4 Stunning Containers for Summer Easy Flower Combos That Bloom All Season Plant Recipe Ideas

So I'm going to give it a haircut. I'm going to share it all the way back and a little impromptu garden tour. But they're a really deep purple burgundy color. This is the madam butterfly and look they're in bloom and they are gorgeous. In the first video of my summer container series we worked on my driveway pots and we talked about recipes which aren't just for cooking anymore. Hi it's Steph, welcome back to my garden. I have my notebook and some beautiful plants which means it's time to put together some container recipes. Over the winter I took some time checking out some of the plant combinations and container recipes on the Proven Winners website and I came up with some really pretty combos to try in my summer containers this year. So today we're going to put together some really beautiful bright colors here on the front porch. Here's the combination that I picked for my tall front porch planters and I selected this combo based on a combination that I saw on the Proven website which included this gorgeous and bright petunia called the Supertunia Vista Paradise. With that they had paired some of this color blaze torchlight coleus which was actually the jumping off point for this combination. I had seen this beautiful coleus, I wanted to try it out and coleus has traditionally been known as a shade plant but in recent years they have developed some that can take more sun. Now this porch area is full afternoon sun so that's really going to be putting this coleus to the test but look how gorgeous it looks with that pink petunia, the Vista Paradise. And in that picture they also had this here which is the Proven Accents Sweet Caroline Sweetheart Lime Trailing Potato Line and this combination together looked stunning. So I wanted to try this out in my front porch planters. I did add one additional plant that wasn't in the combo and that was a Graceful Grasses Purple Fountain Grass because I love having this tall accent in my containers because it transitions so beautifully into fall with those purple plumes. My spring porch pots are still looking really beautiful at this point in the season and some of these pansies and violas are cooler weather flowers so I'm going to move them to the backyard to keep them in a shady spot see if I can keep them over until the fall and then maybe they can reappear on the front porch at that point but right now we are going to transition this into summer and here is the before and then we will see what it looks like once everything is planted up. So time to plant. Now my soil is still pretty fresh because I replaced it last fall when I did my bulbs so all I'm going to do is mix in a little bit of the Biotone Startup Fertilizer to give these annuals a good start. As I'm working in this area I noticed that the salicum has gotten really large so I'm going to give it a haircut. I'm going to share it all the way back and then it will reflush with new growth and new blooms. Let's go through and I'll do a little tour of each of the annuals that I planted in these containers. So in my tall planters I planted the Sweet Caroline Sweetheart Lime Sweet Potato Vine and that green color picks up on the edging of this Color Blaze Torch Light Coleus and so does the Supertunia Vista Paradise. It looks like the color of the veining on the Coleus which I really love and in the back I tucked one of the Graceful Grasses Purple Fountain Grass and like I usually do I'm going to take the tags and tuck them in the back there for reference but I think these colors are going to look really beautiful and vibrant for the summer. Right below in my basket weave planter I added an annual that I tried for the first time last year in the color amber and this year I'm trying the Double Vintage Coral. This is a beautiful super bell. It has like this gorgeous fuchsia color with a little bit of that coral orangey in the center. It's stunning so when this fills out it's going to be really beautiful. On the side I have my Dusty Miller. This is the New Look Dusty Miller that I started from seed with the alyssum that I sheared back and some of the blueberry swirl flocks and here is another container arrangement. This one I think this dark sweet potato vine with this white planter is really striking. So this is the Proven Accents Sweet Caroline Sweetheart Jet Black and it only gets to be 8 to 12 inches. It does have a trailing habit so it should fill out this front really nicely and then in the front here I have the Superbina Violet Ice which is really pretty. Look at that and I think it combines really nicely with that dark sweet potato vine and for a pop of pink which happens to be the same color as that Supertunia Vista Paradise, very similar in color, is one of my favorite annuals the Sunpatient and this one's the Compact Rose Glow and it has a really vibrant color. So I think these three are going to look beautiful together. In this smaller white planter I have another one of the Angelonias that I used in my driveway planters and that is the Angel Face Blue. Now these are 18 to 30 inches in height and 10 to 14 inches in width so I think it's going to be perfect in this planter and with it I have an annual that is going to hit the nurseries and garden centers next year. It is the Southern Blaze Bright Pink Phlox Dromundi that I'm actually trialing in my garden this year and I want to see this together. I think it's gonna look beautiful this blue Angelonia with this hot pink Phlox. Love. So this is the color scheme I'm going for in the front here. Hot pink, dark foliage, lime green, some purple and on the other side I pretty much repeated the combo. You can see that I did the same color scheme. This Supervena looks gorgeous. Look at that. Also in a white planter, same combo, the dark Sweet Caroline Jet Black Sweet Potato Line, the Sun Patient Compact Rose Glow and the Supervena Blue Ice, Violet Ice is what it's called. Gorgeous. This planter I have the same Phlox, the Southern Blaze Bright Pink and the Blue Angelonia but I do have a little bit of a trailer here. This is Creeping Jenny that was already in the pot which I'm going to leave because I think it'll look pretty. Let me know in the comments what your favorite annual is. I always love to find different annuals. My favorite currently is the Sun Patient but I really love these Super Bells as well. The back patio is the next area that I'm going to plant up for summer and these two planters that I had on the front porch with spring annuals I have moved back here and I have to remove some of these plants to make room for those summer annuals. So the first plant I'm going to move out is this one here. This dainty pink bloom is called Saxifraga and I used them in this container all spring. They bloomed profusely and now because they are perennial I have found a place in the garden for them. I planted the Saxifraga right here in the corner of my pollinator bed which is near the entrance to my raised bed garden and I did have some there that did not return after winter so it was the perfect spot for me to tuck those two Saxifraga plants. I have watered them and I'm probably going to trim the top so I can focus on root development. My Amsonia is still blooming and I wasn't sure the variety when I did a garden tour recently and someone told me that they believe it is the Storm Cloud Amsonia but really pretty light blue star-shaped flowers. I also planted some Hollyhocks that I started from seed and it turns out bunnies really like Hollyhocks because they mowed them to the ground. Look at that one there one on the other side but they missed two of them. Now I had about a dozen of them and I only planted four in this unprotected area because I wasn't sure so I will have to spray the remaining two with some invisible fence deer and rabbit repellent. And the Icelandic Poppy that we planted at the end of April beginning of May is still blooming. There's still a few buds on it bloomed in three colors a really pretty salmon this orange and golden yellow and my Oriental poppies that I planted last spring are now starting to bloom as well. That one is the Princess Victoria Louise really pretty salmon color with a deep burgundy black in the center. Those look like tissue paper flowers I really love them. So that one has a couple of buds on it the one on the other side hasn't budded up yet it was getting a little more shade but we recently had trees cut back a little bit to allow more light so hopefully that will improve over time. And look at these beautiful bachelor's buttons. So I started these from seed I purchased the seeds on bakercreek.com they are either the black boy variety or black magic but they're really deep purple burgundy color beautiful spring bloom. And back in the winter when we started some seeds indoor under the girl lights I had started this variety of snapdragons this is the Madam Butterfly and look they're in bloom and they are gorgeous. So far I've gotten three colors off of them this beautiful raspberry color this salmon or rose pink color and there has even been a bronze color that is a bit more orange but they are so pretty and not an overly tall snapdragon either so really easy to put into flower arrangements. They look like they've topped out at about 20 inches if I had to guess but there are still lots to bloom and they are just gorgeous. And these planters were also on the front porch and I'm going to move out this nasturtium and plant them along the edges of the raised beds this is the cherry rose which I thought according to the package was supposed to be more fuchsia but it is very red like cherry red so I'm going to plant them here and repurpose them in the raised bed garden. And the nasturtiums have all found homes and I planted them here specifically underneath these cattle panel arches because I'm going to have cherry tomatoes growing up and over them as well as cucumbers and squashes and nasturtiums are a cool weather plant so having them under the shade of this arch I think is going to be helpful in keeping them happy throughout the hottest part of summer. So I have a couple more here and I have a mix of the cherry red as well as the pink blush nasturtiums. Here are the others even though I'm not a huge fan of red this is a pretty cherry color so we'll keep it around but this is the blush pink which turns out isn't pink at all it's more of a light buttery yellow with a bit of a maybe a blush pink veining. And a little impromptu garden tour just a few days ago I posted my Memorial Day or May garden tour and these things weren't in bloom yet so let me just show you look at this foxglove it is stunning now this self-seeded itself here in my garden when I had foxgloves over the last couple of years and it has this really beautiful apricot color I have some that are purple pink behind so there's this little grouping of foxgloves that just grew themselves which is always such a nice garden surprise and as we come down the walkway some more I have these irises that are gorgeous and they weren't blooming the last time I showed my irises these are the whale's tail and they have the most beautiful true blue color on top it looks like a light sky blue which it might be coming up purple on camera but in person it is a true blue George can you vouch for that yeah it's blue it's blue and then the falls are this deep purple that almost look like velvet they are just a really striking flower and I have yet one more iris that has started to bloom and it is called poems of ecstasy and it is this beauty right here look at this is that not so beautiful it has this peachy top with this purple fall I love it so much and one last thing my Olivia Rose Austin rose has started to bloom and look how many buds it has on it this year so here are some of the blooms this is a beautiful rose it has a really nice fragrance and look how many petals and this light pink this is my best performing David Austin rose I've had several and they've either died or been diseased and they just haven't done well for me in my garden but I love them and this one here the Olivia Rose Austin is such a great one to try because in my experience it has given me the least amount of trouble it is a fairly healthy rose pretty vigorous grower and tends to have a good amount of blooms each year and oh I just spotted one more thing let's go around the back of the wall George my peony this one here is loaded with buds it is a white one so I cannot wait until this opens up but right here is an iris that I purchased at a garden tour or garden fair I should say that my garden club hosted several years ago I don't know what the variety is so if anyone out there knows please leave me a comment all I know is that it's beautiful and I love how dainty it is and when I come down my driveway I see it and it always makes me so happy and you get another view of the Olivia Rose Austin from this direction look at those beautiful blooms and I will have to spray those with deer and rabbit spray before I head in for the night because the deer will come through and eat all of those beautiful blooms if I don't man does time fly when you're having fun it's getting dark it's the end of the night and so I'm just going to water these in and call it a day but let me know if you've used the Proven Winners website for inspiration have you looked at different container arrangements or recipes and have you tried them do you have a favorite let us know in the comments that we can learn from each other so far I'm having a lot of fun with it and I cannot wait for these to all fill out and grow and I'll be sure to share updates with you throughout the season so thank you so much for spending your time with me and I'll catch you in the next one