Dotty, I find my best inspiration for seasonal containers comes from a stroll through the garden center to see what's on offer. Something - usually with pretty intense color or dramatic form - will jump out at me and I build from that.

I tend to limit my color palette to just a couple of major players with maybe a few accent colors. I am not a pastel person and with our often gray and pretty short summers, I think we need some color intensity so I tend towards deep, rich saturated colors. Lime green and purple (sometimes hot pink) were previous season's choices. Also the smokey coral or raspberry colors you can find in diascias, which look great with silvery or gray foliage and also with browns. This year, I am trying something new and rather dramatic based solely on the new 'Phantom' petunia, which is a nearly velvet black color with yellow stripes. I am combining these with bright yellow Sunbini sanvitalia, a splotchy coleus in dark maroon, yellow and green, lemon helichrysum, black mondo grass and a gold variegated jasmine vine to grow on a small obelisk and provide a vertical accent. There is also a new fully 'black' petunia that I might try with white and silver accents and maybe just a touch of pink or coral :-)

Calibrachoa (million bells), petunias, and diascia offer some great color choices, as do coleus and of course geraniums and tend to bloom all season long without much attention. But don't be afraid to try something unusual for your inspiration plant - elephant ears, ornamental grasses or small phormiums, fancy leaf geraniums, corokia, coprosma, abutilon, even a showy perennial or houseplant will work and some of these you can repot and bring in for winter or plant out in the garden at the end of the season.

Make sure you don't skimp! Nothing looks worse than a half-hearted container planting, so make it full and lush looking from the start. Regular fertilization and attention to watering will just keep it going better and better through the season.

If you are at a total loss for inspiration, Proven Winners has a container planting handbook that shows various combinations and colors schemes that many nurseries have for customer review. Or Fine Gardening produces an annual special interest publication on container gardening that is always a source of good ideas....and often rather unexpected choices! The important thing is to just have fun with this. Pick out something that really strikes your eye to begin with and build from that.

Thanks for the super suggestions GardenGal. I totally agree with you about the need for vibrant colours in our containers. Takes the eye away from the weeds too! I've got a lot of shade around the house so I've put hot coloured begonias in these baskets but realize I need more lime green trailing plants to "shine in the dark".
I'll check out the availability of the other suggestions. Thanks again.

I fell in love with the Pretty Much Picasso petunias so designed this years pots around them. I've got copper and lime to balance out all the purple. I just painted my house these colors too. My house is the color of the green edge and my front door is the purple of the rest of the flower. I know it's gaudy but I was sick to death of gray.

Gaudy is good :-) Bring on the color - we need it!! BorS, I grew the Pretty Much Picasso petunias last season - I'd consider them much more of a hot pink or fuchsia color rather than purple and with a lime edge. But lime anything looks great with them! Very tropical looking.

Dotty, my suggestions were primarily for full sun conditions.......I'd make some different choices for a shadier situation.

The new colored foliage forms of Heuchera and related plants.

Here is a link that might be useful: Terra Nova Nurseries - Home Gardeners - Heuchera

Hi, Dotty.

Another great source of inspiration is the White Flower Farm catalog. I just checked and saw that they offer several annuals to be potted up as collections. You can see what the pot looks like when the plants fill in and can purchase the same or similar plants at your own, local nursery.

Good luck and have fun!

Rain

I agree, they are more fuchsia than true purple.

I've bought so many "colored" plants in the last few years that my yard is a kaleidoscope of color even when not blooming. :) I must have thirty different Huecheras just in my front yard....

I can't resist the heucheras! Such lovely colours. I'm tucking some into the bigger baskets and being that they are good in shade, they're a winner in the PNW. I'm not sure if they are deer resistent though. Anyone know? Thanks for the White Flower farm link, some great ideas there.

Never seen deer damage. Main pest is weevils.

Dratted weevils shear them off at soil level so they move like a bad toupee when you touch them....very annoying.