A carefully placed garden pot can also bring your garden up off the ground and splits it into multiple levels making your garden more interesting to the eye. Even more, some pots can be hung from a patio ceiling or a tree branch to give a greater impression of height. All this adds interest to your garden. And with the many different options of shapes that pots come in, your garden will really come to life visually. Try to pick out plant colors that will complement the colors you chose for your pots. Larger bright colored pots placed farther back can really add a boldness to your garden. And neutral colored pots will accept almost any colored plant.

Large single pots make perfect focal points.

Be careful not to overstuff the pots with too many kinds of plants. Try to limit each to three to five different kinds depending on the size of the pot.

Every garden pot should have a hole in the bottom for drainage. If not, the roots of your plants can become waterlogged. For unglazed clay pots, you should brush the insides of the pot with a waterproofing sealant. This will help to keep the pot from absorbing all the moisture out of the soil and will also protect the pot from too much water.

Another advantage of using garden pots is portability. Pots can be easily rearranged or even brought inside if the pot is small enough. Make sure to bring ceramic pots indoors during the cold of winter as they will crack. So with a few garden pots, you can easily bring a tired garden back to life.

Proper Watering

It’s just as important not to underwater as it is not to over water. To catch any extra water and keep it from rotting your patio or deck, most garden pots will have a saucer or bowl placed underneath. You should try to water your container garden by filling up the saucers. This is the best way to water as it help you avoid over watering and spilling the water over the top of the saucer. By doing this, the water will feed the roots of your plants by seeping up through the hole in the bottom of the garden pot.

You can also choose to water your plants on the top surface. If so, make sure to fill it a little at a time (about a cup or so) and keep an eye on how much water ends up in the saucer. Its best not to overfill the saucer. Your plants will always welcome a fresh spray of water from a hand sprayer. If you have really hard water from your sink, use bottled or rain water so calcium won’t build up on the leaves.

Nourishment For Your Plants

The nutrients in most potting soils don’t last much more than five or six weeks since garden pots are generally small. So, vital nutrients will need to be replenished. Plant food, for the most part, comes in granular and liquid forms. Since they last a long time and keep a steady supply of food going to the plants, slow-release granules are recommended.

Pest Control

Systemic and Contact are the two main types of insecticides. Systemic is poured right onto the soil and is then absorbed into the soil to the root system of the plant and right on up through the leaves. This type of insecticide works best for bugs under the soil that are hard to get to and for leaf eaters as they ingest the poison when they eat the leaves.

The next type of insecticide is the contact type which is sprayed directly onto the insects. It should work rather quickly but you might have to repeat the application after a few days depending on the amount of infestation is going on.

You are sure to have a thriving container garden with a small amount of monitoring and loving care.

You start with a large sized terracotta or stone bowl as your garden pot foundation. This will be the basin pot where the overflowing water will fall. Drill a hole out of the bottom center of the bowl if there isn’t one already. Now take the cord from your pump and run it through the hole. For larger holes, cover with duct tape and fill with a car body filler. Smaller holes can be filled in with silicon. When that has dried, coat the inside with a water sealant. Now you should be ready to place the basin in your desired location. Although not crucial, try to make the basin as level as possible.

The base is a pot that is turned upside down and houses the pump. Choose a pot that has a base diameter the same as the base diameter of the main fountain pot. Soak the pot overnight in water. This helps make it easier to cut notches around the top rim of the pot. These notches allow water to come in that gets pumped up through the fountain tube.

Cut a piece of tubing about a foot longer than the height of the fountain pot. Attach this to the pump. Now feed the base pot down over the tube through the hole in the bottom of the pot. Seal the gap around the tube with more silicon. Now you should have your basin with an upside down pot sitting in the middle of it with a pump inside and the tube sticking out the top of the base pot.

Now take your fountain pot and test fit it by feeding it down over the tube and placing it on top of the base pot. If everything looks good (it should be plumb and level with the tube sticking out the top higher than the height of the pot) you can take off the fountain pot and run two thick beads of silicon around the top of the base pot. Run one bead towards the outside to help hold the pots together and one on the inside to keep water from running in between the two pots.

When it is all dry, test it by filling it with water. Adjust the height of the tubing to get the desired effect of the water bubbling up. Finish it off by filling the bottom basin pot with rocks. Enjoy your beautiful fountain!

If you want to intentionally draw the eye to a particular spot, don’t be afraid to use a bolder color (such as deep red). By placing brightly colored flowers in and around the pot, you will also help it to blend in. Image if you had an all green garden with a big bright yellow pot stuck in the middle. All your focus would be pointed at the pot and not the plants.

Another way to use garden pots is to clump small to mid-sized pots together into groups. This will also draw your eye to these areas. You will have a lot of flexibility with grouped pots. You can use different sizes, shapes and colors to make a drab area more interesting. To blend in the group, the same techniques used for a large garden pot applies. Be sure to plant in between the pots as well.

If you happen to have a large garden pot that is cracked on the bottom, you can either cut the bottom off with a hand-held tile cutter or dig a hole large enough to accommodate the pot and stick the pot in so it is buried half way into the ground. This is a good way to add a mid level to your garden which can lead the eye from taller pots to lower ground cover.