- Plant Care and Photo by Kara Smith of The Contained Gardener
- A Well Grown Winter Potted Garden
If you are just starting out with creating a potted garden for your desert home, think through what commitment you want to make right now. If your attitude is that you can do anything and you are just starting out, you may find yourself biting off more than you can chew. I have seen people go to the nursery and come away with five pots, soil and 100 plants; only to discover that they are already exhausted by the time they get everything home. The plants sit for a day…or two and when the newbie gardener goes out to finally plant them, they often find their plants are in very poor shape if they are even still alive.
The beauty of pots is that you can always add more. Go shopping for a couple pots today and maybe even pick up the soil. Get them set and then go to the nursery another day – and be ready to plant no later than the very next morning. Be sure to water your plants when you get home as the trip in the car may have dried them out. Remember, the nurseries are watering 4″ annuals two to four times a day in the heat.
Our Potted Garden classes are taking a break for the early part of the summer. If you have something you would like us to offer, let me know!! In the meantime, stay cool and stay connected right here!
Have a question? Email Marylee.
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This article appears in May 10-16, 2012.
For the rest of the summer I’ll just remaim potted………
When is Marylee going to address the problem of unsightly calcium and mineral build-up on patios with potted plants? This is the dirty little secret about container gardening.
Marylee, I’ll get you started. For plants that require lots of water, garden pots should be placed on dirt. Tile, colored concrete, bricks and even decomposed granite will soon acquire deposits from hard water and everything that leaches through the potting soil. For plants that don’t receive heavy or frequent watering, saucers placed under the pots will help, but even this requires careful attention to make sure the saucers don’t overflow. To empty the saucers, you will need to lift out the pots, which can be heavy. This becomes just one more chore, and you have to stay on top of it unless you want white stains everywhere.
The build-up can be removed with muriatic acid and a few hours of scrubbing, but who wants to do that? Muriatic acid weakens tile grout, and I wouldn’t trust it on colored concrete.
Your best bets for garden pots are cactus and succulents with shallow roots. That way you don’t have to water all the way to the bottom of the pot each time. Occasional major flushes should suffice, and the gardener will simply need to keep standing by with a sponge mop and bucket.
We recently had to move four rose bushes off the patio to a less desirable location with a dirt surface. Roses are serious water hogs and perhaps the worst choice for patio plants for that reason. Because roses require deep watering to the bottom of the pot, the saucers invariably overflow. Sometimes it looks like you’re getting away with it only to find a river of calciferous water seeping over the rim of the saucer an hour later. I wouldn’t dream of growing tomatoes in pots on a nice hardscape surface.