Gardening novice - what plants to order for patio pots?

[Littlemiss74]

Hi first post here. I am a novice gardener but would like to use all this time at home to tidy up our garden a bit. I have a few patio pots and one small raised bed. I would like to plant a few flowers for a bit of instant spring colour.
What should I order and can anyone recommend a website to order from? Thanks

Hi, I have just done the same. I have ordered from Crocus.co.uk they are only accepting a limited number of orders each day so try first thing in the
morning, although you can still browse . I have ordered some planter ready options, they are going to be delivered mid may so I don’t know what they will be like, I was recommended to use this site so I’m hoping they will be good.

Sarah Raven do container combinations you can order

Crocus are good, Sarah Raven always have good quality plants too. They will have a section on their website for container plants and container collections to give you some ideas. There's loads of good choices for containers depending on what colours you like.
There's still time to sow seeds which is massively cheaper and easy to do in containers, Higgledy Garden or Chiltern Seeds are both great for quality seeds. There's a million plants to choose from but I'd recommend cosmos from seed, they are really reliable and look great.

I'm slower at typing than GuyFawkesDay 😆

@Anjo2011 was it the easyplanter ones you went for so you basically just transfer them to your pots? Price starting from 21.99?

Yes exactly those. I ordered a white one and the other was called Bollywood I think, v colourful. You just plant the whole thing in the pot , sounds genius! A bit expensive but I like that it’s limited Hassle. You could always try seeds too as suggested up thread. I added a bag of compost too to the order to all be delivered together

Have a look at Pinterest for ideas - and also look at the colour wheel (google is your friend) on colour schemes. I subscribe to the thriller, filler, spiller theory for plant pots; you need a thriller (something with height, like a big red fuschia), then a filler underneath (maybe pink petunias) and then the spiller yo trail out (something like white lobelia). You can either play all the same colour for impact, or neighbours on the colour wheel - whites, pinks, purples, etc, or sometimes opposites work really well, like yellows and blues. Just experiment - very few combos don’t work!

I like to have herbs in pots eg mint/ thyme/ sage/ oregano/ lavender and then colourful bedding or bulbs in others . At the moment I have tulips and when they are over I will probably put in some pelargoniums or summer flowering bulbs eg neediness or alliums. I like blocks of colour but mixed tubs can look lovely.

Marigolds, calendula and primrose would all look good in pots. Pansys too.
Tulip bulbs are good in pots but you would have to plant them Nov time and they’ll come up next spring.