Container Gardening – 10 Reasons Why It Will Work For You

From time to time, I also get gardening-related questions submitted to us, so every now and then I’ll give you some general gardening tips and strategies too.  Since us plant lovers need to stick together!  So here’s a gardening-related article you should enjoy along with some tools that might help you out…

Container gardening is an inexpensive way for you to make your patio, deck or landscaping look great.  If you don’t have a lot of landscaping area to plant, you can use containers to plant just about any kind of plant and put it anywherever you want.

Below are 10 great reasons to get started with your container garden right away:

1. Container plants are movable. Did you ever plant something then realized in a few days that you did not like where you planted it? Well, if you had plants in containers, they could be moved wherever you want them. You can move them as many times as you want to, re-decorating your deck or patio to fit your mood.
2. Container plants create interest. You can combine different color plants or you can group plants together to create a theme or a themed display. You can use small Container plants with fountains or statues or just about anything to create a focal point.
3. You can create some pizzazz in your landscaping with Container plants. Arrange your plants by plant color or by container color. You can also put blooming plants in your landscaping next to plants that have already bloomed, keeping your garden in full bloom all year long.
4. With Container plants in your landscaping, you can be flexible with the look that you want to create. You can have different plants for different seasons. You can have container plants that need part sun or part shade and then move them around so that you are not limited to only plants that like sun or plants that like shade.
5. You can create a setting on your deck or patio and group some of your outdoor plants with some of your indoor houseplants that you put outside for the summer. You can group some plants on and around a table or you can put your plants on shelves, grouped according to height.
6. You can start your plants indoors and then put them outside when they bloom. Then, once the weather changes, you can move them back inside and have your garden indoors.
7. You can recycle your plants. You can start your perennials in pots and then divide them and plant them in your garden in the fall or you can divide them and put some in your landscaping and keep some in pots for next year.
8. You can use old objects that you already have around your home as pots for your outdoor plants. You can use wooden boxes, kettles or a garden cart. You can either plant several plants together in a larger pot or kettle or put smaller individual pots into a garden cart for a real interesting display.
9. You can save money on your container garden. Buy one package of seeds of an annual that grows quickly, like dwarf zinnias. You can split the seeds among a few pots and within a few weeks, you will have lots of colorful flowers. Or, you can take a flat of petunias and plant them in a large pot.

10.  Here is something that I do every year. It saves me a lot of time. I have two wooden planters on my front porch and every year I buy two identical hanging baskets. I take the plants out of the containers and put them in my two wooden planters. That really works for me because both of my plants are identical and I don’t have to wait for them to grow as the plants are already mature. Most hanging baskets have some plants that trail and that really looks good in my planters.