Stirring pots
WAKE YOUR GARDEN FROM ITS WINTER SLUMBER WITH A BLAST OF SPRING CONTAINER COLOUR
STYLISH pots overflowing with beautiful blooms are a great way to brighten up your garden. Done now – or as soon as the weather permits –a spring display will keep going until the last frost has passed, usually mid to late May, and it’s safe to replant the containers with annual bedding to create a summer planting scheme.
Early spring presents many of the same problems as winter when it comes to container gardening. Choose containers that won’t crack if they happen to freeze overnight. Go for goodquality polypropylene plastics, fibreglass or the sort of terracotta or ceramics described as frostproof, or choose wooden tubs and troughs. Since excess rain can also be a problem, make sure they have plenty of drainage holes.
Stand the containers in their final positions, since they’ll be heavy to shift once they’re filled. Raise them up on bricks, stones or pot feet to improve drainage.
Place a double handful of broken crocks, stones or coarse gravel in the base, then half-fill with multipurpose compost.
If the same container has previously been used for a winter display, you can reuse the original compost as long as there is lots of drainage material in the base.
Buy pot-grown spring bedding plants in small three-inch pots. Choose from polyanthus, spring bulbs, violas, wallflowers, turban buttercups (ranunculus), double bellis daisies and forgetme-nots.
Not all of these are available right from the start of the season, but more varieties will become available as the weeks progress.
Water the plants well at first, especially if the compost seems dry. Choose enough plants to fill the container fairly generously – they won’t grow much more now so the display needs to look finished straight away.
Stand the pots in place inside the part-filled container – they should be almost touching each other – and keep rearranging until you like the overall effect.
Add a ring of ivies, euonymus, dwarf box or some similar small foliage plants to create a leafy frill around the edge, for a more formal look, if required.
The rims of the small pots should come to roughly half an inch below the rim of the new container.
Add or subtract compost to bring them to the right level, then use more to fill the gaps between the pots and just bury the rims.
Firm it down gently so that it supports the pots and holds the plants upright and top up if you need to. Then water just enough to make the compost uniformly moist. You shouldn’t be able to see the pots.
Check every few days to see if water is needed. At the same time, nip off dead flowers and any yellowing, brown or damaged leaves.
When the first few plants come to the end of their spring display, gently lift them out. If you can, lift each plant out of its pot, leaving the pot in place. Then replace it with a new plant that simply sits inside the vacant pot, without disturbing the rest of the display. Keep doing this as long as you want to keep your spring containers going.
It’s an easy and economical way to keep a container looking good without having to tip it all out.
Don’t start feeding spring container displays until the weather has turned milder. A weak dose of well-watered-down liquid feed then will help violas and other longer-lasting spring bedding plants to keep reflowering, and you should have a lovely show from your containers all through the spring.
Water the plants well at first, especially if the compost seems dry. Choose enough plants to fill the container fairly generously – they won’t grow much more now so the display needs to look finished straight away.