The minute spring weather arrives, most of us rush outside to plant our container gardens. We carefully select thrillers, spillers, and fillers and look forward to a stunning summer. Well, the growing season in the South is a long one, and even the best thrillers get tired, the spillers get leggy, and the fillers sometimes disappear. Your container garden needs a refresh. Here are some tips to bring some life back into your container garden without starting over, and how they can be refreshed to take them into our slightly cooler fall weather.
Give Plants A Midsummer Trim
Even if you have been regularly deadheading or removing spent flowers from container bloomers, a more aggressive trim will bring on a second flush of blooms. The plants will look bare for about two weeks, but will rebound looking thicker, healthier, and filled with flowers. Use sharp, clean garden pruners to remove about one-third of the height of the plant in the early morning after a thorough watering. Annuals such as petunias, zinnias, marigolds, salvias, and impatiens should keep blooming until the first frost or until you are ready to switch out the plants for fall and winter.
Pay More Attention to Watering
As plants grow and temperatures increase, container gardens need more water than you probably think. This is especially true if the container is in full sun and made from a porous material like concrete or terra cotta (glazed and plastic pots retain moisture longer). Check the moisture level of the soil more often because you may need to water twice per day. Don’t forget to replace or add mulch to help slow moisture evaporation.
Do A Container Shuffle
To ease the demands of watering, consider moving some containers out of full sun locations and into areas of dappled shade. This could be under a tree, a less sunny porch corner, or under a patio umbrella to deflect the hottest times of the day.
Give Plants A Nutrient Boost
If you added a slow-release fertilizer to the soil when you planted the container in the spring, it is probably depleted by now from the plants’ fast summer growth or the many waterings containers require. Using a water-soluble fertilizer with an NPK ratio of 15-30-15 will give the plants a boost of the phosphorus needed to help your flowers start producing buds and blossoms again. Always water the container well before adding liquid or granular fertilizer to avoid burning the roots.
Make Some Breathing Room
We all want to create an immediate impact in containers and often overcrowd plants so the container looks full and lush. By midsummer, this can be a problem with the root systems of each plant crowding each other. Once the roots are crowded, the showy parts of the plants will suffer from fewer blooms and stunted growth. The easy solution is to remove the most vigorously growing plants to give the rest a fighting chance. Repot the removed plants, if you’d like, and give the remaining plants a boost of nutrients and some fresh potting soil. Water well, and you should see the remaining plants in the container perk up and thrive now that they have some breathing room.
Replace Old Plants
Replacing some of the plants in your containers will give them an entirely new look. The replacements can be annuals or perennials that can take you into fall. Pay attention to the temperatures in your area; there may be a nighttime nip in the air in the upper South, while most Southern states don’t see real heat relief until late October (if then).
Trade Flowers For Bold Foliage Plants
Swap tired warm-season flowers for richly colored foliage plants. Coleus, Artemisia, Persian shield (Strobilanthes auriculata var. dyerianas), Rex type begonia, and Amaranthus tricolor provide an interesting or brightly colored boost to containers.
Add An Ornamental Grass
An ornamental grass adds movement and contrast to plants. Purple fountain grass (Cenchrus setaceus) is a good choice. This dramatic ornamental grass has a vase-like shape topped with fuzzy purple seed heads that will continue to look striking throughout fall.
Go For Texture
To fill in spots if you have removed plants or are waiting for tired plants to perk up after their trim, add some texture with dried curly willow branches, ornamental seed pods like lotus pods, or even your favorite moss-covered concrete critter.
Add Late-Blooming Perennials
Late-summer and fall-blooming perennials such as coneflowers (Echinacea spp., black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta), or heirloom chrysanthemums can transform existing container displays.
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