Container Gardening

Container gardening allows you to enjoy plants, flowers and herbs in places where a traditional garden is not possible. Even with limited space in an apartment building, you can grow fruits, vegetables, flowers and shrubs just about anywhere. Plants thrive on rooftops, decks, balconies, patios, stairs, windowsills and even on the doorstep of your home. Container gardening also enables you to experiment with a variety of plants and to optimize or control environmental conditions.

Choosing The Right Container

Planter boxes, wooden barrels, hanging wire baskets, flowerpots, stone urns, glazed pottery, a wheelbarrow and even an old bathtub are just some of the containers that can be used to create your very own container garden. The container gardener is limited only by his or her imagination. Each container should complement the plant aesthetically and functionally. For example, a terra-cotta planter with special holes through the sides will allow you to cultivate your fruit, such as strawberries, or herbs more easily. The size, material and shape of the container should be conducive to your plant’s health as well as to your surroundings. No matter what type of container you purchase, you will need a saucer to capture loose soil and excess water that escapes through the bottom of the container.

Consider the following guidelines when choosing your container:

Avoid containers with small or narrow openings.

Cheap plastic pots may deteriorate in UV sunlight. Terracotta pots dry out quickly. Glazed ceramic pots are excellent choices if they contain several drainage holes.

Wooden containers are more prone to rot eventually. Redwood and cedar are relatively rot resistant and can be used without staining or painting. Avoid wood treated with creosote, penta or other toxic compounds since the vapors can damage the plants. One advantage of wooden containers is that they can be built to sizes and shapes that suit the location.

Use containers between 15 and 120 quart capacity. Small pots restrict the root area and cause the soil and plant to dry out very quickly. The size and number of plants to be grown will determine the size of the container used. Deep rooted vegetables require deep pots.

Make sure your pot has adequate water drainage. The holes should be 1/2 inch across. Line the base of the pot with newspaper to prevent soil loss.

In hot climates use light-colored containers to minimize heat absorption and discourage uneven root growth.

Set containers on bricks or blocks to allow free drainage.

Line hanging baskets with sphagnum moss for water retention. Keep baskets away from the afternoon sun.

Clay is porous so water will be lost from the sides of the container. Plants in clay pots should be checked regularly for moisture loss.

Potting Mixture

A fairly lightweight potting mixture is needed for container gardening. The potting soil or other medium must be porous in order to support plants because roots require both air and water.

Compost makes an excellent potting soil but may require additional sand, depending on a particular plant's requirements. If compost is not available, purchase a good quality potting mixture or make your own with one part peat moss, one part garden loam, and one part clean coarse (builder's) sand, and a slow-release fertilizer (14-14-14) added according to container size. A compost bin or compost tumbler is a very useful gardening tool to have in this situation. Lime may also be needed to bring the pH to around 6.5. In any case, a soil test is helpful in determining nutrient and pH needs, just as in a large garden.

Commercial potting soils are usually slightly acidic, so you may need to add a little bit of lime to the mix. However, many container gardeners have found that a soil-less potting mix works best. In addition to draining quickly, soil-less mixes are lightweight and free from soil-borne diseases and weed seeds. These mixes can be purchased from a garden supply center.

Soil straight from the yard should not be used because it tends to be too heavy, unless your yard has sandy loam or sandy soil. Clay soil consists of microscopic particles that, when used in a container, exaggerate the bad qualities of clay. Clay holds too much moisture when wet, resulting in too little air for the roots and it pulls away from the sides of the pot when dry.

Sunlight

Most container gardens will need at least five hours of direct sunlight each day, and many plants will benefit from even more. As a general rule of thumb, leafy vegetables such as cabbage and lettuce can tolerate the most shade, while root crops such as beets and carrots will need more sun. Fruiting vegetables such as tomatoes and cucumbers need the most sun. The amount of sunlight needed by flowers depends on the varieties grown. Available light can be increased somewhat by providing reflective materials, such as aluminum foil, white-painted surfaces, and marble chips, around plants.

Fertilizer

Since potting mixes drain water rapidly, fertilizer will be washed out of the container as you water. Lighter mixes will require more frequent fertilizing than heavier mixes. Fertilize plants with the recommended rate of a water-soluble fertilizer every two to three weeks. An occasional application of liquid fish emulsion, liquid seaweed or compost will add trace elements to the soil. Do not add more than the recommended rate of any fertilizer. Doing so may cause fertilizer burn and kill your plants. Unlike garden plants, those grown via container gardening do not have the advantage of a large volume of soil and humus to protect them from over-fertilizing or over-liming.

Watering

In an exposed location, container plants loose moisture quickly. Because the volume of soil is relatively small, containers can dry out very quickly, especially if they are on a concrete patio in full sunlight. Daily or twice-daily watering may be necessary, especially during hot, dry weather. Apply water until it runs out the drainage holes.

Clay pots and other porous containers must be watered more frequently, as they allow additional evaporation for the sides of the pots. Small pots also tend to dry out more quickly than larger ones. If the soil appears to be getting excessively dry, such as plants wilting every day, group the containers together so that the foliage creates a canopy to help shade the soil and keep it cool.

Check containers at least once a day and twice on hot, dry, or windy days. Feel the soil to determine whether it is still damp. Mulching and windbreaks can help reduce water requirements for container gardening. Consider installing an automatic trickle irrigation system if you plan to be away for an extended period of time.

Choosing Container Plants

Over time, container gardening has become more practical with the breeding of plants with compact growth habits. Just about any vegetable, annual and perennial flower can be adapted to a container garden. The possibilities are endless.

Vegetables	Herbs	Exotic Foliage	Annual Flowers	Perennial Flowers
Beets Bell Peppers Broccoli Brussel Sprouts Bush Beans Carrots Cabbage Cherry Tomatoes Cucumbers Eggplant Green Onions Kale Leaf Lettuce Mustard Greens Radish Spinach Summer Squash Swiss Chard Tomatoes Turnips	Anise Basil Caraway Chervil Chives Coriander Dill Fennel Lovage Marjoram Mint Parsley Summer Savory Tarragon Thyme Winter Savory	Alocasia Banana Caladium Cannas Coconut Palm Dracaena Elephant Ears Hibiscus Lantana Phygelius Pygmy Date Palm Schefflera Variegated Ficus White Bird of Paradise	Ageratum Alyssum Begonia Browallia Celosia Coleus Dianthus Dusty Miller Geraniums Impatiens Latana Lobelia Marigolds Periwinkle Nasturtiums Pansies Petunias Salvia Sanvitalia Snapdragons Thunbergia Verbena Zinnias	Achillea (Yarrow) Aquilegia (Columbine) Candytuft Chrysanthemum Gaillardia Gypsophila Lupine Rudbeckia Sedum Shasta Daisy Veronica
		Fruits		Bulbs
		Dwarf-spur Apples Blueberry Blackberry Raspberry Strawberry		Asiatic Lily Begonia Crocus Daffodil Dahlia Gladiolus Iris Oriental Lily Scilla Tulip

Planting

Plant your container garden at the same time of year you would have planted them in a regular garden or flower bed. Fill a clean container to within 2 inches of the top with a slightly damp soil mixture. Peat moss in the mix will absorb water and blend much more readily if soaked with warm water before the mix is put into the container. Sow the seed or set transplants according to instructions on the seed package or plant tag. Put a label with the name, variety, and planting date in each container.

After planting, gently soak the soil with water, being careful not to wash out or displace seeds. Thin out seedlings to obtain proper spacing when the plants have two or three leaves. If cages, stakes, or other supports are needed, provide them when the plants are very small to avoid later root damage.

Container gardening is the act of growing plants exclusively in containers or pots instead of planting them in the ground. This method of growing plants, herbs, vegetables and flowers is very good for ornamental purposes. The mobility of container gardening also makes it easy to rearrange and your garden and to add new elements of interest and beauty. Carefully selecting plants will result in a beautiful, yet functional, display.

At Garden Supply Center, our goal is to provide useful information on what type of garden to create and how to make it successful, choosing plants for your garden, which gardening tools and equipment to use and how to care for your garden. Visit our Products page and browse the gardening tool, vegetable seeds, flower bulbs, herb seeds, garden tiller, compost bin, garden tractor, compost tumbler and other garden supply products that are available.