection.

When you're planning your pots for this summer, "think about where they will go, what their role is in the garden," Presley says. "Will you see the pot from one side, or from all sides? Will it be in sun or shade?"

You can start to plan your combinations for each container simply by picking out two flowering plants that complement each other and then looking for foliage plants to fill in. Annual and perennial grasses, coleus, alternanthera, iresine, haloragis and other foliage plants add volume to pots and look good all summer long.

Presley also loves using herbs in pots, including various basil plants.

"It's a great plant, and it constantly needs to be harvested so it encourages you to groom your pots," she says. "You're putting more effort into your containers, so you might as well get a benefit -- something extra -- like an edible plant or a wonderful fragrance."

Don't be afraid to grow perennial plants in pots, or even to use small shrubs or trees to give height and structure to your designs. You can use flowerpots almost like a nursery for perennials and small trees, growing them for a season in containers displayed around the garden: Each plant can be placed to the greatest ornamental effect and in the most favorable growing conditions.

"Things that are too vulnerable to go into a flower bed right away -- try them in a pot for the summer, before you put them out into the hurly-burly of the garden," Presley says.

The professional horticulturists at Olbrich and other botanical gardens have the time and resources that home gardeners may envy, but when it comes to flowerpots, we can all have plenty of fun. Take inspiration from the pros and start experimenting with plants in pots this summer. Give your good ideas a chance to grow.

SOURCE

-- Olbrich Botanical Gardens, olbrich.org

SIDEBAR

Plotting Out Your Pots

Here are some ideas and recommendations from Erin Presley and the staff at Olbrich Gardens to help you plan your flowerpots and keep them looking great from spring through fall:

-- Plan ahead: Flip through catalogs and magazines, and prowl the internet for inspiration, and make a design board with clippings or drag and drop your own photographs or internet images onto a document to experiment with combinations.

-- Develop a unifying theme.

-- Include perennials in striking combination with annual flowers and foliage plants.

-- Plant in a lightweight, moisture-retentive, soil-less potting mix. Add coir (coconut fiber) to help retain moisture. At planting time, supplement the potting mix with slow-release fertilizer.

-- Fertilize once a month with water-soluble fertilizer. Follow directions on the label: Don't over-fertilize.

-- Groom your plants in pots. Keep vines from growing out of control. Prune to encourage branching and flowering. Remove spent flowers.

-- Structural elements -- an obelisk, an artful arrangement of twigs or unexpected additions such as palm fronds give pots a lot of pop.

-- Be realistic: Plants in pots will need more attention than plants in the ground. Large pots may only need to be watered two or three times a week. Smaller pots may need water every day. If you're not going to be able to water regularly, use large pots and drought-tolerant plants.

-- The most interesting combinations have it all: color, texture, fragrance, flowers and foliage.

-- If a plant dies or does not perform, replace it.

In the never-ending horticultural competition for best flowering shrub, hydrangeas consistently take the top prize. No other family of flowering shrubs can compete with hydrangeas for their beauty and versatility. Gardeners are the big winners: For every garden, there is a hydrangea -- or three.

Hydrangeas are natural problem-solvers. They make a great impression when they're planted in billowing waves across the front of a house. They're magnificent specimens on their own. They fill a small garden with luxurious, long-lasting blooms, and they are grand enough to more than hold their own in a big garden. They're also extremely handsome in pots. And, if you can bear to pick them, their flowers are gorgeous in bouquets.

The challenge is deciding which ones to grow. In the past couple of decades, dozens of ever more colorful, hardy, hardworking new hydrangeas have been introduced. These new varieties tolerate steamy summers and cold winters, bloom for months and need no pampering.

Hydrangeas are almost the essence of summer. The original Endless Summer hydrangea -- a blue mop-head flowering variety known for its long blooming period, from early summer through fall -- was introduced in 2004 and was an immediate sensation: 18 million plants were sold in its first seven years on the market. Since then, three more hydrangeas have been added to the Endless Summer collection: Blushing Bride, a white-flowering variety; Twist-n-Shout, a variety with delicate lace-cap flowers; and BloomStruck, which has deep blue blooms. This year, they are joined by Summer Crush, which has luminous raspberry-colored flowers on a compact plant.

Endless Summer hydrangeas are bred to last. They flower both on new shoots and on the previous year's growth, so their first flowers open earlier and their last ones bloom later than most hydrangeas on the market. Their hardiness also sets them apart from any previous summer-flowering hydrangeas, but in the coldest climates, planting them in protected spots is still a good idea.

As gardeners have rediscovered the pleasures of mop-head hydrangeas, hybridizers have broadened the selection of panicle-blooming hydrangeas, too. Panicle hydrangeas tend to bloom a little later in the summer, their cone-shaped flower heads covered with hundreds of tiny white or cream-colored blooms that fade to pink. They adapt gracefully to sun or part shade, and they are both heat-tolerant and bone hardy, surviving without protection even in bitterly cold climates. Limelight, perhaps the best known of the new generation of panicle hydrangeas, grows up to 8 feet tall and blooms prolifically. A dwarf form, Little Lime, has all the hardworking characteristics of the big shrub, but only grows to be 3 to 5 feet tall. Bobo, even smaller and perhaps more floriferous, is only 3 feet tall and wide.

"They're eye-catching," says Noelle Clark Akin of Petitti Garden Centers in northeast Ohio. The company has nine shops, and hydrangeas are the top-selling flowering shrub at all of them. Petitti Garden Centers carry 40 or more different hydrangeas, and last year, Bobo and Little Lime outsold even Endless Summer, Akin says, although not by much.

The selection doesn't stop there. Breeders have been working to improve the flowers and performance of smooth hydrangeas, which are North American natives. (They are also called Hydrangea arborescens.) New varieties have bigger flowers and sturdier stems than the original species, and a refreshing splash of color: Several new smooth hydrangeas -- Invincibelle Spirit and Invincibelle Mini Mauvette among them -- have big pink snowball flowers rather than white blooms. Arborescens hydrangeas are heat- and cold-tolerant, blooming in full sun or part shade.

When customers come to a garden shop looking for hydrangeas, they usually go out with "whatever looks best the day they come in," says Ron Meadows, the buyer for the nearly two dozen Meadows Farms Garden Centers in Virginia and Maryland. Limelight and Little Lime are among the most popular with Meadows Farms retail customers.

Garden designers go beyond the crowd favorites, Meadows says, and often include oakleaf hydrangeas in clients' gardens. These hydrangeas have large, leathery leaves, rather like big red oak leaves. The plants bloom in early summer, with loose, white panicle-type flowers. In fall, the foliage turns deep red. When the leaves drop, the plants' stems, with naturally peeling bark, are particularly decorative through the winter.

"Oakleaf hydrangeas don't show very well in the garden center, but I love them in the landscape," Meadows says. They can grow to 8 feet tall or more, but dwarf varieties are perfect for small gardens: Munchkin and Ruby Slippers both grow to only 3 feet tall.

Choosing among the types, colors and sizes of hydrangeas at a garden shop in spring can be overwhelming, Meadows admits. "We need to streamline," he says. But until that happens, if you come home with more than one hydrangea, you have an excuse: You've just started a collection.

SOURCES

-- Endless Summer hydrangeas have their own website, endlesssummerblooms.com

Gardening under trees can be frustratingly difficult. A tree's blissful shade limits the selection of plants gardeners can grow, though weeds never seem to have any trouble moving in. But if you work at it, you can have a beautiful, healthy tree and a lovely shade garden, too.

Instead of trying to fight the naturally shady conditions under trees, take advantage of them, says Linda Chalker-Scott, an extension specialist and professor at Washington State University. A simple ring of mulch that extends out to the drip line (the outer edge of a tree's canopy) will make your whole garden look sharply manicured and benefit your trees tremendously, Chalker-Scott says. In her own garden, she puts down a generous 8-inch layer of mulch every year, but her rule of thumb for home gardeners is a 4-inch layer, which is enough to keep annual weed seeds from germinating in the soil under trees.

A ring of mulch gives a clear a signal not to cut across the yard or park too close to trees, so it helps reduce soil compaction. A generous layer of mulch also provides nutrients to trees as it decomposes. Mulch provides a habitat for beneficial insects and microbes, and it reduces the need for herbicides and fertilizers. Mulch can be free, too: Chalker-Scott advocates using "arborist mulch" from tree-trimming crews. Often, all you have to do is ask tree-trimmers to drop off their wood chips in your driveway.

Arborist mulch is usually fairly coarse, with chips no less than about half an inch in diameter, to allow air and water to move through. Don't worry, Chalker-Scott says -- this mulch will not suffocate roots or invite termites to invade your property. For the health of your trees, place mulch around them in a donut shape, not like a volcano, she says. The mulch ring should have high outer edges and taper down to a thin layer around the trunk in the center.

A sweep of grass under a tree isn't out of the question -- but you have to be realistic. "You can definitely grow grass under a tree, just not a manicured turfgrass," Chalker-Scott says. "A mixture is better than monoculture," she says. Instead of trying to plant bluegrass, rye, fescue or any other single-turf species under a tree, look for a grass mixture formulated for shade, which will weather conditions under a tree without looking scruffy. Make violets and clover welcome, if they appear, and set your mower's cutting height up a bit -- in shade, grass will naturally grow a little taller than in bright-sun conditions.

To give turf under shade trees a chance to grow and thrive, avoid walking on the grass. If it simply never flourishes and you find you need to plant fresh seed every year, try another approach.

Low-growing groundcovers, such as liriope, ajuga, violets and pachysandra, are all well-suited to the dappled light under the canopy of trees. Groundcovers chosen for your climate and conditions are easy to establish and will not compete aggressively for the water and nutrients in the soil. They also protect tree trunks from mowers and string trimmers, which Chalker-Scott calls "instruments of doom" for your trees.

If a path through your garden leads through an area with trees, a bed of gravel and a series of stepping stones will direct traffic and limit soil compaction. Mulch or groundcovers on either side of the path will give the area a tailored look.

Mature trees are garden treasures, and they deserve special recognition. A luxurious ring of mulch around a large tree might not be feasible, and a dense canopy may make it impossible to grow even the most shade-tolerant groundcovers. In such a situation, a handsome garden bench or a tree seat custom built around a great old tree will transform the scene. From the house, the quiet tableau will invite you out, even if only in your imagination, every time your glance falls on it. And when you are out in the garden, a bench under a tree is the perfect place to escape from the sun and set your tools down for a moment, a spot where you can linger and listen to the wind and the birds and forget about the busy world in the bright sun outside.

SOURCES

Linda Chalker-Scott is the author of "The Informed Gardener" and "The Informed Gardener Blooms Again." She is a host of the Garden Professors blog (gardenprofessors.com), which explores the science behind garden myths, and a horticulture professor at Washington State University.