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Simple Container Garden Tips

Here are several tips for successful container garden…

Soil
container garden
A car as a container garden.

Start with good soil containing a mixture of perlite, peat, and compost. Use different particle sizes to keep the soil from compacting over time. Plant roots need air as much as they need water. Varied particle size helps to drain excess water. Container garden soil compacts and turns into hard mass under the pressure of regular watering and drying process. And when it does, plant roots stop growing.  Hard, compacted soils do not grow very good plants. Add the potting soil to the compost bin at the end of the year. Compost increases air spaces and gives plants a boost in healthy nutrition.

Fertilizer

A container garden needs feeding often. Nitrogen, the building block of plant growth, come in several forms and not all can be readily taken up by plants. Urea nitrogen is the cheapest and most widely available form, but plants can not take it up in this form. Nitrogen is made available to plants through the process of nitrification. Phosphorus and potassium are also needed, but in much less quantity. Excessive amounts of these two elements can lock up trace elements, such as calcium and magnesium. Trace elements are also essential to plant health.

Water

Thoroughly water all containers until water seeps from the bottom holes. Under-watering and over-watering can lead to root development problems, poor flowering and death of the plant.

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Best Botanical Gardens in America

Best Botanical Gardens

What makes the best botanical gardens? People, the volunteers and staff at each botanical garden is what makes them the best. Gardens would be over run with weeds, flowers would never bloom, and grass never cut without these people. Visit a botanical garden if given the chance and thank the people there for a job well done.

botanical gardens stairway

Gardening is more than just a job for the people at the botanical gardens, but a labor of love. Most of all each day brings joy in seeing visitors admiring the beauty and also the wildlife that live throughout a botanical garden. Hence the love for the garden.

While some gardens are free to the public, others may charge a small fee. Also, many of the gardens have facilities for events or even weddings. Therefore be sure to consider a local botanical garden for your next event.

History of Botanical Gardens

Gardens have been cultivated for thousands of years throughout the world. Many of the earliest gardens were grown for medicinal plants. Celebrations also used gardens for there beauty and flowers.

Botanic gardens evolved over the centuries as world exploration and trade expanded. This lead to gardens that cultivated non-native species. These new gardens promote and encourage more plant exploration. As a result more and more new plants were discovered.

Today, public gardens provide local communities with a flavor of the world. Many tropical gardens are created through specialized structures. Most noteworthy is the glasshouse at the National Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C.

Botanical Gardens of America