Why container gardening is the best choice when you need to reduce the labour or make best use of a small space

Why container gardening is the best choice when you need to reduce the labour or make best use of a small space

The bulk of my garden planting has been done in containers now for about 5 years. The garden is much easier to maintain this way as my groundwork is primarily lawn, so all I need to do is run over it with the mower now and then - no digging, weeding, mulching, raking (except the grass rake of course) etc. Of course I still need to look after the container plants, but that is easy compared to groundwork.

The good points of container gardening:

Plants can be moved about relatively easy to get the right effect without disturbance, or just if you fancy a change.

There is a massive range of different containers available to help with your garden design, some very reasonably priced.

Because containers are filled with compost rather than soil there's no weeds to contend with, and no soil bound diseases to worry about.

If you pick up your container and put it on a bench to work with, there's no kneeling, bending or crouching required to tend to it.

Most of the most popular and effective flowers can be grown successfully in containers (especially annuals).

Many vegetables and fruit will grow well in containers with minimum effort (some fruit and vegetable seed suppliers have a range of seeds specially developed for container growth).

Even some dwarf tree varieties can be grown this way.

You can bring some of your small container grown plants into the house and continue to nurture them during winter.

The bad points of container gardening:

On sunny days the compost in your containers will dry out very quickly so you need to check its moisture regularly throughout the day and water it if necessary (sometimes I've had to water my containers 2 or 3 times in 1 day).

Although containers are available in a startling array of different sizes and appearance, sometimes they can become a rather expensive purchase (shop around, I usually go with cheap plastic).

It's advisable to use fresh compost in your containers every year (but on alternate years you might get away with a half old and half new mix).

You'll need somewhere to store your empty containers during the winter months (but you can get some winter plants for them).

Your containers must be emptied out and washed thoroughly at the end of the season.

So if you want to limit the labour involved with gardening, or space is somewhat limited, and you can handle the above then container gardening is the way to go.

In my next article we'll be looking at what I feel are the best flowers to use in your container planting.

Happy gardening!

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