If the heat has your garden in the doldrums, refresh a tired corner with a splash of white or lime. In containers, plants with white flowers look clean and cool; those with lime or mint green blooms or leaves are as inviting as an icy drink.

Start with a glazed container, and select foliage plants and flowers to suit the color scheme you like. Choose a tall plant for the back of the pot, shorter accents to go around it, and low trailers to spill over the edges. Some choices follow; many of the flowers come in shades of white as well as colors. Place the pot on a patio or amid garden foliage.

FOR THE SUN

Foliage: Feverfew, licorice plant, 'Vancouver Centennial' zonal geranium.

Flowers: Cosmos, dahlia, Madagascar periwinkle, million bells, nicotiana, petunia, summer phlox, zinnia.

Fringe: Bacopa, lime thyme, sweet alyssum.

FOR SHADE OR PART SHADE

Foliage: Coleus, variegated hosta, Plectranthus forsteri 'Marginatus', Sprenger asparagus.

Flowers: Hydrangea, impatiens, lobelia.

Fringe: Bacopa, campanula, creeping Jenny, Lamium maculatum.

Six combos

 

These grow in full sun except as noted.

Combine dwarf nicotiana's lime-colored flowers, licorice plant (Helichrysum petiolare 'Limelight'), and creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia 'Goldilocks').

Place a single asparagus fern in a long-necked urn; edge it with 'Olympic Gold' bacopa. Part shade.

Pair 'Vancouver Centennial' zonal geranium (lime green leaves edged in red) and trailing 'Angelina' sedum (needlelike lime green leaves) in a rust brown pot.

Flank a single 'Raspberry Ruffles' coleus (or other red-and-green-leafed variety) with two lime-gold coleus such as 'Golda' or a golden-green sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas 'Marguerite'). Shade or part shade.

Put a single white-flowered hydrangea in a large container (at least 18 in. wide). Put white-flowered bacopa or campanula around it. Shade or part shade.

Plant Tropicanna Gold canna (yellow-and-green-striped leaves) in a large pot. Fringe it with 'Angelina' sedum and sweet potato vine.