Introducing the Winners of Our 2025 Container Challenge!
Don’t get stuck with the same old container combinations year after year. If you’re on the hunt for some fresh ideas and inspiration, look no further! You’ll find a unique collection of reader-designed containers in this article. It’s a showcase of our readers’ creativity and flair. One of them may be just what you need to jump-start your own container creations. Thanks to everyone who entered our 2025 Container Challenge, and congratulations to the three grand prize and six honorable mention winners!
Enter your designs in the 2026 Garden Gate Container Challenge
Send us photos of your best container gardens and we'll choose our favorites to feature in an issue of Garden Gate Magazine in 2026. The containers can be any size, season or style! Enter your best containers by November 2, 2025. Open to U.S. and Canadian residents. See full entry rules here.
2025 Garden Gate Container Challenge Prizes
This year’s Garden Gate Container Challenge top winners will each be receiving the following prizes:
- A sneak peak box of colorful Wave petunias that won’t be released in garden centers until 2026!
- A 30-inch ColorMark Rain Wand from Dramm custom engraved for Garden Gate’s Container Challenge Winners
- A one-year subscription or extension to Garden Gate magazine
All of our Honorable Mention winners will receive a one-year subscription or an extension to Garden Gate magazine.
Best Sun Container | Deronis Cooper, IL
Follow Deronis on Instagram: @Grandmas_Gardener
This winning container sits at the northwest corner of Deronis Cooper’s yard every year, providing an explosion of color for the commuters that drive by daily. People often slow down, wave and have even stopped to ask questions or take a selfie with his exuberant container. See more of his creations by following on Instagram.
These sun-loving plants grow in a 59-gallon wine barrel filled with potting mix that gets topped off annually. There’s no moving this 115-pound behemoth, so it’s been sitting in the same spot (and weathering harsh Chicago-area winters) for eight years.
Deronis waters daily to keep the grouping looking good, but on the hottest days he might be out there two or three times to keep plants from wilting. The barrel has great drainage, so he’s not worried about overwatering. The plants thrive here, with the tallest elephant ear reaching 13 feet! Just before the first predicted frost, Deronis puts out an all-call to friends and family to come and take what they want. He doesn’t overwinter anything but starts fresh with new plants and a new look each spring.
Container plan and plant list
A) Elephant ear Alocasia ‘Portora’
B) Red-leaf hibiscus Hibiscus acetosella ‘Mahogany Splendor’
C) Red Abyssinian banana Ensete ventricosum
D) Papyrus Cyperus papyrus King Tut®
E) Coleus Coleus scutellarioides Electric Lime
F) Castor bean Ricinus communis
G) Napier grass Pennisetum Vertigo ®
H) Coleus Coleus scutellarioides Henna
I) Coleus Coleus scutellarioides Torchlight®
J) Sweet potato vine Ipomoea batatas Sweet Caroline Sweetheart Lime™
K) Sweet potato vine Ipomoea batatas Sweet Caroline Bewitched After Midnight™
L) Petunia Petunia Wave® Purple
Wine barrel is 35 in. tall x 23 in. wide
Best Shade Container | Seth Kilgore, MA
When Seth Kilgore and Susan Dilbert moved into their new home they wanted to add a container along the steps to the back patio to prevent a tumble off the side. So Seth went dumpster diving for lumber scraps to build a 5-foot-long planter box for both sides of the steps. He was even able to find shake shingle siding to match the house! He drilled around 40 ¼-inch holes on either side and down the center of the bottom of the box for drainage and lined it with landscape fabric. It’s hooked up to a drip irrigation system to make watering easy.
Seth and Susan’s pink and chartreuse design includes two coleus varieties, a bicolor caladium and pink impatiens, which are all easy to care for: just pinch the coleus back if they get too tall so they stay in proportion with the rest of the planting.
Container plant list
A) Caladium Caladium hybrid
B) Coleus Coleus scutellarioides
C) New Guinea impatiens Impatiens hawkerii
Container is 22 in. tall x 24 in. wide x 60 in. long
Best Porch Container | Nicole Miksa, CT
This handsome container fits the space in front of Nicole’s tall porch perfectly and is tall enough to balance out the height of the towering umbrella plant. In addition, the light color makes a high-contrast backdrop for the draping sweet potato vine and creeping Jenny. With morning sun and afternoon shade there’s plenty of light to encourage flowering, but it isn’t harsh enough to scorch the foliage.
Nicole finds that watering every other day and fertilizing every two weeks for a month or two helps the plants get established. After that, she only waters when the potting mix is dry and cuts back feeding to once a month.
Key container plants
A) Umbrella plant Cyperus alternifolius
B) Coleus Coleus scutellarioides Pat Martin
C) Begonia Begonia hybrid
D) Sweet potato vine Ipomoea batatas
E) Sweet alyssum Lobularia maritima
F) Creeping Jenny Lysimachia nummularia
Container is 27 in. tall x 19 in. wide
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Fantastic foliage container for shade | Verna Zimmerman, NY
Keep shady patios colorful with this foliage-focused container design that’s also easy to care for: Just water and feed occasionally. Verna saves as many plants as she can over winter. When frost is predicted, she cuts the elephant ear foliage back and stores the bulb in a cardboard box in the basement. She also takes cuttings from the coleus, roots them in water and later plants them in potting mix. The rex begonia is easy to slip into a nursery pot to grow indoors. Once spring arrives, they can all go back in the container, ready for another growing season.
Container plant list
A) Elephant ear Colocasia hybrid
B) Coleus Coleus scutellarioides
C) Rex begonia Begonia rex-cultorum 'Fireworks’
D) Sedum Sedum mexicanum Lemon Coral®)
Container is 20 in. tall x 19 in. wide
Eye-catching & easy-care container with red flowers | Gloria Johnson and volunteers, IA
This vibrant container sits in the Shakespeare Garden at Ellis Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. After it was devastated by a flood in 2008, the Friends of Shakespeare Garden (friendsofshakespearegarden.org) revitalized the area. Now a dedicated group of community volunteers, led by Gloria, keeps the borders and containers in tip-top shape. After struggling with daily watering during a period of drought, the group invested in this commercial self-watering planter, and it saved them a lot of work.
Eye-catching red blooms attract visitors’ attention and invite them to take a seat on a nearby bench to enjoy the river view. An obelisk adds height and a place for the bright mandevilla to climb. Gloria and her volunteers add slow-release fertilizer at planting time and pluck off any spent blooms as needed.
Container plant list
A) Mandevilla Mandevilla Sun Parasol ®Giant Red Emperor
B) Begonia Begonia benariensis Surefire® Red
C) Vinca Catharanthus hybrid
D) Livingstone daisy Dorotheanthus bellidiformis Mezoo™ Trailing Red
Container is 28 in. tall x 34 in. wide
Tropical container | Laura Wood, WI
Pulling into the driveway is a lot more fun when you have a container like this one filling the awkward narrow spot next to the garage door. The reflected heat from the concrete and brick in this south-facing spot is no problem for these tough beauties.
At planting time, Laura adds compost to the potting mix and strings fishing line to the outdoor light above to give the mandevilla something to climb. Later, she deadheads the canna to keep it tidy. At the end of the season, Laura overwinters the mandevilla in a sunny window indoors and stores the canna rhizomes for the next year.
Container plant list
A) Mandevilla Mandevilla hybrid
B) Canna Canna x generalis ‘Yellow King Humbert’
C) Coleus Coleus scutellarioides Premium Sun Crimson Gold
D) Angel’s trumpet Datura spp.
E) Lantana Lantana hybrid
F) Variegated wintercreeper Euonymus fortunei ‘Emerald ‘n’ Gold’
Container is 23 in. tall x 16 in. wide
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Exciting entry container | Kathy Roberts, IL
For a bold statement near the entry, try Kathy’s lush container topped with a vibrant red ti plant and a lush skirt of trailers. The plants have grown so vigorously that you can’t even see the brown resin container! It sits on an east-facing covered porch and its upright shape doesn’t get in the way of visitors.
At 3 to 5 feet tall, the ti plant makes a perfect thriller for containers, adding plenty of height and rich color. Its vaselike habit allows plenty of room for the impatiens, caladium, ivy and inch plant below to fill in. Kathy adds a slow-release fertilizer to the potting mix once in spring. There’s no need to deadhead the impatiens, but she does keep an eye out for any caladium flowers that form and pinches those off to keep the attention on the beautiful leaves.
Container plant list
A) Ti plant Cordyline fruticosa ‘Red Sister’
B) Caladium Caladium hybrid
C) New Guinea impatiens Impatiens hawkerii
D) Inch plant Tradescantia zebrina
E) Algerian Ivy Hedera algeriensis ‘Gloire de Marengo’
Container is 24 in. tall x 20 in. wide
Warm welcoming container | JoAnn Jarmusz, NY
This simple but elegant planting gives visitors at JoAnn’s front door a colorful greeting. Burnt red to orange coleus foliage echoes the home’s brick color, while the bright blooms capture your attention and point the way to the entry. A liner inside the 14-inch rattan container offers extra support and keeps moist potting mix from causing this natural material to deteriorate.
The house faces northwest and receives dappled shade for most of the day, then full sun later in the afternoon. Because there isn’t a water source nearby, JoAnn keeps five water-filled milk jugs, one of which has water-soluble plant food mixed in, tucked close by. Her simple system makes it easy to grab a jug of water to give the containers a drink or a quick feed.
Container plant list
A) Coleus Coleus scutellarioides
B) Impatiens Impatiens hybrid
C) Tuberous begonia Begonia hybrid
Container is 14 in. tall x 12 in. square
Bright & cheery basket planting | Melina Mantey, WA
Follow Melina on Instagram: @gardenwithmelinalynne
This hanging basket on a pedestal solves two problems at once in Melina’s sun-filled side yard. The planting provides bright color and interest for this part of the yard. And the pedestal covers the stump of an old plum tree that used to be a tripping hazard. Keeping a lined wire basket watered in full sun is always a challenge, but this one’s in range of the lawn sprinkler, and Melina supplements with hand watering. The only other maintenance needed is trimming off spent petunia and verbena blooms.
Container plant list
A) Bidens Bidens Campfire™ Marshmallow™
B) Verbena Verbena Superbena® Raspberry
C) Petunia Petunia Saffron Finch™
D) Calibrachoa Calibrachoa Double Smitten Pink™
E) Creeping Jenny Lysimachia nummularia
F) English ivy Hedera helix ‘White Wonder’
Basket is 16 in. in diameter
