Outdoor Potted Plants

Outdoor potted plants can take advantage of your garden structure during colder winter months when the temperature in your area may fall below the optimal temperature for some plants.

Watering of outdoor potted plants with temperatures in the 60's may only be required once or twice weekly. Planting outdoor potted plants are perfect for someone with a green thumb who loves to care for outdoor potted plants or a hanging basket garden. Potted plants are easy to take care of and add fun and beauty along with flexibility.

Outdoor potted plants tend to dry out more quickly and require more water than plants planted in the landscape. This is because potting soils are lighter in composition and less compact than garden soil. Outdoor potted plants should also be planted in sterile, packaged, commercial potting mix.

Year Round Gardending

Planting outdoor potted plants can be a year around joy. If your careful to plant the proper plants outdoor potted plants can create an outdoor paradise to enjoy. Make sure you use containers can provide excellent drainage, because plants depend on you for water and nutrients. Shrubs and larger perennials often stay smaller in a pot, though this depends on the plant, climate, and container. Whatever you decide to plant, be sure and place it where you can enjoy your outdoor garden everyday.

Herbs For Cooking

Herbs and flowers together not only smell wonderful, but are great for those of you who like to cook! Place herbs that you use frequently in less conspicuous areas so that you won't leave big holes in your garden when you harvest them for cooking! Many popular culinary herbs, especially those native to the Mediterranean such as oregano, rosemary, sage and thyme, actually grow better in potting mixes that aren't all that rich. Again, all you need to do is combine one part sand to two parts potting mix, and then add a generous amount of small pebbles ( figure B ).

Most soilless potting mixes contain Canadian sphagnum peat moss. Some mixes use shredded pine bark because it does not decompose as quickly. Ideal for all potted plants, especially outdoor container plants that are more prone to heat and drought. Some gardeners take the extra precaution of wrapping the sides of the container with several layers of bubble wrap (to protect both delicate containers and root systems), and then mulching.

Container Size

As a general rule, select as large a container as possible. Small containers dry out more quickly and need daily watering. Each plant produces four wrinkled nuts containing seeds. The flowers die rather quickly, and the plants are usually dormant by early June. The general rule of thumb for container-plant survival through the winter is that the plant should be hardy to two zones colder than your USDA Hardiness Zone. But in my Maryland garden, which barely qualifies as Zone 7, I have successfully overwintered plants that shouldn?t have made it and I have failed with some that should have.

Variety Of Choices

Annuals, perennials, exotic foliage, bulbs, vegetables, herbs, even trees—you’ll be surprised at the wide variety of horticultural options available for brilliant, healthy container gardens that Renaissance Gardening uses to make even small spaces glow with beauty, movement and color. Courtyards, decks, rooftops, terraces—even windowsills—can be animated and made dramatic by container gardens. There are a variety of containers that are most attractive but for proper house plant care they need to provide enough headroom for proper watering and bottom drainage. The healthiest kind of pots for house plant care and excellent drainage are clay pots. Allow the pot to drain, then return it to the container. Do not allow water to pool in the bottom of the container.

Container plants should be moved into larger containers of fresh growing mixture at regular intervals. Plants can be re-potted most times of the year

Make sure any container you choose can hold enough soil to support the plant's growth. There's no formula for calculating this. Tillage, fertilization, removal of topsoil, erosion, site preparation, road and home construction, fumigation, invasion of non-native plants, and leaving soils bare are some of the activities that can reduce or eliminate these beneficial soil.