Maintaining Container Gardens ( National Gardening Association Editors )
Simple Steps to help you garden in pots!
Simple maintenance tasks help keep your patio planters and window boxes looking their best throughout the growing season and help cold-climate gardeners prepare for winter.
Tools and Materials
• Planted containers
• Water source, hose or watering can
• Slow-release and water-soluble fertilisers
• Scissors or hand pruners
• Seasonal flowering and foliage plants
• Chicken wire and loose mulch, optional
Water Frequently.
Closely spaced plants packed into a small volume of soil need watering as often as once or twice a day, especially in hot, sunny, dry weather. A tip when watering — be sure to saturate all the soil in the pot, not just around the edges. Pots that dry out too quickly may have more plants in them than the soil can support. If this is the case you should remove some plants, prune them back, or move the pot to less sunny location.
Fertilise Regularly.
Rapidly growing plants need plenty of nutrients. Frequent watering and the limited amount of soil in planter gardens makes the need for fertiliser critical. Mix slow-release fertiliser pallets into the potting soil and always follow product instructions. Add additional nutrients throughout the growing season by dissolving a water soluble fertiliser in the watering can once every fortnight.
Clean up & Eliminate Dead Flowers.
Keep your plants looking lush and full by pruning leggy stems back to buds or branches and removing off-coloured and damaged foliage. People fail to realise that many plants continue to produce new flowers if you remove the spent blooms before setting seeds.
New Plants Seasonally.
When your plants start looking old and tired, pull them out and replace them with new ones. Keep your planter garden current with seasonal themes — grow a succession of plants such as bulbs and primroses in the spring, annuals and vegetables in the summer, and colourful pansies in autumn.
Winter.
During cold winter climates, it is important to protect your plants and planters from freezing temperatures. Terracotta and ceramic pots may crack if left outside to freeze. If you have empty pots, store them dry in a protected area like the garage. Plants still growing should be relocated to an unheated but not freeing area.