If you've ever walked past a beautifully planted terrace and wondered how someone managed to coax so much abundance out of a collection of pots, the answer almost always comes down to the right plants, the right soil, and an understanding of what perennials need to thrive year after year.
In his new course, Creating a Perennial Paradise in Pots, garden designer and author Arthur Parkinson visits one of his favourite garden centres, Burford Garden Co., to share exactly what he would buy to build a potted garden that comes back season after season. With its renowned nursery, a lovely gift shop full of curated home and garden essentials, plus a cafe and art gallery, Burford Garden Co. has become a must-stop shop for anyone visiting the Cotswolds.
Inspired by Arthur’s course, we have pulled together some plants, pots and tools to help you kick-start your own perennial potted paradise.
Not based in the UK? Most of these plants and products have close equivalents at good independent garden centres worldwide.
David Austin Roses: the heart of a potted garden
If there's one plant Arthur keeps returning to, it's the rose. Not the stiffer, formal hybrid teas associated with formal planning, but the loose, fragrant, abundantly flowering shrub roses that have made David Austin a byword for garden romance.
‘The reason David Austin is so renowned is that every single rose in their range has taken them at least 13 years to breed and trial for health, vigour, and flower production," Arthur explains. "And in terms of perfume, there's nothing more beautiful.’
For a potted garden, Arthur's eye goes straight to the apricot and peach tones, warmer, richer, and in his view, even more fragrant than their pink counterparts.
Rosa Roald Dahl® - £35.00
A rounded, bushy shrub with cupped, peach-toned rosette flowers developing from soft orange-red buds. With few thorns, good disease resistance, and a lovely medium-strength tea fragrance, this rose is a great option for your first potted garden. Plus, ‘Roald Dahl is really useful for cutting through pastel tones without overburdening them.’
Rosa Dame Judi Dench® - £35.00
Another apricot-hued favourite. Slightly smaller and more orange than Roald Dahl. Its large, ruffled blooms on strong arching stems flower twice a season. A show-stopper in a pot and a brilliant cutting garden rose.
Rosa Scepter'd Isle® - £35.00
For those drawn to softer, cooler tones. This rose is a compact, upright shrub with delicate, soft-pink flowers and a strong myrrh scent. It boasts excellent disease resistance and continuous repeat flowering, making this a reliable variety for container gardens.
Perennials: The supporting cast
Arthur is a firm believer that a potted garden lives or dies by its supporting plants. These perennials and shrubs might not be the star of the show, but they are worth the investment to give your container garden its structure, longevity, and seasonal interest.
Salvia x jamensis 'Belle de Loire' - £15.00
Great for companion planting with roses. This upright, shrubby salvia boasts bi-coloured flowers that open in yellow and orange before softening to salmon as temperatures cool. Its aromatic grey-green foliage is attractive to pollinators and acts as a natural fungicide for roses.
Buddleja Butterfly Candy Lila Sweetheart -£15.00
Buddlejas fell out of fashion for a generation. When they took over post-war bomb sites across London, they became associated with neglect rather than intention. Arthur sees past all that. "I personally absolutely love them." This compact variety offers sweetly scented lilac-purple flower spikes that draw pollinators and fit beautifully into smaller spaces. The best part, once they’ve bedded in, Buddlejas are relatively low maintenance and will come back year after year.
Ficus car. Little Miss Figgy - £17.00
‘Figs are very good for fast growth in pots,’ Arthur notes, and this dwarf variety is designed exactly for container life. Beautiful architectural foliage, at least one crop of fruit a year, and best positioned on a sunny terrace or sheltered courtyard. This is a plant that earns its place on looks alone, before the fruit arrives.
Soil and feeding: the foundation of your garden
They say a garden is only as good as its soil. ‘The backbone of any successful garden, but particularly one in pots, is loving and feeding your soil,’ says Arthur. ‘Knowing your soil and nurturing it is so important for a garden full of flowers and abundance.’
Containers can be an unforgiving environment. Unlike open ground, potted plants have no access to the wider soil ecosystem, which means what you put in the pot is everything.
Melcourt Sylvagrow Peat-Free Multipurpose Compost - £10.00
Arthur's go-to compost, and one he recommends by name. A blend of fine bark, wood fibre, coir, loam, and sand, with added John Innes No.1 for the first four weeks of growth. Crucially, it's peat-free, something Arthur considers non-negotiable: ‘ You should look out for the Melcourt brand. It's a really good peat-free mix, blended to make sure your plants have a really good start in life.’
Burford Garden Co. also recommends their Durstons Advanced Peat-Free Rose, Tree and Shrub Compost.
Wooltiliser, 2L - £13.00
‘If I were on a budget and I only had one thing to buy, I would probably always pick an organic farmyard manure for all of my shrubs and roses as a top dressing.’ An all-natural fertiliser made from 100% British wool, designed to enrich soil, retain moisture, and release nutrients slowly. Arthur is evangelical about wool as a material for container gardening: The Wooltiliser brings those same properties to the soil itself.
Composter and Scoop - £49.00
Perfect for small spaces looking to make the most of their compost. Handmade from galvanised steel, this composter is designed to feed organic compost directly into the soil with minimal waste. A considered, durable tool that makes composting accessible for smaller spaces.
Pots and Planters: choosing your containers
Pots are not just the foundation of a container garden; they can also add style and colour to your space. Arthur's aesthetic leans towards the traditional and tactile, with terracotta, aged finishes, and materials that look better with time.
Terracotta Pot, 16x12cm - £14.00
Hand-thrown and aged, these Burford-own terracotta pots bring an immediate sense of established character to a new planting. Ideal for herbs, bulbs, or smaller flowering plants. The kind of pot that looks like it's been in a garden for years, from the moment you buy it.
Medium Bellied Planters - £55.00
A spacious, characterful planter available in a range of beautiful colours, the sort you can mix and match to line a terrace or garden path. Generous rootball space makes these a solid, practical choice as well as an attractive one.
Barbary Large Saucer - £30.00
Arthur's favourite thing to look at from the house isn't the roses or the figs, it's the birdbath. ‘The birdbath is like a songbird spa,’ he says. These thick, frost-resistant terracotta saucers (rated to -20°C) double brilliantly as birdbaths or hedgehog watering holes, and sit as naturally in the garden as they do on an indoor windowsill.
Practical tools for home gardeners
Elho Sustainable Watering Cans - £22.00
Not all gardens have a tap handy. These sustainable watering cans are made from 100% recycled materials and processed using wind power. Available in lime green or graphite, they’re functional, considered, and the kind of tool that's pleasant to use every day.
Hanging Basket Liner Set - £12.00
‘Wool is almost nature's magical ingredient for container gardening, it insulates against extreme heat and cold and helps plants conserve moisture.’ These wool liners are insulative, moisture-retaining, frost-resistant, and naturally beautiful. They break down slowly, releasing nutrients into the soil as they do, another example of wool doing quiet, remarkable work in the container garden.
Dirty Hands Soap and Nail Brush Set - £9.50
‘If you haven't got gloves, you'll have to have a good nail brush.’ Made in England, plastic-free packaging, exfoliating walnut-shell soap with a natural-bristle nail brush. Perfect for gardeners like Arthur who like to ditch the gloves and get in touch with their soil. A small, considered indulgence for the end of a day in the garden.
On the Bookshelf
The Flower Yard: Planting a Paradise by Arthur Parkinson - £22.00
This is the ideal companion for Arthur’s course. A follow-up to his bestselling book The Flower Yard, this book focuses on what to grow through the seasons, documenting each one through his own photography and sharing his favourite varieties and planting tips. Signed copies are available while stocks last.
The New Romantic Garden by Jo Thompson - £38.95
Get inspired by thirty garden projects from one of today's leading garden designers, balancing traditional English-style design with a genuine commitment to biodiversity. Beautiful, practical, and full of ideas that translate directly to smaller potted spaces. The perfect addition to Arthur’s course and Jo’s Create Academy Course, The Fundamentals of Garden Design.
Ready to go further?
Everything above comes from Arthur's new course, Creating a Perennial Paradise in Pots, where he takes you from the basics of planting roses and nurturing soil through to visiting real gardens that prove abundance and low-maintenance aren't mutually exclusive.
‘I want to be able to sit in the garden, enjoy it, be embraced by the plants," Arthur says. "We need to get our hands back into the soil, smell the plants, love the plants, and know the seasons.’