Planting a Container Garden

The sun came out yesterday.  It was glorious.

As it smiled away in its blue sky perch, the world seemed to come to life.  The grass was greener, the birds chirped away, and new flowers seemed to pop up everywhere.

It made me anxious to dust off my green thumb and dig in a little dirt…

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Last year, I discovered there’s an itty bitty window of opportunity to buy beautiful flower plants at their itty bitty baby stage…

And they are so inexpensive!

Because the sun was out and I had flowers on the brain, we decided to make a quick stop at our local Canadian Tire after church yesterday to see if the babies were in.

They were!

I wasted no time grabbing a cart to put together an assortment for our 2 outside flower containers.

I must say, though, that there were LOTS of decisions to make.  What colors?  How many?…

And, sadly, my indecision made us miss a ferry…

Oops!  (But having time for coffee and a muffin was fun!)

Once home, I headed to the greenhouse to put my babies in their happy new home right away.

Here’s how I planted our container flower gardens:

1.  If your container is large, place an upside down pot with holes in the bottom of the container.  This will fill up some space, help with drainage, and you’ll conserve on potting soil.  Also, the containers won’t be as heavy to move when you do this.

2.  Pour in some potting soil and sprinkle on some slow release plant food.  Once sprinkled on, stir it into the soil with your garden trowel.

{I’m not exactly sure if this is the right plant food.  Should it be a 10-10-10 mix???  Maybe some of you gardeners can help me out.}

3.  Play around with the arrangement of the plants until you’re happy with the look.  I try to balance it out by putting the taller plants near the back, and trailing ones around the edges.

4.  Dig a little hole with your garden trowel, dump the plant out into your hand, and press it firmly into the hole – packing dirt down tightly on the top.  Once they’re all planted, give them a nice little drink of water.

At this stage, they must be kept in a warm greenhouse, as it’s still too cold to put them outside.

Although they look so small and sad in these big containers right now, it’s amazing how quickly they’ll grow.

Now I need to make sure they’re watered regularly and give them a little plant food once a week.

I’ll give you a progress report later on…

Hopefully it’s a good one!