Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Inspiration

7 simple steps to starting your own beautiful container garden this spring

Stacey Nguyen
By

Even if you have space limits, starting a garden is still within reach. A small yard, balcony, or patio can still be a productive spot for a container garden. In addition to accommodating small spaces, container gardens are also low maintenance and easy to start, as finding planters is a much more straightforward process than building a garden bed. Plus, you can move your plants indoors or into the shade as needed. Here’s everything you need to know about how to start container gardening.

Garden flowers in a container

1. Determine which plants to grow

First and foremost, you want to determine what plants you’ll actually be growing. Most vegetables are annuals, but look up your plant hardiness zone, or climate zone, to see if your area has any perennial veggies. Remember, containers offer your plants and their roots limited growing space, so choose plants that can tolerate some space constraints. Veggies that do particularly well in containers include lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, chard, spinach, and beans. 

2. Find containers for your plants

Consider how deep your plant roots run. Plants with longer roots appreciate deeper planters, whereas plants with shallow roots should be in short containers to prevent root rot. You also want to keep in mind container material. Plastic is durable and easy to clean, but it tends to hold on to water longer. On the other hand, terracotta is forgiving if you overwater, but cracking and salt buildup may be issues. And then there’s concrete, which is durable but also quite heavy. Other than conventional planters, you can also look into tubs, kitchenware, and miscellaneous boxes that you can upcycle for gardening purposes.

Make sure your containers have drainage. You can drill holes into your containers or stick nursery pots in more aesthetically pleasing cachepots. Drainage is key because it prevents your roots from rotting.   

Soil crumbles through gardener's fingers

3. Add well-draining potting mix to your containers

When container gardening, using a well-draining potting mix is of the utmost importance, as garden soil may absorb too much water and drown your plants. You can mix compost or slow-release fertilizer into your potting mix in addition to sources of drainage, such as perlite and bark. Some people like to add window screens or landscaping fabric at the bottom of their containers because a semi-permeable material allows water to pass through while retaining soil and keeping pests out.

4. Sow your seeds or transplant ready-to-go nursery seedlings

You can sow your seeds on top of your potting mix about 1 centimeter apart, then remove weak seedlings in the future. Press your seeds into the soil with a dibber, then sprinkle a thin layer of soil over them and keep the growing medium moist as your seeds germinate. Ready-to-go nursery seedlings are easier to plant, but you will want to repot them immediately to give them breathing room, as they tend to be very densely packed into nursery pots.

Planters outside

5. Place your planters in a sunny location

Most vegetables appreciate 6 to 8 hours of full sun a day, although some plants prefer a bit of afternoon shade. Besides finding the optimal location for your plants, arrange them so that taller plants aren’t shading shorter ones — you can even arrange your plants in a vertical hanging garden outside.

6. Water and feed your plants

A plant plopped into a container will dry out much sooner than a plant kept directly in the ground. Fertilizer also leaches out sooner because of how much water you’re using. That’s why it’s important to regularly water and feed your plants throughout the growing season. Get out your watering can whenever the top inch or two of soil feels dry. Every two weeks or so, you can also go in with a diluted liquid fertilizer — you can also use fish emulsion or manure, if you’d like. To help your plants retain more moisture, add a layer of mulch on the top of the soil.

A person pruning a small rose bush

7. Keep up with maintenance tasks

It’s easy to let your container garden go wild, but even contained plants can get out of hand. You want to regularly prune your plants to remove any dead foliage or spent blooms. Cutting your plants back also helps them grow back more vigorously. If a container plant gets too leggy, you can prune it so that it grows back fuller.

Although growing plants in any capacity requires strategic planning and hard work, starting a container garden is one of the easiest and most space-efficient ways to dip your toes into gardening. After picking out your containers and planting your veggies and flowers, all you have to do is keep up with watering, fertilizing, sunning, and cleaning. Even with a small-scale container garden, you can enjoy beautiful plants and delicious crops throughout the year. 

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
What to do with an old Christmas tree: 6 ways to recycle your tree after the holidays
From making firewood to mulch, here are ways to recycle Christmas trees
Rebecca Wolken
By Rebecca Wolken
December 27, 2022
Ornament on a Christmas tree

Once all the Christmas festivities are over, it's time to take down holiday decorations and figure out what you're going to do with that huge Christmas tree. Unfortunately, every year a massive amount of Christmas trees end up in landfills where they don't have the opportunity to decompose and break down like they naturally would in a forest. This isn't good for the planet, and you'd be wasting a potential resource you could use for something else.

So if you're curious about what to do with an old Christmas tree and how to get the most out of it, here are some ways you can recycle it so it becomes a gift that keeps on giving.

Read more
Gardening 101: 7 easy seeds to grow in cups for a tiny, adorable, and low-maintenance indoor garden
How to choose seeds to start inside of cups
Rebecca Wolken
By Rebecca Wolken
November 28, 2022
Seed starting in cups

Many gardeners start seeds indoors during the last weeks of winter or early spring to get a head start on the growing season. When it's too cold to plant anything outside, you can start seeds indoors and transplant them in the ground once the weather warms up.

So what can you use for your seeds without spending a fortune on seed-starting trays? Plastic cups left over from parties or camping trips are ideal. Recycling these cups provides the perfect temporary (or even permanent) homes for your plants, and you'll get the cutest container garden in the process!

Read more
7 easy patio plants that will thrive into the cold winter months
Try out these no-fuss plants to add some life to your porch this winter
Kiera Baron
By Kiera Baron
November 22, 2022
Wintergreen basket

When it comes to easy patio plants, there are a few questions you need to answer first. What plants do you like to grow? How much space do they need? Can you keep them outdoors during winter, or do they need to be brought inside? If you don’t have much indoor space but want to make year-round use of your patio, here are some winter plants you can grow that will fare just fine in colder climates and provide some much-needed greenery to your outdoor space.

It’s important to remember that just because a plant exists doesn’t mean it’s suitable for a container. (Try to imagine that large oak tree in your yard growing from a pot — impossible, right?) The ones that will thrive in container gardens, whether indoors or on a patio, have shallow root systems and small mature sizes, or they can be kept small with pruning and trimming. Let’s look at some of our favorites to add some color and life to your porch or patio this cold season.

Read more