Container Gardens are a Popular Choice for Novice Gardeners

“Container gardens are great for beginning gardeners, people who have limited space or anyone who wants to dress up their porch or patio.” – GardenDesign.com 

Quarantine restrictions have increased the popularity of at home gardens – especially container gardens. They’re often considered great for beginners with little risk, less demanding on people’s schedules and often produce quicker results than planting in the ground.

Gardening provides an ever-anxious society with calm and support. Plus, nurturing and cultivating plants during times of isolation helps ease tension when things feel beyond our control.

Just how popular have container gardens become? The Daily Green states that U.S. consumers now spend $1.3 billion dollars on container gardens.

HC has been cranking out decorative pots by the thousands to satisfy today’s insatiable appetite for container gardens. But novice gardeners not only need a beautiful container, they need information and education on how best to care for container gardens during every stage of cultivation.

Container Gardening Tips from HC Companies

While we’re happy to provide the growing medium, we thought it also appropriate to include some tried and true information to help transform your HC decorative container into a container garden success!

Make sure your container has enough drainage
While this typically isn’t an issue with an HC container, some pots simply don’t have enough drainage holes. Remember, if the soil becomes too wet and has nowhere to escape, your plants will develop root rot and eventually will die.

Evaluate your lighting
Before you step foot inside a home improvement store or garden center, make sure you know where your container garden will live. Determine if the plant will get full sun, part sun or no sun at all and purchase your plants accordingly.

Plants need food
Container gardens might look easy enough, and they are compared to gardening out in the elements, but they require fertilization in order to thrive. Slow release fertilizers applied to the soil help provide your plants with the necessary nutrients they need. Make sure you read the back of the package to make sure the fertilizer is right for your chosen plants.

Save your plant tags
The chances of you remembering the name of your plant, the light requirements and other specifications is doubtful. Therefore, save all your plant tags so you’ll always be able to go back and refer to them later. Some people like to keep them stuck directly inside the plant, while others simply store them in a plastic bag tucked in a kitchen drawer.

Familiarize your plants with their new location
Plants don’t like abrupt changes to their environment. Changes to light, water and temperature can spell disaster for your new plants. For container gardens, once your plants are home give them a few days to get used to their new surroundings. Then you can go ahead and plant them in their new container. Remember, water them gently and gradually at first.

Fill your containers with actual soil
Many people believe you can fill containers with packing peanuts or empty water bottles to lessen the amount of soil that’s required. But the less soil you have the quicker it will dry out. Proper drainage only occurs when your container is filled throughout with soil, so the roots can draw on it when necessary. That goes for nutrients as well.