If you’re new to container gardening, these tips will help you grow plants outside in pots.

For first-timers, growing in containers can seem a little scary. What’s possible to grow in a pot? Where should you put your garden in a pot? What size jar do you need? These tips on container gardening for beginners will help you have a lush, successful time whether you want to plant window boxes to make the outside of your house look better or grow seasonal planters on your porch.

Why is it a good idea to garden in containers?

People who don’t have a lot of outdoor room, like those who live in an apartment or condo, or who don’t have good soil can add “color and texture to porches, patios, and balconies” by gardening in pots, says Phipps. You’re not limited to those spots, though!

Raised beds are also a type of container gardening. Arranging containers in a creative way can make your front or back yard look nicer. Getting pots and potting soil (more on that in a moment) is a pretty easy way to start planting, even if you haven’t done it before.

Container Gardening Tips for Beginners

It’s easy and cheap to grow plants in containers, but here are some tips that will help you make the most of your yard.

1. Pick out the Correct Containers

A plant can live in almost anything, from an old pair of boots to a wine barrel, but pots are the most common way to keep plants alive. These can be made of anything from plastic to concrete, and each has its own pros and cons.

Some people think that starting with a good pot and good dirt will help you succeed quickly. We like glazed pottery because it can handle winter weather better, but Phipps loves terracotta because it’s porous.

Even though plastic pots are cheaper and lighter, they are not very useful. “Because it looks like foam!””If you want beauty, don’t put plants in pots that don’t match their beauty.” Concrete pots are heavy and hard to move, but they’re good for plants with big leaves that are easy to knock over.

The most important thing about the container is that it lets water flow. That plant will die if there is nowhere for the water to drain.

Note: It’s important to use the right size pot.

Most plants that live in pots are bound by the size of the pot. Planting the same type of tomato in a 3-gallon pot makes it grow a lot bigger than planting it in a 6-inch pot. Match the pot to the plant’s full size, not the tiny seedling you got at the garden center. This will give your plants a lush, full look and help them grow.

• 5 gallon or bigger: peppers, tomatoes, ornamental shrubs, and container gardening with a lot of different kinds of plants
• Herb plants, many flowers like begonias and salvia, and short decorative grasses in a 2-3 gallon size.
• Marigolds and other small annual flowers, lettuces, and ornamental plantings of one small plant that are 1 gallon or less.

2. The Best Plants to Grow in Pots

Plants like herbs, vegetables, annual and perennial flowers, trees, and even ornamental plants can be grown in pots.

You can plant in places that aren’t normally hardy by using containers. You can bring perennials that wouldn’t do well in the ground into the house for the winter and enjoy them again next year. Large pots are a good way to grow plants, even fruit trees.

When planning your flower pots, remember to include a thriller, a filler, and a spiller. The same idea can be used for vegetables: put tomato and herb plants next to a cucumber that hangs over the side.

Pick a leafy or compact type of plant when growing big plants like tomatoes in pots so they stay neat and easy to care for.

3. Pick the Best Mix of Soil

Experts say that when it comes to dirt, there’s no need to make things too hard. For more experienced farmers, making their own mixes might be fun, but the pre-packaged stuff already does the work for you.

You SHOULD never use garden soil or topsoil. It shrinks and pulls away from the pot’s sides when it dries out, Then you can’t water it because the water will run off the side of the pot and into the root ball

Miracle-Gro is what you should always use for your business work. Although it’s tried but true, and it’s a good deal. It gives you a better head start,” but it doesn’t promise success.

Note: Don’t use yard dirt.

There are many plants that do well in the soil in your yard, but that doesn’t mean they will do well in pots. When garden dirt is in a container and is watered often, it packs down quickly. It’s hard for roots to get into compacted dirt, and it doesn’t let enough air in (yes, roots need to breathe). Use potting soil that is made for containers.

4. Don’t Skimp on Drainage

This might seem like an odd first tip, but it could save your plants’ lives. Your dirt can get too wet if there aren’t enough holes in your pot for water to drain. This can cause the roots of your plants to rot, which kills the plant.

Many plant pots on the market don’t have enough drainage, which is bad news. Most of the time, drilling, punching, or cutting bigger holes will help water drain away. If you want to save time, you can buy a pot that already has enough drainage holes. For small or medium-sized pots, a drainage hole must be at least 1/2 inch across. For bigger pots, look for ones that are at least an inch across.

It is not true that adding gravel, broken pots, or stones to the bottom of your container plant will help water drain away. Some people say that putting these things in the bottom of your pots doesn’t even need draining holes. If you aren’t very good at watering plants in pots or have a plant that likes wet dirt (and some do), you need to make holes in your pots. The more holes you have, the better.

5. Do not Put Rocks at the Bottom

Many people believe that adding rocks, broken pots, or other rough materials to a garden will help the soil drain better. Even though it makes sense, studies have shown that this doesn’t work very often and may even make draining slower.

6. Plant Good Neighbors

Because of this, be sure that the plants you pick for the pot will get along with each other. This means that every plant in the pot should need the same amount of water and light. Some plants won’t do well if you put them together with plants that need different things. For instance, if you have a plant that needs full sun, you should make sure that all the plants you put in that pot also need full sun. When you water plants, you don’t want to put plants that like it wet in the same pot as plants that like it dry.

If there isn’t a plant tag, ask a salesman or look at the plant itself to see what it needs. Check it out on the web if nothing else works.

7. Watering Techniques

To keep your container garden healthy, you need to get better at watering it. To make sure your plants get enough water, do the following:

• Plants need to be watered regularly so that they don’t get too little or too much water. You should make a schedule that takes into account the type of plant, the size of the pot, and the conditions in the area.
• Regularly check the amount of water in the soil by putting your finger inside the first knuckle. Make changes to account for changes in temperature and humidity that happen with the seasons.
• Not watering in the evening can make fungal diseases more likely, but watering in the morning lets plants soak up water before the heat removes it.
• Remember to change how often you water plants depending on the type, size, and conditions of the container.
• To tell if your plants need water, look for signs like leaves that are drooping or dying, leaves that are turning brown or yellow, or leaves that are getting too wet.
• A soil moisture meter can be used to find out how much water is in the soil and to change how often you water. To find out how much it weighs, lift the container off the ground. Dry soil is lighter than wet earth. But you need to have experience with this method in order to accurately figure out how wet the dirt is based on its weight.
• If you know how to water your plants correctly and keep an eye on the soil’s moisture levels regularly, you can be sure that your pot plants get enough water to grow and thrive.

8. Feed Your Plants

Most potting dirt doesn’t have nutrients that plants can use, so you have to add them. More fertilizer needs to be put to the soil for most plants to grow well. A fertilizer that works slowly can be mixed into potting mix. To do this, either mix a lot of potting soil and fertilizer together in a bucket, or put potting soil in the pot first and then mix in the fertilizer.

Then, use a liquid fertilizer, usually a mix of fish emulsion and seaweed, once every week or two to feed the plants. That awful smell, but it really helps plants get the food they need.

It is common for people to use commercial fertilizer. If you start using it, it will feed your plants and help them grow, but you will have to keep using it because it kills the good bugs that are already in the soil. These living things are important for organic growing, so if you’ve used synthetic fertilizer before, you will have to stop using it.

9. Support Larger Plants

Like plants in a yard bed, tall plants may need to be staked or supported to keep them from falling over in wind or rain. For support, containers can be put next to a fence, deck wall, or trellis. Most of the time, all they need is a little twine tied around the stems and to the rail.

10. Pay Attention to the Sun and Shade.

There are plants that do well in full sun and plants that get burned. During the summer, the sun moves around in the sky, so the places where you get sun or shade may also change. You might need to move a pot that doesn’t get enough or too much sun.

It can be hard to move big pots that are full of plants and potting soil. To make things easier, look for pots with wheels or a plant wagon on wheels.

11. Evaluate Your Light

Lots of the time, people are way off when they say how much sun their bins get. There are plants that do well in almost any amount of light, but you need to know how much light your pot will get before you buy plants.

Put the container where you want it and time how long the sun hits it to get an idea of how much direct light it will get. You can also use a sun calculator to find out how much sunshine you get.

12. Read and Save the Plant Tag

Plant tags are very important. They will tell you how much care your plant needs, how big it will get, and how much light, water, and food it needs. Not only does the tag tell you if the plant is annual or perennial, but it also tells you what zones it can live in if it’s permanent.

Your plant’s “habit,” or form and how it will grow, will also be written on the tag. This is important to keep in mind as you plan the design of your container and how to place your plants. For instance, if you have a big pot, you might want some plants with “upright habits” to make your design taller and some plants with “mounding habits” to fill in the spaces between the plants. To finish off your pot, you could pick plants that have “trailing habits” and let their stems hang over the sides.

13. Sometimes Plants Die

You will kill more plants as you grow them. That’s easy. Even the best farmers kill plants every once in a while. It’s just how farming works. You need to know when to give up on a plant. It’s best to give up early in a mixed container plant so that the whole thing doesn’t look bad.

You can do a few different things when a plant starts to look awful. You can cut the plant back a lot and hope for the best, depending on the type of plant. This is all it takes for many plants to get better. In a few weeks, your plant will be happy and beautiful again.

You can take out the plant that isn’t doing well and put in a different one. Depending on how dead or valuable the plant is, you can try to save it by repotting it and taking extra care of it until it gets better or you get tired of the way it looks.

But if your plant shows signs of a dangerous disease, you should take it out right away, re-pot it, and either quarantine it or put it in a plastic bag and throw it away.

14. Pay Attention to Your Plants Each Day ​

Pests and diseases are less likely to affect plants that are in good health. Make it a daily habit to spend some time in your yard.

• Look at the new growth and flowers that are coming up.
• Look under the leaves for bugs. You can see pests and diseases better when they are small.
• Remove any discarded leaves and other trash.

15. Annuals vs. Perennials in Container Gardens

You can grow either annuals (plants that only live for one season) or perennials (plants that come back every year) in pots, but annuals look best. They add color right away and can get big very quickly. Plus they’re less expensive, but you usually have to get new ones every year.

A general rule, you should use either one or the other in each pot. There’s a lot going on below the surface. Once a plant is established, the roots just go in every direction

So if you put a perennial in a pot with, say, two annuals and the annuals die, you’ll disturb the perennial when you pull out the annuals and then try to put in a new plant that will compete with the perennial’s root system.

16. Container Gardening Maintenance

This easy-to-follow guide on pruning and deadheading is important for container gardening if you want plants that are strong, well-kept, and full of flowers when they bloom.

Depending on how they need to be pruned, different plants may need to be trimmed more or less often to keep their shape. You should buy good trimming shears and clean and sanitize them often.

Many times a week, check plants for dead or sickly growth. Spread out crowded areas to let air flow, and pinch or cut back stem tips to encourage bushier growth. This helps plants grow better and keeps them from getting fungus diseases.

The process of cutting off spent flowers from plants to keep them growing and stop them from making seeds is called “deadheading.” It makes containers look better and is a popular thing to do in gardening, especially with flowering plants.

By making sure plants have a steady show of blooms all through the growing season, deadheading often keeps them from getting messy or straggly.

17. Winterizing Container Plants

Things that are good always end. But just because the season is over doesn’t mean your pot garden has to be too. They do have to move inside, or at least into a protected area if you live in a warm enough part of the country.

18. Pest and Disease Management

Of course! Getting rid of bugs and diseases is an important part of container gardening, especially for people who are just starting out. The tips below will help you get rid of diseases and pests successfully.

To make sure your container gardening goes well, make sure you buy healthy plants from reputable sellers, choose the right containers and dirt, practice good hygiene, and regularly check your plants for pests and diseases.

Use good bugs, soaps that kill bugs, and picking bugs by hand as natural ways to get rid of pests. Rotating plants can help keep pests from gathering.

When you water plants, try not to get the leaves wet. Instead, water from the base up. Keep the earth moist and pests away with organic mulch. To get more species, you might want to put plants that go together.

To stay safe, learn about the diseases and pests that are common in your area. If you follow these tips, you should be able to grow successfully in containers.

19. Putting Down Mulch

Putting organic or inorganic objects on top of soil in a container garden to make it better for plants and soil is called mulching.

In pots, mulch helps keep the soil moist, keeps weeds away, controls temperature, improves soil health, and stops erosion.

It keeps heat in, stops water from evaporating, and makes it harder for weeds to grow. It is better for the soil to have organic mulch on top of it. Mulch also protects plant roots from heavy rain and winds.

20. Protection from Extreme Conditions

Container plants need to be protected from harsh surroundings in order to stay healthy and live. These tips will help you keep your container garden safe:

Plants do best in sturdy containers made of sturdy materials. Insulate the containers, make sure they drain properly, mulch the soil’s surface, arrange the containers carefully, give them shade, and water them often.

Metal containers should not be used. Insulate containers and put them where they will get enough sun and shade.

21. Avoiding Overcrowding

When gardening in containers, keeping plants from getting too crowded is very important for their health and growth. To make sure you do this right, here are some tips.

To make sure plants grow well, choose containers that are big enough to hold grown plants, make sure plants are spaced out correctly, limit the number of plants you have, thin and prune plants that are getting too crowded, rotate crops to keep nutrients from running out and plants from getting too crowded, and think about companion planting.

To make the most of your garden space and avoid overcrowding, choose plants that are far apart and have plenty of room to grow. Get rid of any extra leaves or fruit, change your crops to keep the soil healthy, and put plants that get along with each other together.

22. Protection from Wind

Wind safety is very important for container gardening, especially for plants that are easily damaged. Here are some ways to protect your container plants from strong winds.

To keep wind from hurting your container garden, group containers together, stake tall plants, choose plants that don’t mind wind, use weighted containers, mulch, and only prune lightly.

Use windbreaks, group containers together, and stake tall plants. Choose plants that can handle wind, use weighted containers, put containers in naturally protected spots, mulch, and regularly prune plants.

Container gardening is rewarding and fun for gardeners, and it saves room and makes plants easier to get to. Creative and self-expressive activities like gardening help people make outdoor areas that show who they are and what they like.

Going container gardening is a nice break from your busy life. It connects you to nature and makes you feel better, and it lets you enjoy the beauty and growth of plants.