robably the most important thing to consider in planting any garden is what your primary interest is in doing so. Are you planting solely for the practical value of growing some of your own vegetables? Are you into herbs and want to get the freshest available? Are you just trying to spruce up the appearance of the space in which you are planting with some flowers? Perhaps your goal is a combination of all of these. With a bit of planning, integration of these three types of plants into your overall garden scheme is relatively easy. To give you an idea what is involved with each type, below are some suggestions for each. More selection ideas can be found in The National Home Gardening Club's Container Gardens.

Vegetables

There's nothing like preparing a meal that includes vegetables fresh picked from the garden. Not only do fresh vegetables excell in flavor but in vitamin content as well. Certain species of vegetable are particularly ideal for container gardening in as much as they can be grown in individual containers (unlike, say, carrots which require a large area of continuous planting space). Here are some ideal vegetable choices:
  • Peppers
  • Tomatoes
  • Broccoli

Herbs

Herbs add another nice dimension to the garden. As with vegetables, fresh herbs have more flavor. If you use herds medicinally, their healing strength is greater the fresher they are. Some examples of pottable herbs are:
  • Parsley
  • Rosemary
  • Chamomile
  • Sage

Flowers and Decorative Plants

What garden would be complete without some flowers amid a wash of green foliage. Interspercing climbing plants and plants that drape downwards with ground-cover plants and plants that are more localized in one place is a good use of vertical space. This is an especially good implementation for small balconies like mine where horizontal space is at a minimum. Trellaces can be fashioned from bamboo shafts and the like. A sturdy metal plant stand can be added to give plants elevation. The following mixture of plants has all of these characteristics represented:
  • Impatients (localized)
  • Clamatis (climbs)
  • Goldmarie Bidens (drapes)
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