Hardy,?likes a pot? grows quickl?...I challenge you.....

[Megglevache]

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what about lots of pots of heathers - all different colours. Hardy, produce lots of soft colour and easy to look after and cheap.

all year round or summer only? does it really need to grow? why pots? I'm struggling!

Grasses - very trendy and soft and swishy; nice clipped box shapes - expensive and don't grow much but classy all year round. Phormiums or cordilines (sp?) with big spiky leaves, tough as old boots and good with shingle. Cannas (but really only for later in the year).

Get BIG pots, as big as you can - although if you had bananas and bamboo in pots they were probably huge. Use water retaining gel and once-a-year-feed-granules when you pot them up.

Good luck

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what about tree ferns then (expensive but impressive and lovely height). The City Gardener loves them!

if you have a frame or trellis or wall pergola etc golden hop grows up really quick

back to ground level in winter

mallow is dead easy to grow and quick

ceanothus

smoke bush

I thought bamboos were supposed to be tough as old nails?? Overwatered? dunno. Grasses should be good - especially the really tall ones.

I've got a cordyline in a pot and Alan Titchmarsh recommended wrapping it up in fleece each winter, which I did for the first few years. I don't bother now its more established, but it's fairly mild here.

how much sun have you got? I've got a fantastic castor oil plant in a humongous pot which I bought quite tiny in August last year and it's grown like topsy. I've watered it once and it doesn't get any direct sun at all. Will have to water it in summer I guess...

water retaining gel is great fun - it comes in crystals and you add water and it turns into a big gloopy splodge that you mix with teh compost, helps stop it drying out. do NOT be tempted to mix it in dry, as it grows hugely when it swells up and your pots will 'boil over'. and anyway you will miss the squishy feel of it - a bit like frogspawn. Love it or hate it

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