Container gardening is still an enjoyable hobby, even if you don’t have access to a yard. Once you master container gardening, you can find yourself generating a growing number of pots every year. However, maintaining healthy plants in containers doesn’t require the same routine maintenance as gardens that are growing in the ground.
Here is some of our top advice for creating more effective container gardens.
Never compromise on drainage.
The health of your flowers could depend on this first recommendation, regardless of the fact that it may seem weird. The soil in your container can grow too moist and rot the roots of your plants if there isn’t a large enough hole or holes for water to leave. This will eventually kill the plant.
The unfortunate fact is that many garden pots on the market lack sufficient drainage. Larger holes can be bored, punched, or carved to increase drainage.
However, there are times when it’s simply better to buy a pot with drainage channels. For small or medium-sized pots, the minimum size for a drainage hole is 1/2 inch in diameter. For larger ones, look for containers with a minimum diameter of an inch.
The idea that adding gravel, broken pots, or stones to the bottom of your container garden can improve drainage is a misconception. According to others, you won’t even need good drainage if you put these things at the bottom of the pots.
You need holes in your pots, preferably a lot of them, unless you are a very careful container gardener who can water perfectly or you have a plant that likes wet soil.
Consider Your Light
The degree of sunlight that containers receive is often greatly underestimated. Even though almost any amount of light will work well for a tree, you must first determine how much light your container will receive before choosing your plants.
Place your container where you’d like it, and then note how long the sun was shining on it to calculate how much direct light it will receive. You can also use a sun calculator to calculate your sunlight.
Feed Your Plants
You must add nutrients because most soil lacks commonly available ones for your flowers. For the vast majority of flowers, fertilizer is essential to their success in your soil.
In potting soil, use a slow-release fertilizer. To achieve this, either fill your pot with potting soil and then mix in the fertilizer, or make a large quantity of potting soil mixed with shrub food in a bucket.
Then fertilize every week or two with a liquid fertilizer, typically a fish egg or seaweed mixture. Although it has a terrible smell, it is quite beneficial for supplying shrub with the nutrition they require.
Many people use commercial fertilizer, and while applying it can feed your shrub and help in their growth at first; you will need to keep using it because this form of artificial fertilizer will kill the helpful soil organisms. These organisms are important to organic agriculture, so after you’ve used chemical fertilizer, you must keep using it.
Before you go plant buying, prepare a list.
Creating a list of what you want before you visit the nursery is one of the greatest methods to avoid or at least limit shrub panic.
The shrub on this list doesn’t even have to match perfectly; but, if you’re ambitious, you can browse or look in plant catalogues to find exactly what you want. Try to make a list of the sizes, numbers, and locations of the pots so you can buy plants that will fit the pots and know whether you require shrub for sun, shade, or a combination of both.
If you can, it would be great idea to bring the pots or a picture of it. Mobile phones are excellent for this the majority of nurseries will have a member of staff available to help you make decisions. In most nurseries, the shrub are also organized and labeled based on the amount of sun they require.
Plant Good Neighbors
Verify that the shrub you select for your pot will complement one another. This means that the amount of light and moisture required by each shrub in a pot should be the same.
Some flowers will not last if their needs are combined with those of others. As a result, if one of your flowers requires direct sun, you’ll want all of the flowers you choose for that pot to share that requirement. If you have flowers that prefer to dry out between watering, you should not mix it with plants that prefer it moist.
If there is no plant tag, ask a salesman or check the plant tag to see what the plant needs. Try searching for it online if everything else fails.
Read and Save the Plant Tag
Important are plant tags. They will explain to you how big your shrub will grow how much food, water, and light it needs, as well as how much maintenance it will require. If your tree is a perennial, the tag will also specify which zones it can grow in and whether it’s an annual or perennial.
Acclimate Your Plants
Many plants dislike sudden changes, so it’s best to gradually acclimatize them over time to changes in temperature, light, water, or exposure to the elements. This is important for the majority of shrub that has spent their entire adult lives in the cozy climate of a greenhouse and is extremely critical for young plants.
Whether you buy plants in the winter or raise your own from seed, all shrub need to be hardened off. The likelihood of your flowers blooming will be greatly reduced if you don’t proceed with this slow and lengthy process.
Your tree may require some time to get used to less light and drier air if you plan to overwinter them in a colder area.
The More Potting Soil the Better
Many people will advise you to load your bins with different types of trash, such packing peanuts and milk jugs. As a result, your container plant will become considerably lighter, but it will dry up more quickly, increasing maintenance.
The more potted soil you use, the more water storage you’ll have, so you’ll have a bigger error margin when it comes to washing and feeding your shrub.
Sometimes Plants Die
The more flowers you grow, the more you will kill. That much is clear. Even skilled gardeners sometimes kill flowers. The reality of gardening is that the challenge knows when to stop caring for a shrub. It makes sense to give up very early in a mixed container garden to avoid having an unsightly container as a whole.
When a flower starts to appear unattractive, you have a few options. Depending on the shrub, you can give it a severe reduction and pray for the best.
This is normally plenty for most shrubs, and in a few weeks your plant will come back, bright and beautiful.
You can take out the sad flowers and shrub another one in its place. Depending on how precious and/or dead the flowers is, you can try to nurture it back to health by potting it up until you can’t tolerate the way it looks any longer or it improves.
However, if the flowers show severe disease symptoms, remove it quickly, re-pot it, and then either quarantine it or put it in a plastic bag before throwing it away.
Garden How You Live
The truth is that container gardening is challenging. While it needn’t be expensive, it may be, and it needs time and effort. Even if you cover all your areas, some shrub will grow while others won’t. This is another truth. There is no foolproof gardening or flowers-care technique.
This is both good and bad news. The whole project is thrilling, fulfilling, and endlessly fascinating because of all the uncertainty and hard work.
To improve satisfaction and your chance of success, think about just how you live before you started any form of gardening. Whatever your response, you can choose container gardens that suit your lifestyle.
Do you dislike water? Grow succulents and other flowers that can survive a drought. Don’t you have much extra money? Make your own containers from anything you find around the house or shop at yard sales and thrift shops. If you have a formal entryway, choose huge, traditional-shaped pots and fill them with opulent, attention-grabbing flowers for a more personalized container design.
There are plants available that will complement your style. Finding what works just takes some investigation and experimentation.