Patio Plants

Patio plants – more info

Patio plants bring colour and spectacle closer to the home. Enjoy fountains of foliage, riotous blossoms and statuesque trees in containers from these collections of patio-friendly plants. You don’t need an expensive pot to house your favourites. As long as you provide quality compost and plenty of water, you can transform your patio into a garden with ornamental and even edible greenery. If you live in colder climes, simply head over to our potted hardy plants range to find patio plants resilient to the cold.

How to arrange plants on the patio

Have fun and get creative when arranging your patio plants. As a rule, push smaller pots with low growing plants to the front of a display and let taller and larger plants lend their height to the back. Use trailing plants to cover plastic pots. If you have a colour scheme, think about spacing similar colours out to create a more naturalistic spread. Remember to take into account each plant's light requirements. It can be useful to rig up an automatic watering system to keep your pots moist in the warm summer months, especially if you have lots of patio pots to care for.

What to feed patio plants

Use a granular slow release feed when you fill your pots. It’s good practice to refresh the top third of your potting mix every year with new compost. Use a balanced liquid feed during the spring to encourage healthy green growth and then switch to a phosphorus rich feed for flowering plants to encourage the formation of blooms.

Which patio plants are good for winter?

You can’t go wrong with an evergreen patio tree like Eucalyptus gunnii in winter. The silvery foliage stays bright and fresh and the eye-catching ornamental bark of the trained standard provides an interesting focal point. Another top choice is the deep red cordyline ‘Torbay Red’, the strap-like crimson leaves give the illusion of warmth when you need it most.

Nothing beats heuchera for colourful hardy foliage. Choose ‘Marmalade’ for bronze, peach and pink leaves, or ‘Mosaic’ for a lucky dip of marbled charcoal, yellow or purple.