Incidentally, why do you grow everything in buckets not the ground?
There's a backbone of permanent (evergreen) planting, but I have a very small town garden and I want to always have something interesting in focus from the main perspectives - and by being able to move plants around, I manage to do more with less (or rather, "fewer").
This year I did finally plant my hop and miscanthus in the ground, because I was finally satisfied that they were in the best place - thereby both curing the watering problem and freeing up two enormous tubs for my patio - they're more or less the scale that permanent beds would be - and I hadn't even considered the importance of planting so close to the house and containers let me see if it works.
The bamboo is an example of what can go wrong when you plant something in what turns out to be the wrong place...
Plus a lot of what I grow isn't hardy - so some of it is in the greenhouse and some of it is still seedlings.
So like most gardens, it builds to a crescendo over the summer.
Plus I now know I'm going to move at some point over the next 10 years - hopefully as early as 6 - otherwise I would probably build some beds where the pots are clustered - though even then I would probably just plunge buckets of lilies or whatever into ready-made holes.
Luckily as a minimalist, black pots "disappear" for me most of the time.
This year it occurred to me that I could possibly source some shiny black flexible sheeting to curve around the clusters of buckets.
In my retirement home, I plan to have sufficient space to do it properly.
At the moment the greenhouse and the bed in front of it (which is supposed to be full of salad), is a production line of buckets - all of which would ideally be out of view.
Even in places like RHS Wisley, they have container displays.
After 12 years I'm still not certain the tree fern is in the right place which is why it's still in its pot. Luckily it's rooted through the holes and the roots aren't that important anyway - and being above ground I gain a foot - which is about £50 worth of height.
Incidentally I have mixed feelings about tree ferns - they're somewhat "fake".
