Pots play many roles, but when used as mini flower gardens, they can really steal the scene. Filled with colour-themed cascading blooms, your pots can become stunning focal points and instantly bring any garden space to life

1. Mix pots of varying sizes and colours and fill them with seasonal bloomers. For a really dazzling display, select colours that complement the individual pots.

2. Use foliage to fill spaces between bloomers. Here, a trough is planted with a lovely selection of foliage plants, including astelia, with its dramatic sword-like foliage, and fancy-leafed begonias. They're the perfect foil for potted hydrangeas and a bedded 'Anne Boleyn' rose.

3. Combine bloomers with foliage plants to ensure your feature pots look great year round. Here, petunias, pelargoniums and diascia provide the blooms, and variegated ivy creates the long-lasting backdrop.

4. For a long-lasting reliable summer display, use the compact forms of hydrangeas - they're a tried-and-true, old-fashioned favourite.

5. Create a romantic look using bold and beautiful bloomers, such as petunias, in a low pot. It will make a dreamy table centrepiece.

6. Dreaming of a cottage-garden look? Well, it is possible to have it in a pot! Combine long-flowering classics such as osteospermum and Million Bells calibrachoa, then for height and texture, add a Pennisetum advena 'Rubrum'.