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Best plants for small pots that give colour through winter.

GraysGrays Posts: 172
in Plants
Hi all,
I am looking for some recommendations for some plants to look out for today at the garden centre, that I can plant now and will give some colour/display through autumn and winter.
The pots are attached to the wall in full sun, only small, and had some lobelia in over summer.
Thanks.

Posts

  • Busy-LizzieBusy-Lizzie Posts: 24,043
    Quite difficult for December and January, but violas are good for winter bedding and pots. May be a bit early to buy winter bedding now though.
    Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
  • didywdidyw Posts: 3,573
    I doubt if you'll find anything suitable at the GC now - give it a few months and as @Busy-Lizzie says, violas are wonderful for winter in small pots.  You could pop in some iris reticulata bulbs too (although they do get very straggly when they have finished flowering) and some miniature daffs. Tete a Tete is nice but there are even smaller ones. Or species tulips.
    Gardening in East Suffolk on dry sandy soil.
  • Nanny BeachNanny Beach Posts: 8,719
    Pansies, keep deadheading cut back,they will flower for months.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    Cyclamen coum and hed. are lovely but not easy to get hold of now. Avoid the tender cyclamen that GC tend to suggest are hardy and fine outside but are really not. I'm a big fan of iris retic. I'd like to try iris unguicularis too - flowering about the same time - Jan-March.

  • Allotment BoyAllotment Boy Posts: 6,774
    Another vote for violas or winter pansies here.  We had some from last year still going till the heatwave overcame them..
    AB Still learning

  • GraysGrays Posts: 172
    Thanks for the reply’s everyone.
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    Last September I put some cheap hybrid cyclamen (red and deep pink) in tubs by my front door, where it's sheltered by the house, expecting to get a couple of months of colour out of them. They were cheap, could even have been on a multibuy offer, at any rate I put 4 each into two tubs on top of some hyacinths. They flowered all winter, and into the spring, died back in May and are now in leaf again so it looks like I'll get another autumn's flowers from them. Last winter was pretty mild and dry here, which was probably good for them. Don't rule them out if you live somewhere that tends to get mild dry winters.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
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