About Container Gardening

What should you know about container gardening? While we can talk about its history, people are more interested in its advantages compared to planting flowers or other plants in the soil. To give you an idea, here are some of the pros.

First, using containers for gardening allows you to plant stuff even if you are living in an apartment or a mobile home. This means limited space is not a hindrance if you want to grow flowers, fruit, herbs, shrubs and even vegetables.

Container gardening offers you mobility since a container placed in section of your can be moved to a new spot in a matter of seconds. If the plants have already grown making it difficult to carry, you can buy a garden dolly to help transport it around.

Pests are the greatest threat against plants. If you were able to catch it before this spreads to the other plants, you can isolate that plant from the others and then deal with the problem. Aside from using a herbicide or getting the help of other insects, you can also rearrange the plants since some of these happen to repel pests.

Container gardening can also help decorate the interior of the house. There are many plants to choose from and you can surely complement this with the overall color of the room.

An example will be to use a collection of yellow and blue bloomers, such as Calendula, heliotrope and pansies which are sure to cheer your day. If you want to some plants in your balcony or patio, you can use either Sedum or Sempervivum.

People who have never tried container gardening before should start with a handful of plants before buying more. This will give you time to figure out which ones are nice and which ones are not.

There are three types of flowers namely annual, biannual and perennial. Gardeners who plant these in containers usually go for either annuals or perennials.

The nice thing about annuals is that it grows from a seed in one growing season while perennials will last for a few years before these are replaced. The most popular annuals are marigolds and petunias because these add color to any room.

If you decide to plant perennials, you should know that these need more care and attention compared to annuals. So just take your pick and then see what happens.

But container gardening is not focused just on what plants you should be buying. You should also pay attention to the containers that will be used. The rule of thumb when choosing a container is that this should complement the plant both aesthetically and functionally.

For those who want to grow strawberries, ideally you should be using a terra-cotta planter that has special holes through which you can cultivate your fruit or herbs. There are many examples that we can discuss but you get the point. Do research about the plant first then select the container.

The containers we keep talking about come in different shapes, sizes, color and material. The ones most commonly used are plastic and terra cotta. Going back to those who live in apartments, a good choice to use are window boxes also made of plastic or wood.

Aside from those you put on a shelf or on the floor, there are also containers you can use through which you can hang a plant. These are made of wire or wood. Just be sure not to put these over a table or any other furniture because water will drip down and damage it.

One of the biggest problems of container gardening is keeping the soil inside the container since it could get washed every time you pour water. Fortunately, you can deal with that by putting a handful of rocks, pebbles, charcoal or Styrofoam in the bottom as this allows water to drain through the soil keeping the soil inside the container.

Container gardening is very easy. Once you have successfully grown a handful of them, you can already expand your collection since you already have an idea what works and what you think should be added. Don’t be afraid to try planting something new one in awhile so you can expand your gardening experience.