Container Ideas please

I am a very inexperienced gardener and my wife has tasked me with brightening up our tarmac drive at the front of our north facing house.I have bought four half oak whiskey barrels and laid them out, two infront of our bay window which only gets sun from around 4 o clock in summer and the other two along the side at 90 degrees to the bay window forming an L shape.Now this is where i need the help of you good people out there.I was thinking of maybe a plant or shrub in the middle for all year round and then maybe annuals around the outside of it but what types of plants i do not know.Could you please give me your ideas of how to get a colourful container.

 

For year round colour - and your thoughts about a central shrub surrounded by annuals.

Traditional
Try one of the narrower columnar dwarf connifers for the center. For annual colour planting at this time of year, go for winter flowering pansies, and primulars . Replaced in the later spring with geraniums (pelargoniums) and fuschias.

or you can go for a less traditional mix or single specimen.

Ensure though that you get a well draining mix in barrel - a mix of compost and perlite, with a layer of crocks at the bottom. Plus compost will only provide nutrients for about 6 weeks, so add a couple of handfulls of slow release fertiliser.

 

Malio, I can see your thinking, but I personally dont think, that unless the containers are massive, A central permanant plant surrounded by plants that you change with the seasons really works.
The central plant tends to try and root into the whole container, this starves the annuals that you plant around them, I know they do it on the telly but thats for instant effect. I oftern wounder what these planters look like in a couple of years.
Why not go for a complete new set up from season to season, in the long run its easier to maintain I think.
There's always a good supply of seasonal plants available at garden centres ( thats what their good at ) if your prepared to pay for them.

 

We have two tubs with Box plants and under plant them. Over Winter we have Pansies. In Spring,Snowdrop and Narcissi bulbs(April Tears) and Forget-me-nots then Petunias through the Summer. Loads of water and feed. They are the wifes project and I must say they look good (despite minium tending :rolleyes: )

 

Well I've just planted my mother's autumn, winter and early spring container. She lives in sheltered accommodation and likes the colour of planted containers.

Skimia as the centre, some white primulars, cream seed grown wallflowers, and purple/blue winter pansies, underplanted with snowdrops, narcissus and iris reticulata.

 

Hi, if your tubs are in the shade as you said, I'd plant begonias in the summer, they are really bright and colourful or bizzy lizzies,and ornamental kale or caulis in the winter, with a small conifer or an evergreen you can clip, like a box or variegated euonymus. pansies or primulas are good for winter colour also you could underplant it with bulbs to give extra colour in the spring. Good luck.