Planting Containers

One of my favorite things to plant each spring is my flower containers. I love planning my containers each spring then going to my local nursery to pick out all the beautiful plants. Each year I pick a color theme for the front of my house and also the back of my house. For the front of my house I went with a peach and green color scheme. For the back of my house I stuck to the same color scheme as last year (you can check that post out here) and went with brights- hot pink, purple, yellow and green.

Before I got planting I filled by pots with container mix. I did a bit of experiment this year. I bought several different brands of container mix and examined them. By far the best container mix that I can find is the Gerten’s house brand of container mix. I have been using this for years and my pots grow to be a tremendous size and are always full of flowers. In addition to the container mix, I add in extra slow release fertilizer to increase bloom production throughout the season. I also will water my containers with liquid bloom enhancing fertilizer every few weeks throughout the season. One thing with containers is they only have a finite amount of nutrients available to the plants since the plants are confined to a container, so it is important to replenish this throughout the season so you can continue to get big beautiful blooms.

When planting containers I stick to the basic principles of using a thriller, filler and spiller. I am in loved how they all turned out this year! For my front entrance pot, I used a dwarf Egyptian papyrus grass, 3 coral/peach colored Rieger begonias, 2 white bacopa, 2 goldilocks, and 2 hedera ivy gold child. This is my first time using ivy in containers and I am in love. I love how it ties everything together and the over all look. I did a similar color scheme for my front hanging basket with peach/coral colors and added in some bright pink to tie in an area of cascading petunias I have in my front yard.

In my backyard I went with a brighter fun color scheme that screams summer. I have two stumps that I have large bowl pots on near my patio. For these pots I put a small trellis in the middle with yellow thunbergia. I love the look of trellises in pots as it adds some visual and vertical interest. I love petunias because they fill in beautifully and add great color. For petunias I planted cascadia Indian summer, mocha and wave purple. I like to plant calibrachoa when I plant petunias to add variation in flower size. I added in one purple, one pink and one yellow/pink bicolor. To add a little texture and more color I plant some purple verbena. Finally as my spillers I used white bacopa and goldilocks- my two go to’s!

I have two smaller containers that I keep on my deck that I followed this color combo with as well. For these pots I used tall plants in the back and decreased in size as they got to closer to the front. For my thrillers in the back I used hot lips salvia, empire upright yellow Biden, and purple Angelonia. I then filled in the center with an Americana pink geranium- my favorite, calibrachoa, verbena and petunias. I placed a white bacopa in the center to drape down the front.

#ContainerGardening #Gertens