This small container garden at Beds & Borders Nursery demonstrates how the principles of beneficial garden designing can be incorporated into conatiners.  The height is in scale with the size of the pot.  There’s variation from texture and form with large and small leaves and corse and fine textures.  And the lime green of the tall arrowhead draws the eye up from the lime green echoed in the licorice plant.  Here’s another great example of using garden design principles to create a container garden.  Acknowledge how the trailing gray-green dichondra almost mimicks the nearby lattice work.  There’s diversity of form and texture.  And the magenta flowers echo the color of the wonderful tall millet, anchoring the container.

Occasionally you require something to soften hard edges or a bit much of a good thing, like all this wonderful stone work.  The soft, flowing colors and textures of this small pastel container garden blend with the gray of the stone, while softening and warming the effect.  As with the previous small pastel container garden, this garden box is applied to balance and soften the wide expanse of decking.  The box itself mimics the decking boards, but the draping foliage, soft in both color and texture, offsets the harshness of deck.  It as well serves as a living screen, transforming the deck into a garden room.

A big container requires larger than life plants, to be in balance.  Too many small, fussy plants would ruin the effect.  Here, the oversized foliage is balanced with a more serrated texture leaf below, anchored by a softening fine textured trailing plant, drapping over the pots edge.