Refreshing Potted Perennial Plants In My Container Garden!

This is how I refresh the potted perennials in my garden! I’ve been using this method since 2020 and my plant still grow great in their original pots.

Let me know what else you add to your potted perennials in the comments below!

~ Mentioned in the Video ~
Refreshing used potting soil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcyVAc5n82c
Fertilizing my garden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDIhRmN34dA
Hands On gloves: https://amzn.to/3P7vqUy

Hey everyone I am back out on my front deck Garden for another beautiful weather day although it’s a little bit windy more so up here than it is down at ground level but today what I’m going to do is refresh my potted perennials so I already showed you in a different video

How I refresh the potting soil that I empty out of my pots at the end of the garden season I’ll link that down below in case you missed it what I’m doing today is refreshing the soil in my potted plants that are staying in those pots so I don’t ever unless I’m upsizing

A plant I don’t ever take it out of the pot completely and replace all the soil and the plants I’m going to show you today are in the largest size pot that they are going to be in so either they live happily in the pots that I give

Them or they’re getting kicked out of the garden and for most of these plants I think they’ve been here again since like 2020 2021 and they’ve been doing great with this method so I’m going to continue to do it until it ever stops working so let me take you around I’ll

Show you which plants I’m going to refresh today and then I’ll show you the process that I do I’m going to start with this raspberry bush which I just pruned with you in another video and then I have my other raspberry bush right there I’ll probably do this with my strawberries

Although I might wait because I like to make sure my plants are still alive before I use like compost and fertilizer on them and let’s see if we see any new growth maybe I’ll clean this up today too I don’t know if I really see any new

Growth here yet so I might hold off on that one I’m definitely going to refresh this raspberry definitely going to refresh this rhubarb cuz you can see how much it’s already growing and then this is another one I’m not sure of so this is my second rhubarb and it hasn’t sprouted

Yet which I know every plant is different but when one plant of the exact same variety has already sprouted and the other has then I get a little bit nervous so I’m probably not going to do anything to that and I’m just working with my pots

Today I not oh I’ll do the rose bush as well um I’m not doing anything with my raised beds yet because I don’t typically refresh those until I’m ready to plant out my warm season annuals and that will well it’s normally in May we’ll see if it’s a little bit earlier

This year oh I did want to give you an update I do have some peace sprouts happening here so those should be growing up my sunflower stocks from last year soon I also have all these pansies coming back that I planted in the fall so that’s really exciting oh and look what the

Pigeons have left for me on the Garden Wall I don’t have my hose hooked up yet to wash that away so going back to the rhubarb for a second so like I said I am going to refresh the one pot I’d mentioned in another video that I don’t

Know if I’m going to keep both because I don’t know if I love it enough for this space that it takes up so I’m holding off for now but what I think I’m going to do is get rid of one of the two rubar plants that I have and keep the other

One so I’m at least going to have one for sure we’ll see if I can’t bring myself to remove it and have two but if it doesn’t come up anyway then that kind of solves the problem for me but both the rhubarbs I planted from seed I

Believe it was 2020 or 2021 at the latest um so I’ll either have one or I’ll have two this year but I will let you know what I choose to do with that so now I’m going to gather up everything I need will refresh all of these pots and then that’s the only

Garden task I have for today so I can enjoy the weather for the rest of the afternoon so I only use two things really to refresh my potting soil I might add in other things if I feel like it but for most of my plants I’m just

Going to add in a granular fertilizer and then some compost now in an Ideal World I would have Berry tone but I don’t so when I don’t have a fertilizer that’s specifically made for the plant in this case this is my raspberry bush I just use allpurpose plant tone I think

The bery tone is 434 NPK ratio this is 533 should be good enough this is what I’ve used cuz I’ve never had Berry tone maybe I should get a bag I don’t know we’ll see but plant tone is usually what I’m using for this step and

Then I will also top dress with compost and even though I’m doing both of these in the spring I I will still add compost throughout the season as I have it um raspberries I typically fertilize those once in the spring and then as the season continues if there seems to be

Some sort of nutrient deficiency I’ll add a liquid fertilizer to it but it doesn’t get fertilized as often as like my annual flowers for example or my tomato bushes so let’s go ahead I’ll take you in up close and I will show you how to refresh the soil now the first

Thing I do if I can if the root ball isn’t too large is to go ahead and just scrape a little bit of the soil off the top and I’m just doing this to make room to add in the compost so it’s not like I’m taking a

Bunch out I’m being gentle here so I don’t disturb the plant too much and I’m using my hands on gloves again not necessarily because I’m working with a plant with thorns although that is helpful but more so because they have these little I don’t know what you call

These little Nubs on them that make it a little bit easier to dig in here all right I think that’s good so now what I’m going to do is sprinkle on the granular fertilizer so there should be hopefully instructions on how much to apply so this one says for potted plants

For established potted plants you want one teaspoon for every 3 in of pot diameter this I believe is 16 I think my other one is 18 so we’ll do somewh just over five teaspoons and I’m going to do it around the outer edge of this container typically when you have a

Plant in the ground the instructions will say to do around the drip line or where the branches of the plant kind of extend to but here the drip line is going to be around the edge of the pot and I just estimate teaspoon just kind of eyeball it’s not like I’m taking out

A teaspoon to actually measure but I always just kind of drop it in there and then breake it into the soil with my fingers and I can always add more if I need to so I always air on the side of a little bit less than too much so now we

Are good there next I’m just going to add in the compost and I’m going to put on both gloves for this usually I’m just adding in about an inch layer right on the top and you can also water it in immediately after but we are supposed to

Get some rain tomorrow so I’m not going to worry about watering it in one because I don’t have my hoses set up yet um but two because Mother Nature is going to take care of that for me all right I think this one’s good so

I’m going to go put it back and then we will do the last what is it one two three potted plants that I know aren’t dead I’m doing the exact same thing then with the rhubarb just taking a little bit of the old soil off the top

Top and again I’m just doing this to make room for the compost because you don’t want the dirt in your pot to go right up to the lip because then when you try to water the water is going to spill over the sides so you want to

Leave at least an inch at the top of the pot for when you’re watering all right that’s good I think this one’s also 16 in yeah it looks the same size so I’ll do the same about 5 taspo I would recommend always wearing gloves of any type when you’re working with

Fertilizers or anything that your hands are going to touch there’s also some powder in this so you could throw on a mask if you wanted to but I never do that so plant tone is in there I’m just going to scratch it In and you know what let’s just do the same step with this raspberry bush while we’re over here and yes I am just tossing this dirt into one of my 30-gallon grow bags I will worry about that when I clean it out there’s nothing that’s going to be

Planted in there until my tomatoes and zenyas are ready to go outside and that won’t be until May again weather dependent but typically around miday all right and then plant tone again this is going around the outer edge of the container and then just mixing that in and then last step is compost

Okay these two are done I’m going to do my rose bush now and I actually do have some Rose fertilizer spikes so I’m going to go grab that so what I have for roses are these is it jobes I think it’s job’s fertilizer plant spikes and these are

NPK 9129 I do have a whole video talking about fertilizers NPK ratios I’ll link that down below but this one says for plant diameter in feet it’s 2 feet diameter two spikes 3 to 4 feet 3 5 to 6 four this is about 2 ft so I’m going to

Do two spikes and again just at the edges of the container so I’m going to do one on basically each side across from each other there’s actually only two spikes left so I need to get some more but all you do this is what they look like and they

Just get shoved down into the pot so I’m going to push one at the Edge over here and then the other one right across from it and spring is when you want to be uh fertilizing your perennials usually I’m not doing it again this early but because things are

So far along oh and I should mention with this rose bush this was in the garage so it started butting up sooner than it would have outside but I’ve also killed roses before by leaving them outside so it has to be stored in the garage so this is much further along

Than it should be so just to be safe I have been moving it inside at night when the temperatures get usually below 40° um and that’s work for it so it is a little bit extra work but I was a little bit impatient and brought it out of the

Garage too soon so that’s my own fault um so this one does need protection but like my raspberries rhubarb those stay out over the winter and they’ve been completely fine um so this one is again still coming in and out everything else is just left outside

And since it’s going to rain tomorrow no need to water so that’s it that’s all I do to refresh my perennials like I said I will add compost throughout the season I might add some liquid fertilizer if necessary but it really is just that simple and I will say one thing that

I’ve learned through gardening is that a lot of people have a lot of rules like I’ve seen people say you have to empty out your pots every 2 years minimum well it’s been 4 years now yeah four years and I’ve never emptied out those pots and my perennials continue to grow fine

So just try what you want in your garden again I could not realistically Garden if I had to empty out all my containers every 2 years it just would not be possible without a lot of effort and probably a lot of money as well so this

Is what’s worked for me so try out things in your garden see if they work if they work keep doing them if they don’t work try something different and that’s definitely the best advice I’ve had because there’s been so many things that I was told wouldn’t work

And they’ve worked for me so I would be missing out on that if I just listen to what someone said instead of actually trying it myself so I hope that was helpful let me know if you have any questions down below and I will see you

In the next video I’m going to go enjoy this weather now