Here are a few suggestions for good container planting combinations.

SPRING: Hellebores, with tulips and ferns. When bulbs die down replace with pink impatiens.

BEGONIAS: Mix rex begonias with their colorful foliage with tuberous camellia-flowered begonias in colors to blend with the rex leaves.

SILVER: Helichrysum petiolare (licorice plant) trailing under annual dusty miller. Add pale pink or red geraniums depending on the effect you want. Or try it with purple heliotrope.

SHADE GARDEN: Trailing ivy and ferns with nicotiana, impatiens or pansies.

FOLIAGE: Palace Purple heuchera with Bowles Golden sedge and Margarita' sweet potato vine

SUCCULENTS: Sedum `Vera Jamieson' and `Bertram Anderson' with Sedum sieboldiana.

BLUE AND YELLOW: Yellow daylilies (Penny's Worth, Stella d'Oro) with Campanula carpatica `Blue Clips'.

PINK AND PRETTY: New Guinea impatiens (bright pink flowers) and pale pink verbena and pink zonal geraniums.

DRAMATIC: Black Dragon coleus with Ipomoea batatas `Blackie' and Helichrysum petiolare `Aurea'.