Spring Container Planting Tips

Creating your own container plantings is an exciting project that gardeners love to tackle. Planters and hanging baskets enable you to have a flower or veggie garden anywhere; balconies, decks, patios or tiny townhouse gardens. They can give you pops of color by the front door, emphasize a side entrance or be grouped for parties and weddings.

Plan ahead. Take an inventory of your pots, their sizes, and bottom circumferences for drainage trays. Better yet, take pictures so you can choose what plants to buy during your leisure time at coffee or in the evening. Don’t sweat buying too many plants or too much soil. There is always room in the garden for more plants!

Always keep in mind that wet hanging baskets are very heavy.  Make sure any hooks on patio beams are securely fastened. A hanging basket falling on the head is not a joke and can cause serious injury – especially to children. 

Choose the right pots for your project!  Plastic hanging baskets or planter pots are always best if you have a very sunny area that experiences heat and wind. They retain water for a longer period, are light in weight and can be easily moved. But even large plastic pots can become very heavy so display them on decorative wheeled dollies. They can easily be moved to a safe spot when late frosts or summer storms threaten hail.

If you love the ceramic look, glazed ceramic will hold water for a longer period than the non-glazed. The old world look of non-glazed has always been very popular but do be prepared to water your planters more often in general or during prolonged hot periods.

Many gardeners buy inexpensive pots, plant them up and drop them in their ceramic planters. This makes for easy replacement of planters and easier cleanup in the fall.

Always, always, always use containers with drainage or a proper self-watering reservoir. I cannot emphasize this enough. In the late spring and early summer, pots without proper drainage are very prone to overwatering. New plant roots will drown, collapse and die. Putting rock, clay shards or packing peanuts (aka filler material) in the bottom of your pots is old school and as such, is not recommended. I always use a couple of coffee filters or dense window screening over the drainage holes to avoid a mess under my pots. Drainage trays can also be used to prevent deck/patio stains.

Soil

The most important component of a container planting is the soil.  Do not use garden soil. Buy the best quality planter or baled soil that your budget will allow. Light weight bagged soil is really the best as it allows tender roots to have the best start and air to penetrate the medium. Personally I use the ProMix All Purpose Mix (in bales) or ProMix BX (bales). If you have a lot of containers to plant the bales are quite economical as one 3.8 cubic bale contains a lot of compressed soilless mix. Most commercial soils contain enough plant food for three months but this is not always the case. Read soil labels carefully!

I mix the soil with a small amount of flowering plant fertilizer in a wheelbarrow, then depending on size of the containers, fill the pots either in the wheelbarrow or on the ground. Fill each pot halfway; water the soil lightly, then finish filling to just below the rim of the pot. Plant each pot and water thoroughly. Do all of this out on the back yard lawn to avoid making a mess on the patio/deck. Use the wheelbarrow or a wheeled dolly to place the large planters in their chosen spots. Use new soil each year to fill your containers. Old soil can be composted.   

Pinch or trim back new leggy shoots and flowers/buds after planting. This prevents leggy stems and forces the plant to bush out and produce more blooms. You may have to trim the plants back again in early to mid-summer. Do not be afraid to do this step and remove up to 1/3 of the volume of the plant. Just trim above a leaf node. They will rebound quite quickly. Time this pruning with a fertilization to give your plants a boost of energy.  Some plants do not need pruning, so take time to look up each plant’s cultural needs while you are in the planning stage.

Do not skip the fertilizer. In my early gardening days, I would skimp on the fertilizer, and that’s what I got; skimpy plants! Fertilizer helps plants to do the job they do naturally by providing food for building extra strength, durability, all over performance and blooming. My best advice on fertilizer (also due to personal experience) is to not over-fertilize. Less is not more! Slow release blooming plant food is a safe bet for those of us that don’t have the time to mix water soluble.

Do not overplant. Overplanting causes the roots to eventually fight for space and you will constantly be tending to their needs. A root-bound planter’s root zone will often repel water down the sides of the pot and the top growth will suffer. If this happens, soak the plant pot in water for about an hour. This may have to be done each day or two.

Choose plants that have the same cultural requirements and avoid those that will choke out other plants or plant them on their own. You can play it on the safe side by mixing colors of the same variety of plant – for example, three different colors of Supertunia - Vista Bubblegun, Vista Jazzberry and Vista Snowdrift.

A general guide to how many plants per pot when planting annuals is 3-4 bedding plants to a ten to twelve inch pot. 5-8 bedding plants to a 16 to 20 inch pot.

Water established planters and hanging baskets in the morning. Water at soil level. Water the hanging baskets until your see the water come out the drainage holes. During periods of extreme heat, you will have to water hanging baskets and small planters twice a day.

For a striking display, place small, medium and large planters in odd numbered groups around the garden.