Talk about your container plantings.

In My Humble Opinion
1

OK, I have a long history of killing anything that grows in a pot.

However, my front yard (with stuff planted in the ground) has been doing great this year, and I’ve kept a plant in my office going for a while now. And I’d been looking sorrowfully at my broke-dick back deck and stacked clay pots filled only with ghosts from plants past and I decided to do something about it.

So. . .with a nice sale going on at a local nursery, I’ve recently purchased a miniature cypress, and a small pine tree. I put them in some old bonsai pots that had trees in them (that I killed)

I also purchased a slow-growing “umbrella pine”. This is a half-decent picture of one. They’re pricey, but this one was 50% off, and very cool. It’s in a big clay, glazed pot.

Finally, I got an orange tree, also 50% off. It says “semi-dawrf” on it and also says “mandarin orange” and “clementine” on it, so I don’t know what it’s going to do. It’s in a good size terra cotta type clay pot.

I’m not a big “perennial” or “annual” guy. I typically like shrubs and trees and grasses.

So, I’m trying to do things right this time.

Questions:

Should I have added “crud” (broken pots, gravel, whatever) to the bottom of the pots before planting? They say this helps the drainage. With the small pots, I definitely get drainage out the bottom, so I’m not concerned there, but with the big pots, it’s just one little hole at the bottom of a big pot and they don’t drain. I’ve tried to feel down in there, and it’s really mucky & muddy in the bottom and never seem to dry out, but the top 2/3rds of the pots are all right – it gets moist when I water, but dries out when I don’t water. Do want the whole pot this way? Is that even possible?

If I didn’t add that “crud”, is it SO vital that I should take the plants out and re-do it?

Also, I let the soil dry out a bit about once a week, but mostly I’ve been keeping it in the “moist to wet” range. Do you let your soil really dry out between waterings? Does it make a difference if the stuff is newly planted as opposed to established?

If I want to move one of these plants to another pot, what’s the best time of year?

In the winter, I plan to move all the containers UNDER my back deck, and make a curtain out of thick clear plastic. I plan to basically put all of the pots into a big box, and surround them with mulch.

But, the orange tree they say not to let it freeze, and recommend bringing it inside. You think the “burying in mulch” strategy is sufficient? Is the worry with the roots freezing, or the tree itself freezing?

OK, that’s a butt-load of questions. They’re all over the place because my thoughts aren’t really focussed on the issue. Trying not to kill a plant still feels like a high-wire balancing act to me. . .like if one thing goes out of whack for any period of time, that’s it. Dead plant. There is nothing I’m anal about like I’m anal about these containers I’m trying to keep going.

Thanks for any specific answers, or general advice about container plants. Also, would like to hear about what you have planted and your technique.

2

If the pots have drainage holes, you don’t really need to add crud, although it may keep soil from washing out of the holes and getting your deck dirty.

Probably more important than the crud, especially if your previous plants died therein, is to sterilize the pots, and that IS worth knocking the plants out and doing. Wash the pots out with a 10% bleach solution to get rid of any viruses or other pathogens that might have had a role in the demise of the others.

I’m too lazy to look up a USDA zone map for Baltimore, but I’m guessing Zone 7? You should be fine burying your pots in mulch. For the things that are hardy in your zone, you need to protect the roots from freezing and what’s above ground from wind, which can dry things out to the point of killing them, but under a deck I don’t think that’ll be a problem.

As far as watering goes, one important thing is to not let the pots sit in water, if you have something under the pots. Water, wait 15 minutes or so, then dump the tray out. If it’s really muddy and mucky in the bottom of the pot, that’s not good. Overwatering is a common cause of plants croaking, because the roots rot.

If you want to repot, do it in spring before the plants break dormancy, or in early fall so they have a chance to get reestablished before they go dormant.

3

One thing that trips me up about that is that it seems like if I wait until the bottom dries out (which would take a few days even in this weather) the top becomes bone dry.

Also, the real mucky part seems to be beneath where the roots end. There’s quite a bit of soil beneath the bottom of the rootball in both of the big containers.

Isn’t taking it out of the nursery container and putting it in my container also considered REPOTTING? Soesn’t everybody do that?

Should I keep it in the nursery container until a good repotting time? (it’s too late now, but for future reference)

4

I’d be more concerned about mucky on the bottom than bone dry on the top, though. What kind of soil is in the pots? That could be contributing to the drainage issue. What you DON’T want is what is commonly sold as “potting soil,” that really fine, black stuff. Get something specifically sold as a container mix.

It’ll be OK to move them out of their nursery containers once we’re through this awful heat wave. Late summer/early fall is a good time for planting shrubs and trees.

5

I started them out in a pot with the “potting soil” stuff you’re talking about. It definitely seems to muck up and not drain so well. See, that stuff is all right in a smaller pot but I think in the bigger pot, it maybe becomes compacted at the bottom and doesn’t drain anymore.

The latest bag I bought was this stuff called “soil-less soil” or something like that and it seems to drain better.

It sounds like you’d recommend going exclusively with that, maybe even to the point of RE-repotting them to get them in it.

6

Instead of using crud or shards, buy a bag of hydroton,very light absorbant expanded clay pebbles. They are great as bottom layer in pots. I filled the containers on my balcony up to one-third with clay pebbles and two-thirds black soil. The pebbles prevent soil from washing out, or getting too dry or too wet. Besides, the containers aren’t so bloody heavy when you have to move them around. Hydroton is the dummies-solution to gardening with potted plants.

7

Yup, the soilless mix is what you want.

The stuff Maastricht mentions sounds good, too, although, one summer, when we had to create a boatload of container gardens for an event and workshop, we just put broken up chunks of packing styrofoam (like what comes around a TV or something) in the bottoms of the pots so they wouldn’t be so heavy.