CONTAINER PLANT CARE

If you prefer to keep your plants in containers or you have an outside space that makes this necessary, use this guide to learn the most important things to consider when planting in containers and caring for the container plant long-term.

Planting

To transfer your new plant into a new and larger container in the garden, you can follow the same advice given in the Planting Guide from step 2 onwards, treating your larger container like the hole in the ground in that guide.

Once your plant has been potted-on into its larger container, scroll down to learn how best to care for your container plant.

Container Plant Care: Text

Container Plant Care: Image

If you prefer to keep your plants in containers, or your space doesn't allow for having too many plants in the ground, the good news is most plants can be kept quite happily in containers or pots.

Keeping container plants does require a touch more care to keep them healthy but is still fairly simple and will be easily doable for anyone.

Like most subjects you can really go into the weeds (pun intended) on the differences between container and ground plants however the most relevant differences that will matter in the vast majority of cases are water, nutrients and rootball care.

Because the amount of soil available to the plant roots is limited by the size of the container, the roots can't endlessly spread out in search for water and nutrients like they can in the ground. This means for container plants you will need to be slightly more vigilant about making sure they have adequate water and nutrients and should occasionally root-prune your container plants (more on this below!)

This isn't to say that plants in the ground never need watering or fertilizing but they will be much more self sufficient than container plants.

Water

For your plants in containers you will need to water regularly. During the spring and summer we would recommend a heavy water every 2-3 days (the smaller the container the less time you should leave in between watering). Plants can actually benefit from their soil drying out a little in between watering as this encourages roots to develop in search of water but you want to make sure that the soil a few inches below the surface is always at least damp.

During the autumn and winter in the UK a lot of plants won't need watering at all even in containers but we would still recommend checking them maybe once a week to make sure that the soil isn't getting too dry.

Nutrients

Feeding is usually the most overlooked factor to consider with container plants. As the soil in the container is limited it will eventually run out of valuable nutrients that the plant needs to thrive. If these nutrients aren't replaced the plant can suffer.

There are two main ways of going about feeding plants (both container and ground): liquid feed and compost.

If you choose to go down the liquid feed route, we recommend buying any good quality liquid feed either online or at a garden centre (make sure you get a feed with the right acidity for the plant you want to feed. For example Camelias will prefer a more acidic, ericaceous, feed). You can then simply follow the instructions on the bottle as to how often and how much to feed. This is usually every 2 weeks during the growing season (April - October).

Using compost is a little lower maintenance but you will still need to re-apply compost every few months. Start by putting a 2 inch layer of compost over the top of the soil of your pot, being careful not to let them compost sit right around the base of a woody shrub as this can cause the stem to rot. Then remove and reapply this layer about every 12 weeks as even compost will eventually run out of nutrients.

The nutrients from the compost will leach out of the compost with time and down into the pot where the roots can get at it as water washes through the compost taking the nutrients with it.

Root-pruning

This is the slightly more labour intensive part of container plant care but is relatively simple still and doesn't need doing too often.

One of the issues with plants kept in containers is that, as mentioned above, the roots can't endlessly spread out in search of water and nutrients because as the roots grow they eventually just hit the sides of the pot.

At this point as they continue to grow they will start to wrap around the outside of the rootball, following the inside of the pot they're in. This is called being 'pot-bound' or 'root-bound'. This can eventually lead to a couple of issues (you can see an example of a root-bound plant in the picture below).

Container Plant Care: Text

Container Plant Care: Image

Firstly, after a long enough time there will almost be more root than soil left in the pot as the roots grow and grow and use up most of the available space, meaning the availability of nutrients will be even further depleted.

Secondly, as the roots hit the insides of the pot and begin to circle the rootball they can essentially 'strangle' the plant as the roots get bigger, longer and thicker over time.

For a container plant that has become root-bound there are two main choices. The first is to pot it into a larger pot which will provide more soil for the roots to spread out into thereby alleviating the root problem.

The second, which is appropriate if you don't want to repot into something larger, is to root-prune the plant which is exactly what it sounds like: cutting back the root system to artificially create more space for the root to grow into (even if you're potting into a larger pot, a little root pruning might be beneficial if your plant is severely root bound).

Lets go over how to root-prune your plant.

1. You will need some secateurs, sharp scissors or even a small and sharp saw as well as some compost to fill in the edges of the pot as we're going to be shaving some of the size off the rootball.

Container Plant Care: Text

Container Plant Care: Image

2. Remove the entire rootball from it's pot like in the root-bound picture above.

3. Keeping your secateurs or scissors relatively flat to the rootball, start cutting away the roots on the very outside of the rootball (see the second picture below for a before and after pruning example). You can be fairly brutal when it comes to this cutting away as a root-bound plant will have plenty of strong roots further towards the centre of the rootball so this pruning shouldn't hurt the plant.

Container Plant Care: Text

Container Plant Care: Image

Container Plant Care: Image

4. Keep pruning away the outer roots until the entire rootball looks more like the picture below. In this example I was root pruning a 3 litre plant and probably cut away about an inch of roots/soil from the edge of the rootball.

Container Plant Care: Text

Container Plant Care: Image

5. It's now time to re-pot your plant in either a new, larger pot, or if you're keeping the same pot size, back into it's original pot. You will need to add some compost to the outside of the rootball to fill in the space where you've cut away some roots/soil. You can see in the pictures below how the rootball went from filling the pot, to slightly too small for the pot after pruning and an example of pushing compost down into the pot to fill the gap.

Container Plant Care: Text

Container Plant Care: Image

Container Plant Care: Image

Container Plant Care: Image

6. Finally, give your freshly root-pruned and re-potted plant a good water and you're all done! The plant will now be able to send out new roots into the new compost and you've avoided the risk of the plant strangling itself as it continues to grow.

And that's pretty much it! There are always nuances and slightly more complex things to consider but for most people and most plants this basic advice is sufficient to ensure your container plants thrive.

If you have any more questions about planting/feeding or anything else then please get in touch!

Container Plant Care: Text

CONTAINER PLANT CARE

If you prefer to keep your plants in containers, or your space doesn't allow for having too many plants in the ground, the good news is most plants can be kept quite happily in containers or pots.

​

Keeping container plants does require a touch more care to keep them healthy but is still fairly simple and will be easily doable for anyone.

​

Like most subjects you can really go into the weeds (pun intended) on the differences between container and ground plants however the most relevant differences that will matter in the vast majority of cases are water, nutrients and rootball care.

​

​

This isn't to say that plants in the ground never need watering or fertilizing but they will be much more self sufficient than container plants.

​

Water

​

​

During the autumn and winter in the UK a lot of plants won't need watering at all even in containers but we would still recommend checking them maybe once a week to make sure that the soil isn't getting too dry.

​

Nutrients

​

Feeding is usually the most overlooked factor to consider with container plants. As the soil in the container is limited it will eventually run out of valuable nutrients that the plant needs to thrive. If these nutrients aren't replaced the plant can suffer.

​

There are two main ways of going about feeding plants (both container and ground): liquid feed and compost.

​

​

​

The nutrients from the compost will leach out of the compost with time and down into the pot where the roots can get at it as water washes through the compost taking the nutrients with it.

​

Root-pruning

​

This is the slightly more labour intensive part of container plant care but is relatively simple still and doesn't need doing too often.

​

One of the issues with plants kept in containers is that, as mentioned above, the roots can't endlessly spread out in search of water and nutrients because as the roots grow they eventually just hit the sides of the pot.

​

Firstly, after a long enough time there will almost be more root than soil left in the pot as the roots grow and grow and use up most of the available space, meaning the availability of nutrients will be even further depleted.

​

Secondly, as the roots hit the insides of the pot and begin to circle the rootball they can essentially 'strangle' the plant as the roots get bigger, longer and thicker over time.

​

For a container plant that has become root-bound there are two main choices. The first is to pot it into a larger pot which will provide more soil for the roots to spread out into thereby alleviating the root problem.

​

​

Lets go over how to root-prune your plant.

​

1. You will need some secateurs, sharp scissors or even a small and sharp saw as well as some compost to fill in the edges of the pot as we're going to be shaving some of the size off the rootball.

2. Remove the entire rootball from it's pot like in the root-bound picture above.

​

4. Keep pruning away the outer roots until the entire rootball looks more like the picture below. In this example I was root pruning a 3 litre plant and probably cut away about an inch of roots/soil from the edge of the rootball.

6. Finally, give your freshly root-pruned and re-potted plant a good water and you're all done! The plant will now be able to send out new roots into the new compost and you've avoided the risk of the plant strangling itself as it continues to grow.

​

And that's pretty much it! There are always nuances and slightly more complex things to consider but for most people and most plants this basic advice is sufficient to ensure your container plants thrive.

​

If you have any more questions about planting/feeding or anything else then please get in touch!