Plant a Spring Porch Pot!
Spring is sprung so it’s time to get those annuals planted. Kerri walks you through how to design and plant a spring porch pot!
Step 1: Choosing a Pot
When you’re choosing your container you want to make sure that it has holes in the bottom so that your plants don’t start drowning. If it doesn’t have a hole in the bottom, you can add rocks or packing peanuts or drill some holes if possible.
Step 2: Soil
Choose a lightweight potting soil like this master mix. It doesn’t hold the water and it does have some initial fertilizers in it.
Step 3: Lighting
When you’re creating the recipe for your container you want to consider your light exposure. Whether you have morning or afternoon sun. How the pot is going to be displayed, whether it’s going to be seen from all directions or just from the front. This will help you design your container.
Step 4: Designing
When designing your container focus on Proven Winners three ingredients for success: Thriller, Filler, and Spiller
The Thriller
A thriller is something tall and dramatic that brings your eye to the container. It could be something like a grass, it might be a foliage plant or another tall coleus. A lot of people use these green spikes. But there’s also other colors of grasses like variegated pink, the dark maroon, and yellow and green. For Kerri’s demonstration pot she chose variegated Southern Splendor Grass for her Thriller which will be planted in the center of the pot.
The Filler
This is what’s going to give the biggest color to your container. It could be Begonias, Geraniums, or Gerbera daisies, something that’s going to fill out and bloom all summer long.
Kerri chose Salina Begonias for her filler. They like morning sun only and afternoon shade. Plant three around your thriller depending on size.
The Spiller
The spiller is something that’s going to fill in the size of the pot and possibly hang over. It could be something that’s just green leaves or it could be flowering. This is a regular house plant ivy. Sweet potato vine is very popular. Or you could use the million bells which is a type of miniature petunia and hangs down over the sides of the pot.
For her spiller, Kerri added houseplant ivy in between the begonias.
The finished product ready for your porch. This should bloom all summer. In the heat of the summer, you should check your container every day or every other day. Water it well until the water drains out the bottom of the pot, that way you know you’ve saturated the entire root system.
Annuals do require a lot of fertilizer as they’re growing very quickly throughout the summer. Kerri recommends Osmocote which is a pelleted fertilizer that you sprinkle along the top of the pot. Every time it rains or you water it releases a little bit of fertilizer. It should last you at least two months throughout the summer.
To watch Kerri in action, check out this YouTube video, all about planting a porch pot.