By Jackie Sledge
Big Country Master Gardener Association
Do you have plants that still need to be planted? Do you have limited space for gardens? Have you run out of space in your landscape? What to do?
What about planting in pots? Container planting is one of the most space-saving and time-efficient ways to add plants in our gardens so we can enjoy our landscapes.
What are the advantages of gardening in pots?
- Pots can take up a little room or fill the entire garden – depending on what you want.
- Pots are easy to maintain in a short period of time. There is less soil to water, and you can add drip irrigation to pots to make watering even easier.
- You can move pots around in the garden if either you, or the plant, are not happy with its original place. It is much easier to move a pot than to transplant a plant.
- You have more control over the elements of gardening in pots – soil, water, light, nutrients, etc.
- It is easy to switch out plants as the seasons change. If you have space, you can store plants in pots to be used again in the proper season. If you don’t have space to store plants in pots, you can just replace the plants with ones that will survive and thrive in the current season.
- You can use the pot as a design element in the landscape by considering the size, color, and shape of the container as well as the size, color, and shape of the plant.
What are some other considerations when using containers in the landscape?
- Add sensory elements to the landscape by putting specific plants in containers to add to the gardens. Consider sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste when selecting pots and plants for your gardens.
- Plants in containers need to be maintained not just with water and fertilizer, but they need to be pruned and deadheaded to keep them in shape. The pots must also be weeded and mulched to keep the soil and plants healthy.
- Pots come in many shapes, sizes, colors, etc. They also come in a number of materials such as, clay, concrete, fiberglass, metal, plastic, resin, stone, terra cotta, and wood. What to select? Well, it depends on the plants you want, where the container will be placed, and how the plants and pot fit in with the existing landscape.
- Select plants that will grow well in pots – annuals, perennials, grasses, succulents, bulbs, vines, tropicals, trees, and shrubs. The selections are endless!
I love planting in pots! Last year I planted 18 containers to use on the front porch and about that same number for the back porch plus more pots to fill in spots in existing beds. They all thrived! I do not have a greenhouse, but I wanted to save most of the plants to use again this year. I ended up putting a tarp over the carpet in a spare bedroom and putting pots in 4 doggy pools in that room for the winter. I also put pots in the bathtub that isn’t used except when we have company. I have a small, portable plastic structure, and other plants were put in it in the storage room for the winter. Almost all plants survived, and they are back on the porches and in beds again this year.
I’m sharing pictures of some pots used in my landscape and the landscapes of some friends so you can see how they add to our gardens.
The Big Country Master Gardener Association presents free education programs every month. There is a program at 6:00 p.m. on the 1st Tuesday of the month at the Abilene Public Library South Branch in the Mall of Abilene, and the same program is presented again at 10:00 a.m. on the 2nd Friday of the month at the Abilene Public Library main branch in downtown Abilene. We also have a Master Gardener Saturday Seminar from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon on the last Saturday of the month from February through August in the Taylor County Extension Office Conference Room. The theme for the monthly BCMGA Library and Saturday Seminar presentations in 2025 is “The Year of the Garden.”
We are here to help you. If you have any questions, call the Taylor County Extension Office at 325-672-6048 or email us at bcmgardeners@yahoo.com. We hope you will also visit our Facebook page, our website at bcmgtx.org, and the BCMGA YouTube channel for all Big Country Master Gardener information, events, and training.
Until next week, happy gardening!
