How to Choose Outdoor Plant Containers for Low Maintenance Gardening
People who live somewhere with a lot of open space may have space to scatter and plant a garden in the ground – rather than being limited to planters like city dwellers – but container gardening itself has some benefits. In fact, if you choose the right (and right) plants, your garden and open space can get pretty unpretentious.
In an article for Livingetc, Sarah Wilson shares some tips for choosing the best (and by that we mean the easiest) planters. Here’s what you need to know.
Get big
Leave the smaller pots inside, Wilson says :
Pick the largest pots you can find and group them together. Watering and cleaning is not only a spectacular statement, but it’s all in one place. Another benefit of this simple, low maintenance garden idea is that only so many plants can be grown in a pot, which means less pruning.
And that’s not all. The larger the container for plants, the less time for watering. Per Wilson:
Water thoroughly once a week, rather than watering often and little by little, which encourages the roots to stay close to the surface where they dry out more quickly. Instead, they drill deeper to find moisture. Applying a thick organic mulch around the base of the plants in spring also helps to retain moisture.
Choose low maintenance planters
Plant maintenance is one thing, but some types of planters require maintenance themselves. Wilson advises staying away from those:
Always choose containers that you can plant and then forget. Avoid wood, which requires regular maintenance, as well as pottery and terracotta, which can become a nightmare in the winter frost as they can crack.
Other low maintenance container options include:
- Weather-resistant resin (similar to porcelain stoneware)
- Recycled polypropylene
- Fiber cotta (a mixture of fiberglass and clay)
- Old metals such as zinc
- Weather resistant steel