You’ll be motivated by these container garden ideas to fill your outdoor and even indoor spaces with containers that showcase veggies, flowers, or herbs. You can create green gardens on your balcony and in your rooms if you don’t have a yard. In addition to its aesthetic appeal, container gardens are incredibly simple to establish, requiring only a container, potting soil, and your preferred plants.
The process of creating these simple, beginner-friendly container gardens will just take an hour or two of your time. You’ll discover that they require little care to remain beautiful and are easy to maintain.
What Plants to Grow in Containers
Vegetables, annual and perennial flowers, herbs, ornamental shrubs, and even trees can be grown in containers.
With container gardening, you can venture outside your hardiness zone. Perennials that wouldn’t survive in-ground in your area can be brought inside to overwinter and be enjoyed again next year. Even citrus trees can be successfully grown in large pots.
For flowers, follow the advice of using a thriller, a filler, and a spiller when planning your pots. Vegetables can follow the same pattern; pair tomato and thyme plants with a cucumber spilling over the side.
Container Gardening Tips for Beginners
Although growing in pots is simple and reasonably priced, there are a few things you should know before starting any container garden.
1. Use the right potting mix.
Professionals occasionally mix their own potting soil, but if you’re a novice, buy a high-quality bagged mix and let them do it. To keep the mix loose and aerated, look for one made especially for pots; it typically contains perlite, compost, and other ingredients.
2. Never use soil from your yard.
Even while many plants thrive in the soil of your garden, that doesn’t ensure they’ll do well in containers. In a container and with regular watering, garden soil compacts rapidly. Compacted soil has inadequate aeration (yes, roots need to breathe), poor drainage, and difficulty penetrating. Use only container-grade potting mix.
3. Drainage is a must.
Poor soil is the main cause of container planting failure, followed closely by inadequate drainage. Some pots lack holes for drainage. Before being used as a planter, do-it-yourself pots or containers—such as that old watering can you found at the flea market—usually require holes to be drilled in them.
Plant roots cannot breathe if there is too much water remaining in the root zone; they also require oxygen. Additionally, anaerobic conditions produced by soggy soil kill off beneficial bacteria and encourage the growth of dangerous ones. Root rot is frequently caused by prolonged periods of excessive soil moisture.
4. Water your container garden correctly
Plants’ roots in containers can’t search out water sources. We have to meet the plants’ watering needs. Many problems in the garden can be traced back to incorrect watering—either not enough or too much water.