Container gardening is quick becoming a favorite with a lot of gardeners. Generally you will find people living in apartments and condos without any lawn area are container gardeners. You will see flowers, tomatoes, lettuce and herbs spilling over the railings of balconies. However, the popularity and ease of container gardens has spilled over to homeowners.

Although the majority of container gardens are seen around decks, patios and porches, you can have a container garden anywhere, even spread among your yard based flower garden. Some gardeners use container gardening to add accents to spots in their garden that may be thin while awaiting perennials to bloom. This is also a way to help achieve just the right color scheme for your garden. Annuals in containers are a way to add color to your perennial garden all season long.

A lot of people now seem to use their gardens as extensions of their homes, adding garden ornaments and furniture, with some people creating garden "rooms". These gardeners are also finding the variety, shapes, and sizes of containers helps them pull together specific garden themes. Garden containers come in a wide array of colors from unglazed orange clay to bright and brilliant emerald and blue. There are containers that are made from wood, metal, plastic or resin.

Using a container garden can also help you and your plants and flowers co-exist happily together. With container gardening you can see that each flower receives the correct amount of light, or shade to make it thrive. It's also easier to have greater accuracy when watering as you do it dependent on the needs of each plant. The rule is that you should first feel the soil, if it's dry, pour water into the container just until it starts to come out of the bottom of the pot. Wait about one half hour then dump the excess water out of the saucer.

At the end of the summer your favorite plants and flowers can be brought inside to be enjoyed until they can be safely put out for the next year.