grow in soil or use planters/pots?

i am planning landscape a courtyard of a historic sandstone building and i want to introduce some plants to add colour. the hard scaping will be mostly cobble effect block paving and gravel/stone chips. i have access to the soil beneath the gravel if we need to. i plan to plant evergreen mini trees and keep them trimmed and also some other plants, flowers or shrubs. the question is should i go for planters or grow in the soil or use raised beds? we have joiners and timber on site so building is no problem. what are the pros and cons? i am leaning toward the planter option because we could move this around till we got it placed perfectly or maybe if we had to move it for scaffolding or something in future.
thanks

 

How about a mix of both? You could plant in the ground where you know there will be no future disturbance and have some strategically placed planters elsewhere