What Is a Container Garden and How to Create One?
Using pots to grow colorful flowers, vegetables and herbs in your garden can add to the overall appeal and allow you to pretty up spaces where it’s not practical to grow in the ground. Pots are portable and can be moved around easily. Here’s how.
Pots have been used by gardeners for centuries to add diversity to their garden and also to grow in places such as balconies, patios, porches, and beside driveways. Some gardeners even bury colorful pots of flowers or herbs in the ground. This is especially useful for adding interest to your garden if you have really poor soil.
Even those of us who have a reasonable sized garden with friable soil, still add a few pots here and there. It allows us to increase our gardening space and adds color and interest. Plus, there are many benefits to growing in pots.
What Is a Container Garden and How to Create One?
Quite simply, a container garden is where you have a collection of pots of different shapes and sizes that you place together harmoniously to grow lots of different vegetables, herbs, flowers and even small fruit trees.
Container gardening is something that everyone can enjoy, whether you have a yard or not. It’s also the ideal way for people who live in apartments to grow their own fresh vegetables and herbs.
Growing in containers is also a great alternative for those living in areas where the yearly temperatures vary greatly. If your area receives frost and snow in winter, you can simply move the pots to a more sheltered position or bring them indoors.
In really hot climates, it’s easy to move the pots so that they receive shade in the afternoon. This protects the plants from the scorching heat of the afternoon sun.
Benefits of Container Gardening
There are numerous benefits to growing in a container garden. It’s a great way to add additional space to an already fully planted garden. Or, if you don’t have an outdoor garden at all, pots allow you to grow anywhere you can find a sunny spot to place a pot or two.
Even if your outdoor area doesn’t receive a lot of sun, the beauty of growing in pots means that you can move them around easily to take advantage of any sunny spots available during the day. Plus, there are plenty of plants that you can grow that will live happily in shade. This even includes a variety of vegetables and herbs.
Here’s an explanation of some of the major benefits.
1. Pots Are Portable
As mentioned above, unlike plants that are planted in the ground, pots can easily be moved around your outdoor area. You can even move them inside if it gets too cold where you live.
Growing in pots is also a viable alternative for people who are renting or who move around from state to state. Because pots are portable, you don’t have to leave your prized plants behind when you move. You just take them with you and can have an instant garden as soon as you move into your new home.
2. Better Use of Space
Pots come in many different shapes and sizes, therefore, you can use them to fill in small pockets in your yard or on your balcony with lovely fresh vegetables or colorful flowers.
Then, there are hanging pots that can be used for flowers, succulents, strawberries or even cucumbers. These types of pots allow you to use the vertical space above the ground to grow your favorite plants.
3. You Control the Soil Quality
Improving soil in the ground is difficult and can take many years to get the best results. However, when you grow in a container garden, you fill the pots with premium potting mix that is open and friable. This gives the roots of the plants a great growing environment and they will reward you with lots of luscious, healthy growth.
4. You Can Incorporate Vertical Gardening
Using hanging planters and vertical wall planters means that you can use space that would otherwise just be empty. With pots, you can fill these areas with color and lovely green foliage.
How to Start a Container Garden
Starting a container garden is easier than you might think. Just follow this step-by-step guide.
1. Choose Your Pots
There are so many different pots to choose from. They come in many different shapes and sizes too. There are plastic pots, terracotta pots, hanging baskets with coco liners, and even grow bags.
In choosing your first set of pots, consider the plants that you want to grow in them. Hanging baskets are great for colorful flower displays as well as strawberries. You can even plant them up with a selection of different herbs.
Smaller pots are suitable for single plants while larger pots can incorporate a mini garden with a variety of plants in the same pot.
2. Select the Plants You Want to Grow
Once you’ve chosen the pots to start with, it’s time to decide what you want to plant in them. Do you want to grow your own vegetables or herbs? Or, maybe you just love flowers. Larger, taller pots can even be used to grow small fruit trees in such as lemons and limes.
3. Planting and Maintenance
Before planting into your pots, you need to fill them with a growing mix. Don’t ever use garden soil as this too heavy and doesn’t have the structure suitable for pot-grown plants. If you visit your garden center, you’ll find potting mix that is specifically designed for container gardening.
This mix will be open and friable and will consist of ingredients such as compost, perlite and composted bark. Some mixes even contain slow release fertilizers.
Once you’ve filled your pots with mix, its just a case of putting in your plants and giving them a good watering. You might even like to add a little liquid fertilizer to get your plants off to a good start.
Troubleshooting Tips for Container Gardens
The most common problem that gardeners have with growing in containers is under or over watering. Plants in pots tend to dry out much faster than those growing in the ground.
Therefore, you should keep a close eye on your containers to make sure that the soil does not dry out. You can also get some water-holding crystals to add to the potting mix. These crystals will swell with water and then release this to the plants when needed.
On the other hand, over-watering shouldn’t be too much of a problem if your pots have adequate drainage holes as the excess water can easily drain away.
If you have a tendency to underwater, you could always consider setting up a drip system or use water globes or spikes. Then all you have to worry about is keeping the water reservoir filled at all times.
Final Thoughts
Container gardening can be both rewarding and fruitful. Growing in pots allows you to grow any number of fresh vegetables, herbs and flowers in areas where there is no soil.
Colorful pots are also a lovely addition to an in ground garden to add some additional interest all year round. The pots can be buried in the ground and replaced when the flowers have finished blooming.