Have you finished planting all of your summer flowers? I finally finished mine yesterday. Filling my flower pots was at the top of my To-Do list last weekend, but the weather was most uncooperative. I like to use oversized flower pots for high impact. I've got five of them -- three on the back deck, one on the front porch and one under a tree. My deck is big, so I need a few really large pots to take up some space. Small pots just don't have enough impact, unless I use like a hundred of them. In this case, I like the "less is more" concept. When I bought these brown pots at Costco a few months ago, someone on the check-out line told me to fill them part-way with plastic, so that it cuts down on the amount of soil needed. This also keeps the containers from getting too heavy in case they have to be moved. I hope this jumbo pot tip doesn't turn out to be a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, because I tried it. I used empty plastic water jugs, and plant containers to take up some of the space. No one will ever know what's inside. Can you get a sense of how big these are? There are four 1-gallon water jugs in one of them, which didn't even fill up half the space. Even with the filler, I still needed tons of dirt. I think I used 50 pounds of soil for two pots. Did I mention that these pots are BIG? Seriously, fill one with water, and you've got yourself a little swimming pool. About the flowers... The vine is a mandevilla. I've never grown it before, but the flowers are so vibrant, I had to give it a try. It's supposed to flower from Spring to Fall. This one is my favorite. I love the combination of deep purple and yellow. I used two types of caladium, purple petunias and yellow marigolds. I added one perennial - Dianthus (the little pink flowers). If it comes back, that's one less plant I'll have to buy next year. (Notice my new deck railing in the background?) Sadie seems to like this one. It doesn't get as much sun as the other two pots, so I used caladium, red begonias, and coleus. I planted the ivy years ago. It was just a few inches long, and now it is so full and lush. The front porch gets partial sun, so I used the same mix of Caladium, Coleus and Begonias. I like the way they look with my red door. I used begonias under the tree, since they are happy in the shade. They still look a little sparse, but should fill in a few weeks from now. Because this pot is out in the open on my front lawn, I had to used something the deer won't eat. They're not too keen on begonias. We caught this one nibbling the neighbor's bushes on Monday. I suppose I will find out one way or another if it was a good idea to use plastic containers in these pots. Have you ever tried this? Did it work? Ms. Toody