Choosing the Best Soil for Your Container Garden: 3 Must-Have Types

Looking to start a container garden? In this video, I’ll guide you through the 3 must-have types of soil that will give your plants the best foundation for healthy growth. Whether you’re growing flowers, vegetables, or herbs, choosing the right soil is key to success. Watch now for expert tips and recommendations!

______

🌿 Other Videos You Might Enjoy Watching 🌿:

▶️ Balcony Gardening For Beginners
https://shorturl.at/kpHog

▶️ Check Out My Summer Bulbs Playlist
https://rb.gy/lvqf9q

______

🍀Follow me elsewhere 🍀:

👉Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/17m2garden/

👉YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/17m2garden

______

🌿 SHOP MY FAVOURITE GARDENING ITEMS 🌿

https://www.amazon.fr/shop/17m2garden

______

🌿Plant Care Products I use 🌿

Plagron “Lightmix” https://amzn.to/3PU277u

Plagron ‘”Alga Grow” https://amzn.to/46Qm8CG

Plagron “Alga Bloom” https://amzn.to/46R3xq3

Plagron “Power Roots” https://amzn.to/3ZUGbh3

Plagron “Green Sensation” https://amzn.to/3Fi0pYK

Plagron “Mega Worm” https://amzn.to/3S4ahwZ

* These links are affiliated, which means that if you make a purchase, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. I appreciate your support!

Choosing the Best Soil for Your Container Garden: 3 Must-Have Types
______
#urbangarden #containergarden #pottingsoil

Hi friends, welcome back to the 17 square meters garden. I’m Dominica if you’re new here. I literally just came back from shopping. As you can tell, I stocked up on some potting soil for my container garden for this year. And I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to show you what I use in my garden, how I use it, how I mix it, how I reuse it as well, and how I plant different types of plants. So, right from the start, I’m going to tell you I keep it pretty simple in my garden and I only use three types of soil. Now, that may seem uh like a lot perhaps to some, but in my garden, I grow pretty much every type of plant from annual flowers, perennial flowers, and that includes bulbs and tubers and tropical plants. I grow shrubs, I grow climbers, I grow trees, conifers included. Um, I grow both edible and ornamental plants. So, for all of those different types of plants, I use three types of soil. Um, now, if you don’t grow um as many different types of plants in your container garden, perhaps you will not need as many types of soil. But today, I want to show you what I use and how I use it. So, that if you are new to container gardening, perhaps you can learn something new, something interesting from this video uh that will help you make better decision for yourself, for your plants, and for your container garden. All right. All right. So, the first thing that I want to show you today, and now this is not a type of soil just yet, but I have to show you this first because this is basically the base of my container garden. Organic matter. I always, always, always use organic matter. Every single plant in my container garden is planted with organic matter. Whenever I plant something new, I always mix organic matter with the potting soil. For my older plants, I add a couple of handfuls of organic matter on top of soil as mulch, but I always use organic matter in my container garden. Now, there are different types of organic matter. There is compost, humus, worm castings, um bad guano, different types of manure, leaf mold. They are all great. They all have some unique benefits, but whatever type you use is going to be awesome. I really cannot recommend you enough to use organic matter in your container garden because it just has so many incredible benefits. Uh first of all, it helps you to retain moisture in the soil. So if you are someone who has to water your plants twice a day in the heat of summer, you could definitely use some organic matter to help you retain moisture and prevent the soil from drying out. Uh it also helps to retain nutrients in the soil because as you water the more you water and the more it rains the nutrients are being leeched out, washed out of the soil. So organic matter helps you keep the nutrients in the soil so that your plants have all that they need to grow and to develop properly. Organic matter is also full of microorganisms. So all of those beneficial soil organisms like beneficial bacteria, beneficial fungi that protect your plant from pathogens, help your plant absorb nutrients from the soil, and just generally live in symbiotic relation with your plant and help your plant thrive. So so many incredible benefits in one single bag. Um, and the best part is that you don’t even have to buy it. You can totally make your own. You can make your own compost in your balcony garden. I like to make my own leaf mold because I get a ton of leaves in my garden in the fall. I collect them all, put them in a plastic bag, let them decompose, and usually by the end of summer, I have some beautiful leaf mold to use in my garden. All right, so let’s talk about actual potting soil. The first type of potting soil I use in my garden is a multi-purpose potting mix. I like those with added perlite because perlite is a mineral that helps to arrate the soil, helps to distribute water throughout the soil. Um, you can buy it separately. If you don’t like perlite, you can substitute it for grid or for sand. But I like to buy a multi-purpix that already contains perlite. And I do have a preference. I always buy light mix by Playground, but the store I usually buy it from did not have it in stock, so they gave me something similar. But multi-purpose potting mix is a potting mix that you will probably use the most in your garden because it’s a very lightweight substrate. It has a really good arration because it’s lightweight, it’s fluffy, it drains quickly, it doesn’t hold on to too much moisture. So, it makes it a great choice for annual flowers, perennial flowers, bulbs, any seasonal plantings, hanging baskets, railing planters. You can plant your seedlings in it. You can output your seedlings to multi-purpose potting mix. It’s also a great choice for your vegetable garden. So, overall, a universal lightweight substrate. Now, there are ton of different multi-purpose and universal potting mixes available on the market. And they are obviously not all the same quality. So, to find a good quality multi-purpose substrate. I personally don’t recommend going to the garden center. In my experience, and at least here where I live, gardener centers don’t really carry good quality substrates. I usually buy my multi-purpose potting mixes from like those small grows, like small specialty shops that sell uh good quality products for your garden. And those potting mixes in those grow shops are not more expensive than they are in the garden centers, but they are signific significantly better quality. Uh you can also order online or you can go to your local nursery. Often times local nurseries, they um carry professional uh quality blends that they use themselves and they also sell to their customers. The second type of soil I use in my garden is garden soil. Now you can buy bagged garden soil in most places that sell plants. Uh but obviously in different countries it may be sold under different names but what you want to search for is either garden soil, top soil, lomb based compost, lom soil, um Johnniness number three, uh raised bed mix. Usually those contain actual garden soil and garden soil has some pretty incredible uh capacities. First of all, it holds on to more moisture. It also holds on to nutrients and it is significantly heavier than multi-purpose potting mix. Uh but that’s an advantage because this is a great choice for larger plants, taller plants, um shrubs, trees, climbers, these plants that can use a little bit more anchorage. Uh plants that like slightly more water retentive soil and plants that like nutrientdense soil. Um but pure garden soil will be too heavy. it will compact too easily. So, you have to mix it with something else. So, you can mix it either with multi-purpose potting mix or with compost. That’s what I do in my garden. And you can switch that ratio up of garden soil and multi-purpose potting mix. You can go 50/50, you can go 7030 depending on uh what you want to achieve as your final potting mix. Okay. And the last type of soil I use in my garden, unfortunately I don’t have it with me right now because I didn’t need to buy it at this moment, but I do use it a lot in my garden. And that is irriacious soil. Ericious soil is an acidic soil for plants that like low pH. Plants like blueberries, chameleas, rodendrons, aalas, heathers, and heats. Even roses and Japanese maples like their soil slightly acidic. If you plant any of the acidloving plants in any random potting mix that has neutral or high pH, um they will probably live for a few months and then they will die of starvation. At first you may see that your plant is not doing well. You may start to see some signs of chlorosis and then eventually the plants dies of starvation. And that’s because at high soil pH certain nutrients like boron, manganese and especially iron they become unavailable. So they may be still present in the soil or you may be adding for example if you see chlorosis you may be adding some iron supplement but it’s not going to work unless the soil is low pH but because at high pH those minerals those nutrients are being locked up and your plants cannot use it. So if you grow any acid loving plants you need to plant them in aricacious soil soil that has low pH. So these are the three types of potting soil I use in my garden. Now, last thing that I want to tell you today is how I reuse soil in my container garden. And to keep it simple, I’m going to show you a good example of when I reuse the soil and when I don’t reuse soil in my container garden. So, first I’m going to show you a good example of how I reuse and repurpose soil in my garden. So, as you can see here, for now, we have these beautiful crocus pige blooming at the moment. But let’s go back to last spring. Last spring, I had empty containers. I filled them up with multi-purpose potting mix. And by late spring, I planted snapdragons that I grew from seeds. These snapdragons uh were grown in these pots all summer long. And by the end of summer, when they were done blooming, I pulled them out. So, inevitably, as I pulled them out, I removed a little bit of soil, but there was still plenty of soil remaining. The soil was still good quality. It was still nice and crumbly. So, I just added a few handfuls of fresh multi-purpose potting mix, and I planted my balagna. So, now we are spring 2025. Balazagna is starting to bloom. Uh, I have three layers of bulbs. So, they will be done blooming by late spring, early summer. So, in early summer, I will probably pull the bulbs out. I will see how much soil I have left and then I will just refill the containers with fresh soil. So, if there’s no need to get rid of the soil, I don’t. I just keep the remains in the container and then just add fresh soil and fresh compost into it. Two examples of when I don’t reuse soil. First, I don’t reuse soil if I had any soil born pest problem. As you can see here, I have this little tiaraella. This plant was three times bigger last year, but by the end of summer, it was attacked by the by vinewevil grubs. So, vinewevil grubs, they are in the soil. They eat the roots of your plant. So, when you repot your plants, you have to get rid of every bit of the soil because there’s always a risk that there is more of them or that there’s more eggs that could potentially hatch and still harm your plant. So, if you had any soilborn pest problem, uh I highly recommend to get rid of the soil. I also like to start with fresh potting mix in my railing planters, in any seasonal planters, hanging baskets and stuff like that. Um, that’s because when I plant these planters, I usually plant them twice a year. So, I planted this in October to provide interest in the winter, in the spring. We have spring bulbs here. We have daffodil. We have pansies. So, I will probably be switching this up to summer planters in May. Um, so when I plant summer planters, I want the potting soil to be very water retentive because obviously I don’t want to be out here watering my plants twice a day. So for summer annuals, I need this potting mix to be very water retentive. But then when I plant them in the fall for winter and spring, I want the opposite. I do not want this potting mix to be water retentive because that could cause my bulbs and my plants to rot. So I want this potting soil to be very uh well draining. So, for practical reasons, I switch the potting mix here twice a year when I switch my compositions. All right, guys. I hope that you found this video helpful. Uh, if you did, I would appreciate if you could leave it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel for more container gardening content. If you enjoyed this video, I will pop some other ones on the screen that you can watch uh between now and my next upload. Thanks so much for spending some time in the garden with me today. We will see each other in the next