When the time comes to downsize from the large home with expansive lawn and lush gardens, we often find the need to nurture doesn't stop with the keys to the new patio home, or town home. That's when container planting beckons, and a whole new learning experience begins! Layout, design, color, backdrop; all the same components still apply, but now in a more compact mode. We soon discover "contained" plants has special needs, so we adjust. We learn to water differently, feed differently, and maybe even appreciate the results differently.

But the end result, that sense of pride we experience at the payoff of explosion of color and bounty, remains the same. We given birth, again.