But the results just don't cut it.
As opposed to Whiteley's containers, which inspire, intrigue, and delight. "It's not complicated," she insists. "Doing containers is like doing a flower arrangement."
Which is meant to reassure. But for some of us, flower-arranging is just as daunting.
Here, then, are some random thoughts about putting together fabulous winter containers. They were served up at Whiteley's large home, and small greenhouse, in Newtown Square.
The first thing she considers with clients is what kind of people they are and what kind of house they live in. "If their style is sleek and minimalist, I'm not going to do an overabundant container. I'll do something more architectural," she says.
If, on the other hand, she's designing for people whose house "overflows with things they love," the design will be "full and abundant and exuberant."
That decided, she chooses an anchor plant to place in the middle of the container. A general, not ironclad, rule of thumb: It should be 1.5 times as tall as the height of the pot.
Whiteley likes Ilex crenata 'Sky Pencil,' a very vertical Japanese holly, but she has also used small Kousa dogwoods and hydrangeas, and good-size birch limbs.
The other day she plunked a potted 'Sky Pencil' into a lightweight plastic urn filled with potting soil, then ran bamboo skewers through a pomegranate and several tiny Seckel pears and placed them alongside. Next came a couple of stems of American winterberry, or Ilex verticillata, with arresting orange berries.
The stems are expensive, $30 for five or six, but, as Whiteley says, "Just look at them." You can't not!
She adds a silvery 'Blue Rug' juniper that cost all of $8. It's a ground cover that tumbles down the side of the container.
