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Five Ways to Plant Flowers in Containers
Hardening and Transplanting Flowers
See every detail and try five different ways to plant annual, biennial, and perennial flowers into pots or containers from these easy, step-by-step demonstrations with pictures:
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- How to plant nursery starts and seedlings into containers or pots.
- Transplanting seedlings and plants from grower containers to decorative containers or pots.
- Planting and transplanting annuals, biennials, and perennial flowers into containers.
- Planting flowers into landscape planters, hanging planters, and window boxes.
- Planting flowers into hanging containers and baskets.
You’ve already learned how to start flowers from seed indoors, in a cold frame, or in a greenhouse [see: Flower Plant Lifecycles].
After hardening starts you grew indoors [see: Transplanting Seedlings for a refresher on hardening starts], it’s time to choose a planting method that matches your vision for your container garden.
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Annual and perennial flowers grown from seed or acquired as young plants in 4– or 6–pack grower containers are easy on the budget, fast blooming, and simple to manage in containers.
To plant a succession of flowering plants that will last through the seasons, use both hardy—cool-season—annuals and perennial flowers along with hardy or half-hardy—warm-season—species and varieties [see: Planting Flower Successions for full details on how to plant flower successions].
Start with cool-season annuals you’ll plant in early spring to bloom within six weeks or so.
As the days grow longer and days warm in midsummer, replace the first planting of cool-season flowers with half-hardy flowers.
Then, in late summer or autumn, once again plant cool-season annuals.
Remember that you can extend the bloom of both hardy and half-hardy flowers enhanced flower production by promptly deadheading spent and dying blooms [see: Controlling Growth and Flowering].
As with any planting, the eventual size and growth habits of your flowers should decide the size of their container.
At minimum, pots for flowers need to be 6 inches (15 cm) deep, more so for multiple plants.
For flowers that will grow to heights of a foot (30 cm) or more, plan for a container at least 8 inches (20 cm) in diameter.
One great advantage of annuals over perennials is that their roots are compact and seldom compete. Plant them as close as 4 inches (10 cm) apart from each other.
Here are a few other useful tips for planting a successful container flower garden:
- To ensure success in containers, select healthy starts—those with well-developed roots, robust green stems and leaves, and compact, strong growth [see: Selecting Healthy Plants].
- Clean the container thoroughly and use the right soil medium or potting soil choice [see: Choosing and Preparing Containers and Soil for Flowers in Containers].
- Consider planting an arrangement of smaller, single-plant pots to alleviate conflicting watering, feeding, and shade requirements with plantings in the same container [see: Flower Borders, Edgings, and Beds for examples of arranged groups of flowers in containers].
The preparation and methods used to transplant seedlings or flowers into beds and borders in the garden or landscape are somewhat different than for planting flowers into pots, planters and containers. [see: Transplanting Seedlings.]
Step-by-Step Instructions
The great thing about starts in grower containers is that they’ve been carefully reared and look terrific as soon as you transplant them.
Nursery starts only get better as they fill out and continue their bloom throughout the season.
Planting them is easy, especially given how quickly they make their dramatic impact on the garden.
Gather your flower starts, materials, tools, and implements required, then follow these easy steps:
How to Plant Grower Starts into Planters
Select a potting mix or prepare soil and fill your planter.
Most bedding plant starts require medium-textured bedding soil or potting mix, but check recommendations for the species you plant.
Gently compact the soil, adding more as needed until the soil surface is 1–2 in. (25–50 mm) below the rim of the container. Dampen the soil if it is dry.
Carefully ease your starts out of their nursery containers.
After plants are free, gently loosen the soil around their roots with a hand fork.
Break up any roots that encircle the rootball so they will grow into the container’s soil after planting.
With a trowel, dig planting holes as deep and twice as wide as the starts’ rootballs.
Allow space between plants for root and plant growth. Avoid crowding.
Plant a start in each hole.
Backfill around the plants with potting mix or soil.
Compact the potting mix around each rootball.
Add more soil as necessary to cover the roots completely and stabilize the plants.
Water immediately after planting.
How to Transplant Bedding Plants into Pots
Bedding plants are ready for transplant to pots or planters when they begin to crowd each other in their bedding tray.
Use a narrow trowel, spoon, or popsicle stick to gently lift each seedling from the bedding tray, keeping soil around its roots.
Lift closely planted pairs and keep them together rather than separating them, thinning later as needed.
Fill a pot with potting medium or soil.
Make a central depression the same width and depth as the rootball of the plant.
Place a flower plant into the planting hole, then press down the soil to firmly root the start.
If the soil medium is not enriched with fertilizer, add fertilizer now.
Apply 1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) of 2–5–5 fertilizer to the soil surface around the plant.
Always measure carefully to avoid risk of over-application or foliage burn.
Water the transplant to settle the soil, refresh the flower start, and dissolve and dilute any added fertilizer.
Water daily for the first week, then reduce watering to every other day for another week.
After two weeks, apply water to the soil in the container whenever its surface dries.
After several weeks, the bedding plant starts will be well-established in their pots and will begin to produce flowers.
Flower plants begin forming flower buds about 4–6 weeks after transplant, depending on species.
How to Plant Multiple Flowers in Pots
Protect the container’s drain holes from blockage by covering them with wire-mesh cloth or plastic screen.
Cover the screen with clean coarse sand and pea gravel, pebbles, or pot shards, making a layer 1–2 in. (25–50 mm) thick.
Choose a sterile soil planting medium that meets the flowering plants soil requirements, and and use it to fill the planting container.
Choose a loose-textured mix with at least 50 percent inorganic minerals and fillers that maintain texture and drainage over time.
When using unenriched soil mediums, add starter fertilizer with a 2–5–5 formulation at its package-label recommended rate to the soil in the planting container.
Enriched potting soils state their nutrient content on their packaging.
Mix the fertilizer thoroughly into the planting medium in the container.
Plant the container with nursery starts.
Begin at the edge along one side of the container and set plants into the soil, crossing the container to its other side.
As you place each plant into the soil, press firmly around its rootball to ensure good contact.
Water after planting. Allow soil to absorb the water, and repeat.
How to Mix Different Flower Species in Pots
Place wire-cloth screen across the bottom of the container to protect drains from clogging.
Cover with coarse sand, pea gravel, or broken pottery sherds.
For now, fill the container with potting soil medium, as deep as the plant with the longest roots, plus 1 in. (25 mm).
Lightly compress soil with your fingers.
Final soil level will be 1 in. (25 mm) below container rim.
Compress each plant’s nursery container to loosen the rootball from the container.
Cup the top of each plant’s rootball in your outstretched palm with fingers on each side of the plant’s stem.
Upend the grower container. Gently slip the container off of the plant’s rootball.
Free any entwined or encircling roots.
Beginning with the tallest plants in the center of the container, set the plants atop the compressed soil.
Gently gather these plants’ rootballs together, making a rectangular or diamond-shaped grouping.
Backfill around this first planting group with potting soil medium and firm it with your hands.
Add soil until it is as deep as the next longest rootballs, plus 1 in. (25 mm).
Repeat the process with each group of smaller plants.
Surround the first group with 3 to 5 smaller groups of another flower species.
Gather these plants’ rootballs together as before, placing each plant in each group 1/2-in. (13-mm) apart.
Leave spaces between the new groups.
Backfill soil around the new plant groups.
Add a third or fourth tier until the container is fully planted.
For unenriched potting soil, apply a half-strength mixture of 2–5–5 liquid fertilizer to the container, following the fertilizer’s directions for feeding new plantings.
Thoroughly water the plants and soil, allowing water to drain from the container.
Add more soil if settling occurs.
The tops of each plant’s rootball should be just visible at the soil’s surface.
Planting Hanging Containers With Flowers
Creating a flower garden in a hanging container is quite similar to planting in any other container you might choose. Some hanging containers are closed and sealed.
Others, however, are open and include wire-framed saucers and wicker or woven baskets. These allowing you to add sphagnum moss and plant within it to create “living” baskets of flowers.
Gather your flowering and foliage plants, a rust-resistant wire-form saucer, sphagnum moss, soil medium, sheet plastic, and a hand trowel, then follow these easy steps:
How to Plant Flowers in Hanging Baskets
Assemble all your plants and materials before you begin. Here, an open wire-frame saucer—complete with a hanging chain and sturdy fasteners—will act as the hanging container.
Dampen the spaghnum moss and line the frame with it.
Add a layer of plastic sheet over the moss, cutting or hiding its edges.
To insert plants that will grow through the sides of the container, make small slits in the plastic.
Fill the basket with soil medium over the plastic nearly to its top rim.
Firm the soil by pressing down on it with the flat of your palms.
Select plants with similar root growth habits to avoid crowding the planting.
Open planting holes in the soil with your fingers, just large enough to accommodate each plant.
Set trailing flower or foliage plants around the outside, tall flowering plants in the center.
Insert the rootballs of any side plants through slits you previously prepared.
Hang the planter from a sturdy hook through-bolted to an overhead surface or frame member.
For safety, avoid hanging low planters in traffic areas.
Hanging container plants—from climbers to trailers—will occupy a generous amount of vertical space.
They raise your garden off the ground and place it at eye level.
Warning:
Sphagnum moss contains spores that may cause eye, skin, or throat and lung reactions in some sensitive individuals. Wear a protective mask as a safety precaution when handling this natural moss material.
Hanging containers are heavy. Carefully secure all hangers to prevent fall and shatter hazard.
Hanging containers also may cause head injuries. Place hanging containers above head height or hang them out of paths and other traffic areas where collision is less likely.
Installing Supports for Hanging Containers
Hanging containers of plants with soil and water are heavy and always require sturdy support.
Installing secure and sturdy hangers is a simple task easily performed by every homeowner.
Gather an electronic stud finder, power drill, drill bits, hammer, an expansion anchor fitted with a decorative hooked bolt, and a screwdriver, then follow these easy steps:
How to Install a Hanging Planter Support
Use an electronic stud finder to find the center of a ceiling framing member.
Carefully mark its location.
This wood joist is strong and will easily support your planting container’s hanger hook.
Mount a 1/8-in. (3-mm) wood bit into an electric drill.
Set the drill bit’s tip at the marked spot.
Drill vertically through the ceiling’s drywall or plaster, and into the wooden joist.
Use a hammer to drive the expansion anchor-bolt receiver fitting into the hole. It should fit tightly.
Mount the anchor hook bolt into the expansion receiver fitting in the ceiling joist.
Use a screwdriver or wrench to mount the hook bolt, depending on style.
The expansion fitting will expand as the bolt enters the fitting, gripping the wood.
Hang your plant by attaching its hardware or chain to the installed anchor.
For added safety, secure the plant’s chain to the hook with a clear plastic wire tie.
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