Plant containers are made from many different types of materials; cut the confusion find out which type you need in your garden.
When choosing a container for your garden, you have a multitude of choices. Part of your decision will of course come from personal taste. You will want your container garden to look beautiful and have it fit your personal style above all else. The other part of your decision should be made after carefully considering things like container weight size and most importantly, material. Containers come available in almost any material you can imagine, from wood to metal to clay and more.
Terracotta:
Terracotta means a clay pot that is not glazed. You can own a clay pot that is not terracotta (because it has been glazed) but we will mainly be discussing clay and terracotta as the same thing. Terracotta is a great material for a plant container because it allows for naturally good ventilation. They are also somewhat frost resistant, although their level of resistance can vary quite a bit. They are much heavier than a plastic container but not so heavy that they are impossible to move. Their weight makes them wise choice for windy balconies. They do have three downsides. For one, they can be much more expensive than a plastic pot, especially if they were hand made. Another con is that they are very fragile if they get blown or knocked over. And most importantly, their excellent ventilation also means that the soil dries out more quickly than it might in a pot of a different material, meaning the plant in a terracotta container would require more watering.
Plastic:
Plastic containers are probably the cheapest option. They are less breakable, have worse ventilation than terracotta so the soil won't dry out as quickly (which can be good or bad depending on the plant, but is a bonus for plants that thrive in moisture and humidity). They are not at all easily breakable and they are lightweight and therefore easy to relocate. However, plastic containers offer little protection from excessively hot or cold weather conditions and they are so lightweight that they are often blown over by less than a strong wind.
Wood:
Wood can be a gorgeous option, but it is certainly not a weatherproof one. While painting or varnishing can add a couple of years to the life of the wood container, please be aware that those solutions do not last forever. They will either need to be re-varnished or replaced periodically.
Stone:
There are dozens of options with natural stone materials. Limestone is beautiful and ages well (it turns mossy and changes color with time), turning into a "natural" looking garden piece. Marble is also beautiful and classically timeless and rich. All natural stone is well equipped to stand up to many different weather conditions, though marble is more breakable than, say, sand. However many of them are very heavy and very expensive compared to other options. Stoneware is a better solution, because pots made of this material are glazed, making them easy to wipe clean, weatherproof, frost resistant, and gorgeous. However they are very expensive and still a little too heavy for easy relocation.
