The joy of container gardening - it's instant! Use a container and you can satisfy that impulsive urge to buy a plant that you know will not fit or go with the style of planting you have in your garden. Container gardening allows you to create a colour combination that tickles your fancy at the time but which would not necessarily match the colour scheme of your garden at large.

Your better half (being crazy about plants too) comes home with a collection of palms they've been given and couldn't say no to? If they won't fit into your garden why not strike a compromise and plant them up in some large pots - although you may have to agree to a bigger patio!

Feel like putting orange and pink together? Some may think it hideous, but by putting the combination into that spare pot you can satisfying the artistic flair of the moment to join these two colours yet keep the rest of the garden in some sort of peaceful colour order.

The beauty is that you can experiment and get away with combinations in pots that you're not game enough to try in the garden. I can have my selection of succulents mixed with Cycad revoluta and Yucca elephantipes. In another corner I've got my weeping maple and woodland plants and in another, the standard rose underplanted with whatever potted colour takes the fancy of the moment - at the moment it's white cyclamen (as in New Zealand we're going into autumn).

Easy Care Potting Ideas:
• Low, open pots and bowls are great for windy areas.
• A low maintenance option is to use succulents in pots - tough and hardy!
• Plug up the holes of a bright-coloured, glazed pot and use for planting miniature water lilies. In winter, pull the water lilies out and overwinter them in a dry spot. Use the empty pot as decoration in the garden.
• During the winter, take saucers out from under pots and turn upside down and sit the pot on top This reduces the chance of water-logging which, when water freezes, can cause cracking in your pots.
• Feed your containers! If you find this difficult to do regularly, try using a slow release granule plant food such as Greenjacket.
• Try grouping your pots rather than having them in rows on your patio - it's more restful on the eye.
• Try matching the glaze of your pot with the colour of the foliage/flowers you're going to put into the pot.