Trailers for Containers: 20 Plants to Spill Over the Edge

Trailing plants make good container gardens even better. Their long stems spill over pot edges and tumble down sides, creating a drapery of foliage or flowers that dangles like a beaded curtain beneath upright plants.

Indispensable for a finished look in mixed plantings, most trailers have delicate foliage and diminutive flowers that complement larger companions in the pot's center; without them, living bouquets can appear unfinished. Young trailers (4-inch pot size) like bacopa can also be displayed alone on patio tables.

Among dozens of trailing plants are those with leaves in lime green to blue-green to silver, bronze, plum, and multicolored foliage. Add numerous trailers bearing flowers in soft pastels to vibrant sunny yellow, hot pink, and fiery orange—color and style options appear limitless.

20 Trailers for Sun and Shade

For mass color, choose a flowering trailer. For subtle effect, try one grown mostly for foliage. Use two or three kinds to create a fringe of green around upright plants, or display singly on a tabletop.

Sun Worshippers

Flowers

• Aptenia cordifolia
• Bacopa
• Calibrachoa
• Convolvulus sabatius 'Blue Casbah'
• Diascia
• Sanvitalia procumbens
• Scaevola
• Trailing lobelia
• Trailing petunias

Foliage

• Glechoma hederacea
• Ipomoea
• Plectranthus
• Sedum 'Angelina'

Shade Lovers

Flowers

• Lamium 'Pink Chablis'
• Torenia Summer Wave

Foliage

• Ipomoea batatas 'Marguerite'
• Lamium 'Golden Anniversary' and 'Jade Frost'
• Lysimachia nummularia
• Plectranthus ciliatus 'Troys Gold'
• Vinca minor 'Bowles' Variety'

Design: Karen Donnelly, Redwood City, CA (650/224-3476)