I grew up with a Mom that had a green thumb (inherited from her Dad) and always thought that I wasn't very good (not that I am now) at helping things grow. When I married my husband (last year) and saw a yard completely devoid of life, I realized that I too wanted to be surrounded by plants and life (luckily for me Matt was all about it). My mother helped by donating some of her plants and unfortunately, I also ended up inheriting other plants from both her and my grandmother when they died within months of each other and of my wedding. The catch (that I haven't mentioned yet) is that Matt and I are renting a place, so we have had to figure out how to do everything in pots for now, let me tell you that has been fun. (We did end up digging a little spot in the back for me to through seeds and grow random flowers)
Of course the other part is that neither of us really know which plants can be grown in pots, so we have just gone out and bought what we liked and then potted it, with various results.
I guess I will talk about different things we have put in pots and whether or not it worked, that way others may or may not make the same mistakes as we have.
To start, Matt and I both love birds, so we thought it would be good to put some large bushes and a tree or two in our yard. Here is Baton Rouge everyone has some sort of magnolia in their yard and we feel in love with the early blooms. So we went out and bought a Japanese Magnolia and put it in a large pot.
It started off well and we actually got one bloom the first year. This year it has put out lots of buds but has not bloomed (even though everyone else's in the neighborhood has). We also bought a small Satsuma and put it in the same sized pot. This one has not bloomed once and we have no idea if it ever will. I guess I am pretty impatient, so there is still hope after all it is only February. Around the same time we bought two bottle bushes, these have done very well (even though one always falls over) and even attracted hummingbirds into our yard last year.