My wife and myself have been having discussions on what we will be doing this year for the planters and baskets.
For the front, which is south facing we will be going with ornamental grasses, geraniums and drought tolerant plants. It gets the sun most of the day and the house wall means it gets very hot and dries out quickly even with me watering twice a day.
In the backyard we are doing the impatiens again. They seem to like the location and if they grow like the last three years they will be well over 50 cm in height giving us a massive corner of green and colour. The fence between us and our neighbour will have the hanging boxes, but only ivy this time. Geraniums in the boxes didn't do very well. For the various hanging planters we will be a light-weight mix with lots of peat moss. Flowers will be mostly geraniums as they last all season. The only exception will be a small container with a few herbs. I use a lot of herbs cooking and fresh herbs are nice.
We will probably cut back on the number of planter boxes though. They took up a lot of room in a small yard and the wife would like a bit more room for our folding table and chairs so she can sit outside and enjoy the yard unlike last year where it was quite crowded.
One other item is that we are not planting tomatoes and sweet peppers. Even with the mesh protection, various animals seemed to get in and enjoyed the products before we could harvest them.
