Oklahoma Container Gardening

A true garden, whether in an expansive yard or on a tiny deck, contains structure and year round interest. All of the plants below survive outdoors year round and can provide many years of enjoyment in the hot Midwest. In Oklahoma City TLC nursery on Memorial, pots up your plants and delivers them (even to the 3rd floor) for a paltry $5.00 delivery fee.

A perfect small tree for the rough Oklahoma summers is the Rose of Sharon. It blooms all summer up to the first frost and a variety of colors are available. It should survive 2-3 years in a good-sized pot (about 20 in.) before being planted in your yard or given to a grateful family member.
Evergreen Camellia shrubs provide gorgeous waxy leaves and beautiful spring flowers but need to be kept out of the hot afternoon summer sun. Placed in front of your patio windows they provide privacy and help keep the home cooler. Their rose like flowers bloom in late winter and the early spring.
Honeysuckle vines come in a wide variety of leaf types, flower colors, and fragrance. They grow rampant, twisting and trailing. They are a must for the hummingbirds. Bright yellow, red, or orange flowered Trumpet vines are another hummingbird favorite that loves the hot sun.

Fragrant Oriental lilies love being crowded in pots and will bloom at summer's end when many plants are getting a bit tired of the heat. The intoxicating fragrance drifts in through your open windows at night and is carried by the breeze down to the entryways and parking lot.

Hostas are shade lovers but enjoy a little morning sun. The flowers vary in color and fragrance depending on the variety of hosta. Choose from a miniature beauty or go to the opposite extreme and be the proud owner of a monster with arching four-foot leaves. Hostas die back to the ground in the winter but reappear every spring. They are lovely with spring bulbs planted amidst their new foliage.

Evergreen Hellebores and fragrant Sarcococca carry you through the winter with flowers, fragrance and greenery. Both are almost impossible to find here. Check the References shopping links and order online in late winter/ early spring. Both require full shade and grow slowly to about 20 inches. Under plant "everything" with hundreds of winter and spring bulbs such as snowdrops, hyacinth, miniature daffodils, snow in winter, and baby iris.