Trees and Shrubs for Containers
When you are working with a container garden, it’s important to use trees and shrubs that don’t mind being a little pot bound. You will inevitably need to prune the roots or repot a tree or shrub occasionally, so don’t plan on planting a tree or shrub if you think you’ll regret having to wrestle with it later. Here is a list of trees and shrubs that do well in containers. You’ll note that some of them are not so much a tree or shrub, but they can be trained to grow into a tree like shape.
- Fig tree
- Boxwood
- Sweet Bay tree
- Japanese maple
- Eucalyptus
- Rubber tree
- Bamboo
- Palms
- Large varieties of Philodendron
- Japanese Pittosporum (Pittosporum tobira)
- Ivy (some varieties can be pruned to be bushy or can be trained to look like small trees or bonsai)
- Yucca
- Norwegian pine
- Serrissa, Snow-Rose
- Buddist Pine
1 Comment
I’m sitting at an RV campground right now that has a few trees as containers for other trees, ferns, and perennials. They’re unusual, beautiful, and fit in so well in any garden.
The containers are old tree trunks and logs that have fallen. Instead of chopping them up into firewood, they’ve chosen some to be wonderful gardening containers.