It seems like choices for planter filling have become very polarized these days. Gardeners either opt for a stiff boxwood ball to impart minimalist European flair or an ever-more-complex assortment of carefully studied annuals. I am proudly guilty of both approaches. Yet I, too, like to vary the idea of one plant per pot — too many boxwoods can be blah.

Depending on context, style and exposure, I'll pick one particularly charismatic specimen and bring it up to eye level. Without matching companions, without flowery trim, this lucky one then takes a whole new dimension. Against a contrasting backdrop, it pops like never before. Let's look at seven examples of this plant favoritism. CYAN Horticulture Well past Quebec City in Canada, the cold maritime climate of famed garden Les Quatre-Vents suits this old dwarf pine tree. Perched on a dry-laid stone wall filled with alpine plants, a white painted concrete planter hosts a single pine, most likely put in decades ago.

With a touch of summer watering and some thoughtful pruning, this pine nonchalantly frames a magistral vista of the surrounding fields. Restraint is the only way to go here. CYAN Horticulture In this simplest combination of a Ghostbuster-green chair and a cabbage tree (Cussonia paniculata), nothing detracts from the gardener's intention: plant collector's whimsy.

This amusing-looking cabbage tree is a choice South African native usually restricted to under-glass botanical collections. Wheeled inside for the winter, it has happily adapted to the Washington state climate. CYAN Horticulture One plant per pot can result in the boldest vignettes. At a temporary garden installation in Montreal, a quartet of huge agaves dresses up polished urns. Their highly charismatic silhouettes, here contrasting against pearl-colored exercise balls (of all things), are dramatically put on show. Less is more, they say ... BLUE Renovation & Landscape If diversity is kept out of our cards, repetition can greatly improve our hand. Here a series of identical planters, sleek and smooth, forms a regiment along a beautiful wall. Each planter is topped with a highly contrasting variegated yucca to create a powerful contemporary scene. By the simplicity, maintenance is kept to a bare minimum. CYAN Horticulture Brought out in the open and hence deprived of any smoldering competition, this cute cape rush (Chondropetalum tectorum) takes center stage. It is a mesmerizing native of Cape Province, South Africa, that resembles an alien cross between an ornamental grass and a horsetail. Isolated and raised up, this cape rush has the enviable quality of a museum piece perched on a plinth. CYAN Horticulture Real plant lovers and collectors often prefer, for practical reasons, to keep their specimens in individual pots. Yet a simple studied grouping of these collectors' items can turn into a very satisfying garden composition. At the wonderful Plant Delights Nursery in North Carolina, a handful of named cacti achieves just that. CYAN Horticulture Sophisticated or banal, rare or common, most plants will increase dramatically in perceived value propped up in a nice pot. As a final proof, I challenge anybody to sincerely downplay this example: a variegated sanseveria, the ultimate pedestrian indoor plant, in a simple terra-cotta pot as the centerpiece of a Chanticleer Garden installation in Pennsylvania. Yes, less is often more. And never a bore.

More: Simple Container Plantings for Intriguing Garden Design