Place every 25cm, in rows spaced 40-60cm - a growing bag - a large patio pot (four plants in a 45cm pot).

The marigolds (yellow seedlings, I thought, from a friend) were set in a small patio pot which was placed near a larger tub of pink petunias.

Gelion - butterflies love buddleia, and a couple of the horticultural suppliers who are always putting leaflets in colour supplements are offering buddleias small enough to grow in patio pots.

Position each plant one metre away from its nearest neighbour - a growing bag from your local garden centre - a patio pot that is at least 30cm wide filled with multipurpose compost.

Abutilon is usually grown indoors in winter or in patio pots outdoors in summer, but it's vigorous enough to grow in the open garden.

In spite of midsummer heat and humidity, the showy plants are strutting their stuff in window boxes, patio pots and tubs, flower borders and tidy borders around the bases of flagpoles.

A few plants can be used to dress up patio pots where petunias are becoming floppy and just about everything else looks worn.

If they have little outdoor space and/or are likely to move before the baby is grown up, one that will happily live in a patio pot, such as a dwarf apple tree, would be best.

One takes a six-pack of red cayenne pepper transplants, available in most garden centers, and plants all six in a large patio pot filled with good Long Island soil, kept moist with mild applications of liquid fertilizer.

With modern varieties there are so many ways in which you can grow them, such as unheated greenhouses, outdoor patio pots and tubs and trailing bounteous croppers for hanging baskets.