7 Thoughts on Gardening Pots

One of the biggest things I do in my landscaping is to make maximum use of gardening pots for container gardening. Not just any pots will do in my garden and here’s how I use them all.

Big Displays

Let’s be honest here – bigger is better. 🙂

Pot Construction

Clay pots. When it comes to outstanding looks in the garden, I tend towards large clay pots. These work well for me and I get great growth out of the clay. Water drainage is better than plastic and the pots tend to be cooler in the summer.

Plastic hold water better than clay so don’t drain as well. I prefer the extra drainage so I can move water and food to the plants easily. Given I don’t “leave home” very often in the summer, I’m around to water my clay gardening pots.

Concrete A lot of folks like the use of concrete pots as they’re durable and are tough to knock over in the garden. I’ve had one of these urns (at one time) and found while they didn’t blow over, they weren’t overly large-sized for growing plants given the size of the urn (in other words, the urn is large but the side walls are thick and there’s not as much room for plant roots as you might think.

Wood grows a good plant and looks attractive in the garden as well. Use cedar to prolong its life.

My Favorite Pots

My favorites are clay pots, the bigger the better. And yes, I know they’re heavy and break but there’s still nothing nicer in the garden than old clay pots with flowers spilling over the edges.

But if you want…

Even Bigger Displays

This is where we start to see huge plastic and fibreglass pots come to their own. The larger sizes of this kind of pot makes both the construction and handling of the clay pot difficult.

For Growing In

I used to use a lot of small clay pots for specific specialty plants and propagation but I’ve pretty much switched to plastic pots. I recycle from year to year and never purchase any but add to my collection from purchased plants. When they crack, I toss them into recycling.

These are easy to grow in and transplant out of (the clay tends to “grab” onto the soil) when you grow as many plants as I do, every little bit helps.

Hanging Baskets

This is my pet peeve when it comes to gardening pots. I absolutely hate the cheap plastic baskets commonly sold in garden centers. If you want a good display of hanging container plants, then use a wire-basket with peat or coco-liner (line that with an old bit of plastic for serious water-holding improvement) and grow a garden. Small plastic pots heat up too much and stress on the plants is inevitable.

Novelty

And yes, I know there’s a place for whimsy in the garden but I confess I’ve never gone there.

That’s my take on gardening pots – agree or disagree as you will – in my own garden.

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