Post #235484 by Bamboo Boyd on Fri, Jun 2, 2006 9:39 AM

I'm a landscape architect and I have a couple of ideas for you. We were in the same situation and here is what I did. Last year and again earlier this year, Costco had some very inexpensive "clay looking" resin pots. I liked them because they were large enough to put a patio tree in, were thick enough they wouldn't split if the wind blew them over and light enough you could pick them up and move them around very easily when they were empty. My suggestion would be to buy a pot with a diameter that is at least a foot wider than the root ball of the plant you will be putting in the pot. This gives the root system room to grow and you won't have to replace your plant as quickly. The other thing you can then do is plant some tropical trailing ground cover type plants in 4" containers up 1 gallon size around the perimeter of the pot so that as they grow, they will trail over the side of the pot and then you won't see it. You can also place your tiki statues around the base of the pots to cover them up. And then you can also paint the pots to resemble a bamboo pattern or somthing else. You might even look at using a bench in front of the pots and then adding some flower boxes on it to help hide the pots. I like the idea of a wood or bamboo mat that you could wrap around the pots, but cost might be an issue there. Anyway, those are just a few ideas and I hope those help. Let me know if you need any more ideas and by all means, post a few pics of your patio when it is finished!