| Fine Gardening magazine Use Containers as Focal Points Create drama and draw the eye with carefully placed pots Just as a play needs a climax, so too a garden needs a moment of high drama. An eye-catching object, like a single distinguished container, can provide it. In the action of a play, the high point usually occurs shortly before the final curtain. Similarly, a focal point in the garden is often found at the end of a long vista or as the centerpiece of a garden divided into quadrants.  In this enclosed garden, a single container provides the focal point for a view of the inner sanctum and reflecting pool. Set apart by the space around it, the deep color of the container and its girth, rather than its height, support its claim to the most important position in the garden. Designed by George Schoellkopf for Hollister House in Washington, Connecticut. Photo: Stephanie Fagan.
The function of a focal point is to draw our eye and arouse and then satisfy our interest. But a pot or urn must be in scale with its surroundings, and, in a very large garden, it may need the reinforcements provided by other pots. For example, the garden shown above would prove too much to handle even for the massive container, appropriately elevated and extravagantly planted, were it not for the supporting cast. In this case, a low basin of succulents in the foreground and a pair of empty urns at the top of the steps are the cast members that maintain our interest and lead our eyes onward and upward to the star of the show.
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