Low Bowls

Low bowlsare comfortable-looking containers for plants.

Unpretentious, and often hardly visible below the planting, they should carry a mound of plants just a little above the ground. They are at their most attractive when they can be seen from above, or at least from a fairly high angle. If the bowl is very shallow, there will be only a little room for the roots, limiting the type of plants you can grow. In very shallow bowls, only succulents, such as houseleeks, will grow well. If you want to grow low annuals and trailing perennials, use bowls that are at least 15cm (6in) deep.

Kitchware

Many containers used in the home can easily become low bowls in the garden, although if they started life as watertight vessels you will need to drill holes in them to provide adequate drainage. Bowls made of glazed ceramic are easily damaged by frost, so save them for summer and early autumn plantings, and use hardier containers for year-round displays.

Antique coppers (old-fashioned washing pots) and copper milk or cream pans are not easy to find, but they make the most beautiful plant containers. You can leave them outside over winter, and, as they weather, the copper becomes oxidized and changes to a wonderful greeny blue hue. This weathering process can be hurried along by painting the outside surface of the vessel either with vinegar or some cheap wine.

Mix and Match

A group of bowls can make a simple but effective display at the base of a flower bed, provided the plants behind them are not too tall. Plants that make hummocky shapes, or those that are trailers,tend to look best in low bowls. Echo colours found in the flower bed in the arrangements for the bowls. I like to see very simple plantings in bowls — perhaps a planting of one type of ivy, sweet alyssum, or lobelia. You could also try pendulous begonias, pansies, pinks, or bellflowers.

If you want to mix plants, I find that the bowl should be more than 30cm (12in) across, but even then, I think it is best to restrict the colour range. If you want to introduce more than one colour, use more than one bowl, but still stick to colours that relate to each other and plants that have similar forms.

Seasonal Schemes

In a sunny or semi-shady position during the summer, a bowl of cranesbill (Geranium endressii), with its non-stop display of pretty, little, pink flowers, a bowl of lilac-coloured pansies, and a larger bowl of Californian bluebells are breath-taking. On shady paving, against a backdrop of green foliage, you could grow bowls of the yellow-flowering, gold-leaved, creeping Jenny,cranesbill (Geranium nodosum), with its delicate, cup-shaped pink flowers, and the pick-a-back plant.

For spring in semi-shade or shade, try planting bowls of miniature tulips, maybe one bowl of red Plaisie, one of creamy white ‘Concerto’, and another one of ‘Toronto’ with its bright red flowers, brown- yellow base, and bronze anthers.

In winter, bowls of different ivies look effective standing on a garden table or arranged in a line along the top of a low wall. The golden-variegated forms, and the yellow-leaved variety, ‘Buttercup’, are especially attractive, introducing some light relief among the dark, glossy evergreens, which tend to dominate a garden during the colourless, cold, winter months.

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