Find out about the best tips that you need in order to flourish with your gorgeous container garden.
Container gardening is a great idea for a wide variety of gardeners including:
- Those with limited space
- Gardeners who want to move their plants indoors during certain seasons
- Gardeners who may not want permanent plants
- Anybody who wants an easy start to growing their own plants and veggies
- Homeowners looking to enhance their decking or patio with pot grown plants
- Gardeners who want to confine plants prone to spreading out in pots
If you have always wanted to garden but you identify with any of our points above, then container gardening is a great idea for you. You can start as small as one pot, or as big as a whole fleet of pots if you fancy a challenge. Container gardening is as minimal or elaborate as you want it to be.
Would you like some handy tips to help your container garden flourish? Take a look at our easy to understand handy tips:
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Prepare And Plan Your Space
Even if your plants are in containers, there is still every reason to prepare your garden for your latest venture. A neat and well arranged garden will give you multiple options for where you place your pots. It will also make gardening much easier for you, because you will have easy access to everything you are growing.
Before you start planting in pots prepare your outdoor space by:
- Decluttering
- Preparing your decking
- Painting any areas that need an update, such as the shed
- Adding a sheltered area if possible
- Adding a preparation area if possible
- Trimming back existing plants
- Removing existing weeds
Choose The Right Pots
You can purchase pots in a huge variety of materials including: terracotta, plastic, ceramic or stone. Terracotta pots are extremely cheap but they can dry out quickly, so you will have to water more often with a terracotta pot.
Any stone or ceramic pots for outdoor use should have a drainage hole in the bottom. Plastic pots are very light so they may not come with a drainage hole, although it is easy to drill one in.
Provide The Right Light Conditions
Lots of plants have specific light needs such as: shady, partially shaded, direct sunlight or bright indirect sunlight. By understanding their light needs you can ensure they live a healthy life.
Collect Water
Collecting rainwater is handy when you are growing plants in containers. It saves you money on tap water and it is eco-friendly too. Even better, rainwater is free of the chemicals in tap water so your plants will probably prefer it. Another tip when using tap water is to leave it out for a few days before watering your plants.
TOP TIP: Use a water butt to collect the water from your garage, shed or house roof. Just move the downpipe into your water butt and remove it when your water butt becomes full.
Think Carefully About Soil
The chances are most of your plants will need different types of soil. As a beginner, you should choose plants that require a similar type of soil so that you don’t have to buy lots of different compost types. Slowly, over time you can build up your collection.
Ideally, you will get the highest quality compost you can afford when you start, to give your plants the best possible chance of doing well. Composting is also an option to help recycle waste and you get the best soil for your container garden.
Label And Log
If you can, consider a plant diary or a labelling system for your container garden. This will allow you to fully plan and manage your garden without having to do any guesswork about when something was planted or when it needs management. There are apps to help you with this process if you love to combine nature and technology.
Remember Things Grow
It sounds ridiculous but sometimes we don’t consider the adult plant, when we put a seed in the ground. If you have restricted space it is very important to consider the adult size of the plants you’re growing.
Don’t Get Attached
Because plants are not becoming established, you will need to remember it is OK to replace plants that have perished, or that have passed their best. Replacing plants means your container continues to be useful.
Think Carefully About What You Want To Grow
Container gardening is great, but the plants grown have to match the gardeners wants and needs. If you want to work hard fawning over your plants and cultivating a complex selection of plants, then choose more challenging types to keep you interested.
If you’re a lazy gardener who wants minimal involvement in your container garden, choose easy plants that do most of the work for you. The more your container garden matches what you want and what you need, the more chance it has of working for you.
Use Fertiliser
Fertiliser is a good idea if you want your flowers and vegetables to stay in great shape all summer. Consider creating natural fertiliser from leaf mould or nettles to avoid the use of chemical fertilisers which are bad for the planet.
Get Used To Pruning
Container gardening requires lots of pruning in order to effectively manage each individual plant. This is especially true before and after key growing seasons.
Prepare For Winter
Some container gardeners choose to move their entire collection inside a heated greenhouse over winter. Smaller pots could go inside the house, depending on the type of plant. For example: some cacti will require time indoors over winter to protect them from the wet, cold weather we have here in the UK.
At the very least, you may want to use gardening fleece after pruning your plants to ensure they stay protected from the frost.
Hopefully our tips above have helped you feel great about your upcoming container gardening adventure. Container gardening is a really wonderful thing to do if you want full control over what you grow. Have some fun, experiment with exotic plant varieties and don’t be disheartened when things don’t work.
Container gardening is a learning experience that will eventually payoff in the form of a beautiful, fruitful outdoor space for your entire family to enjoy.
Would you like more tips to help your garden flourish? Checkout our regularly updated Wezaggle blog.
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