 The following is a production of New Mexico State University. For those of you traveling to the Mile High City, don't miss the chance to visit the spectacular Denver Botanic Gardens. Today we're meeting with Rob Proctor, Director of Horticulture, who has wise advice on how to best use container plants in your southwest yard or garden. Container gardening is a little different from other kinds of gardening, though, isn't it? It is, and in a lot of ways it's better because you can control everything you're doing. You can control the soil, how much fertilizer, how much water. You can use plants that maybe ordinarily wouldn't grow in your region or in your soil, and so it just opens up so many doors. What do we have here? This is really beautiful. Well, it's kind of plants that you wouldn't expect to see in Denver, but most of them are tropical plants of course and annuals, but they love the heat, they love the low humidity, and they love these great big pots, and so we've got all sorts of things in here for you to see. Unfortunately it's not in bloom, but every gardener says that. This is an angel trumpet, and it's kind of going through it. They go through phases of doing a lot of blooming, but it's big and architectural anyway. Nice structure to the stem. Yes, that's great, and of course we take these indoors during the winter. Down below here we've got several unusual plants. A lot of people know flowering maples. This is one variety that's very showy because even the calyx and the bud are red, and then the petals are the golden yellow. So it's quite a pretty thing, and very dramatic. Down below is calibrachoe. I've never heard of that one. A lot of people don't know this, and it's too bad. I think it's going to get very popular. It's also called million bells, and relative to the Petunia, and it does this all summer long. It just blooms and blooms and blooms. I see coleus over here in cannes. What's growing with the canna? With the canna, we've got a couple of different things that you're probably not used to seeing once again. I love this foliage plant. It's called a syrinthi, and it doesn't have a common name. Some of these, you know, they're too uncommon to have common names. But it's got this blue-green foliage and then little dangly pink bells. But it's really quite dramatic here against the coleus and then with the purple lobelia. That's beautiful. I see you have a giant bromeliad over here. I wouldn't expect that here in Denver. Absolutely, let's go. Let's take a look. That's a really large bromeliad. You won't expect to see something like that in Denver, Colorado. And certainly, of course, we don't leave it out during the winter. I didn't think so. But as an accent plant, I mean, it is dynamite. It's a sculptural plant. It is. It really is. It's a work of art. And what's this you've got at growing here? Well, feel that. Huh, that's metal. It's copper, and it's from a local brewery. It's an antique, and it was a beer funnel. So it came out of the ceiling and then the beer would funnel down through it. Now it grows a bromeliad. And I think much better use for it. I like it. I like it. If you're going to have something unusual, why not have Oleander in Denver as well? We can do that too. You know, it's almost like Southern California here in the summer. It's very warm. We have great sun. The foliage is so attractive with the variegated leaves that it's an asset any time of the year. It really enhances the textures you see in the rest of the garden, the in-ground garden around the containers. Yeah, because we use so many variegated plants, and so it's a nice pickup on that. Okay. Do you have other things for us to see? Of course. I have tons of it. Let's go look at it. Alrighty. Well, Rob, you keep showing me things I just never would expect to see in Denver. I don't know this one, but it sure doesn't look like it really should be here. Well, what does it look like to you? Kind of looks like a purple smoke tree, and maybe that should be here. Well, you're half right. But the flower's wrong. This looks more like a spurge. You're totally right now. It's euphorbia cotynafolia. Ah, okay. Cotyness is the smoke tree, so the leaf of the smoke tree. Right. And it's one of my very favorite tropicals for container plantings, because the foliage is so dramatic. It's got a beautiful, bushy form, and it just makes all the other flowers around it just really pop out. And so a few container plants that you have to overwinter, you can put them back out in the garden, and they just kind of bring the garden to life. Absolutely. I think dark foliage is one of the keys to having a really dramatic, romantic garden. And bright also helps. I know you've got something bright right here. Something bright? We grow a lot of South African plants here because they love growing in Denver and the Southwest in general. This is an arctotus. It's a tireless performer, even here in mid-summer. It's still blooming its head off. It's got great silver foliage to accent these flowers. Which also stands up to the bright light. Right. And it's great tumbling out of a container. Oh, it's beautiful. And over here I see an old familiar friend, the canna. And this one's different, though. It's striped. Yeah, isn't this a good one? This one's called tropicana. Ah, tropicana. That's cute. Yeah, isn't that cute? Somebody was being really clever that day. But it's got beautiful foliage with the stripes in it. And each leaf is a little bit different. And even when they get a little shredded from wind or hail, we don't worry about them much. But these orange flowers. Yeah, isn't that great? That's spectacular. Canas have really come back into fashion again. You know, they used to be considered sort of, you know, tacky plants. And now they're really popular. And I think by growing it in a container, especially with other plants around it, it's a water-conservative way because they need a lot of water. Absolutely. Over here I see one of my all-time favorites, the scented geranium. I love the scented geraniums. And it's variegated, too. Yeah, this one. Now, what does it smell like to you? I love the scratch-and-sniff test. Ah, well, a little bit nutmeg, a little bit mint. Yeah, I think there's a little rose in there, too. The rose ones never smell like rose to me. It's kind of hard to categorize something that nature really never intended us to take. That's right. It's a geranium, not a rose. But the scented geraniums are very popular. They're great for kids. And we grow a lot of geraniums, period. This is one of the old-fashioned, fancy-leaf geraniums. And I think this is the one called Happy Thoughts. Yeah, it makes me pretty happy. Yeah. Looking at that. But I think they've come back into fashion because they're great container plants. They either have great looks or great scents. And they're so easy to grow. I appreciate this tour. This is so great. And Rob, can we come back again sometime? Absolutely, whatever you want. Thank you. Thank you.