The extent of my gardening where we now live used to be flower pots on the patio; that is, container gardening. For the last few years, with the larger cottage garden, I don't have much time for the patio although I still have a few pots of flowers there. One of the problems with container gardening is that I can no longer find clay or ceramic flower pots; my wife used to buy really nice clay and ceramic pots at a local garden centre; now, all they sell are plastic pots and they aren't inexpensive. Although some of these plastic containers are made to look like clay or ceramic pots I still don't like them, they aren't what you want if you are aiming for something natural, not plastic. Plastic garden ornaments, gnomes, Buddha meditating, giant grey squirrels, two foot tall mushrooms, and so on should be avoided. One of my objections to plastic flower pots and plastic garden ornaments is aesthetic, gardening requires some kind of aesthetic sense. Plastic flower pots look cheap and obviously fake even when they are pretending to be clay or ceramic; of course, I also dislike plastic because it is a major pollutant and it doesn't degrade for many years, it's polluting the oceans and landfills are full of plastic that will be there even in 2500 AD. However, if a few large plastic containers is all you have to bring flowers and gardening into your environment then use them as flower pots. Better to recycle a few plastic containers if you have limited time or space, or physical mobility. Photos from 2011 and 2013.
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Here is the patio in early spring.
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| Patio in mid-summer |
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| These are all annuals |
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| My preference is for clay or ceramic pots, not plastic |
