Bonjour

I work at a restaurant and my boss has asked me if I would like to make him some type of winter display (he'll pay me me). He wants 3 hanging baskets that will hopefully last for the winter. I recently made a gorgeous container for myself and think it would be a nice arrangement for him as well. What I have done here at home is this: take one large wooden half bearrel and plant a heather, a couple big ornamental kales as well as some sedum, a dwarf juniper and a bunch of ivies. I'm not sure it will last, but I'll be happy with the architiectural qualities when some of it dies off. I have never done a winter container before so any suggestions would be welcome.

I suggested that he might want to get an urn or some such thing so that when things die we could replace them with boughs and branches. He doesn't want to absorb the cost of that, so hanging baskets it is.

Help?