What to put in small mounted pots?

[Big Lou]

Wifey came up with the great idea to mount various colors of 4" and 5" small flower pots randomly on our garden cedar lattice screen. The pots are mounted to the lattice using 16" zip ties inserted through the pot bottoms drain hole then up along the back of the pot then over the v joints of the lattice screen. After zipping the excess zip line is snipped off. The screen is 8' tall and 4' wide mounted on 4" x 4" cedar posts.

Due to the upcoming high heat here in North Texas placing real plants in the pots are a receipe for diseaster. Since the twelve pots are glazed color we thought about using a single color artifical stiff straight grass or balls of colorful moss in each pot. No articial flowers!

Your additional ideas please!

 

[Trace]

Something that would look awesome if you could manage to keep them alive would be morning glories. You'd be out there three times a day keeping them watered, though, so that probably won't work. How much direct sun does the pot side of the screen get? If it's not all day, you just might be able to get by with something living in there.

In any case, I can visualize something dangly in that kind of setup. Vines of some sort, perhaps.

 

[happyflowerlady]

I once used artificial ivy along a trellis, and it worked great. It looked bright and green all summer, and then all winter also. I think I did add some of the little strings of fake flowers (kind of like daisies) along with the vines, and it looked very realistic afterwards. I agree it would be hard to keep a real plant alive in that small of a pot, especially in the heat of summer, unless it was a cactus or something similar that can take the sun. If you planted the Morning Glory in a pot at the base of the trellis, it might grow up it and help cover around the little flowerpots, and look pretty, though.

 

[maddie]

How about trying to grow Portulaca or purslane in these pots. These are also know as sun rose and can take any amount of heat. You could add bits of perlite or those pellets that help hold water ( I am not sure of its name) in the soil to keep the plant from drying out. These have beautiful little flowers that are really colour and pretty. These plants grow on neglect. I have them in a tiny pots on my window sill where the midday heat is so strong that it can kill other plants, however these bloom everyday.

 

[Khan]

Portulaca or rose moss is the choice.They love the sun and heat so much that if a cloud appears and sun is blocked,the flowers close down.