Beautiful Color For The Porch, Planting Basics

Hi Readers!  Do you love to grow things?  I do!  I'm a nurturer at heart and love to nurture plants through out the summer.  Do you have hanging baskets at your place?  Have you ever wondered how to keep plants beautiful through out the growing season?  If you're a Gardner than you are going to know most, if not all of these tips and tricks.  If you've never tried it, but would love some color on your front porch, you may be surprised at how simple this really is.  I'll show you how to put together a basic annual flower pot for the porch.

Step 1.
Select your plants.  If you have mostly shade, then you need shade plants, if you have mostly sun, then you need sun plants.  At the nursery, just check the tag inside the pot and it will tell you what kind of sun it will tolerate.  You can plant a sun plant in the shade, but it won't grow very much.  If you plant a shade plant in the sun, it will wither and die.

Select your pot.  Almost anything will do as long as it has holes in the bottom for drainage.  If it doesn't have holes, then drill some in.  The pot I'm demonstrating for you was actually a big tin drink bucket from Target and my husband drilled some wholes in the bottom for me.  You can also plant directly in the ground, and many plants really like being in the ground.  (just ignore all the potting soil and garden tools on the ground in the picture :)

Now your on to soil.  Any old potting soil from a garden center will do.

Here's a tip on saving potting soil.  If you have a large pot and want to conserve some potting soil, put plastic containers in the pot prior to filling with dirt, like this:

Next, I arrange the plants on the porch and then use the same design in the pot.  Remember!  It's the beginning of the growing season.  These plants are going to grow.  Mine usually double to quadruple in size by the end of summer, so its okay to leave some space.

Add dirt, place your plants, and pack the potting soil around them.

Last step, water the "girls".  Always water after you plant.

You will need plant food.  You will need to feed these plants.  Ideally, you would do this once a week.  The potting soil you purchased likely has fertilizer in it, but you will need to start feeding soon after potting.  The most well known fertilizer is Miracle Grow.  You mix this "blue powder stuff" (getting technical) with water in a jug and dump it (more technical terms) on the pot.  It's good to give it enough liquid until it comes out the drainage holes in the bottom of the pot.  You can also purchase potting soil that has slow release fertilizer in it.  (I would still fertilize my plants regularly).

That's it.   

Now, one of the best parts of growing your own flowers, is that you get to cut bouquets for the house.  Did you know that women will release oxytocin when cutting flowers from the yard and arranging them in a vase for the house.  Cool huh?!?  Here is my first cut flower arrangements of the season. 

Thank you so much for reading!!  Many blessings to you - Home Centered Girl