How To Create A Successful Container Step-By-Step

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hey friends welcome to Gar with Creek Side today we are in the production greenhouse and there’s going to be production happening behind me but that is not what we’re doing today today we are going to be creating the first hanging baskets for 2024 that is correct I know it’s the end of February uh it is way too early to be putting out these hanging baskets but because we have this beautiful growing space I am going to go ahead and assemble my hanging baskets for my front por that way they can hang out here in the greenhouse for the next 6 weeks or so get nice and big and developed and beautiful that way when the weather turns I can then go ahead and hang them on the front porch and I can uh kind of dust off my hands and they will be done again way too early to be creating your hanging baskets and going ahead and putting them on the front porch unless you live in those warmer zones right if you’re in warmer California and Texas and Florida if you are in those warmer zones and you have kind of don’t have any more threat of frost and freezes I say go for it I’m going to walk you through exactly on how to create containers all the steps that you need to know whether you’re going to do a hanging basket or you’re going to do just a standalone container I’m going to walk you through give you my tips and tricks on how to create a successful container slh hanging basket you’re going to see some action behind me because it is another rainy day here in North Carolina and we are potting up perennials so as soon as I get done I’m joining the production line so you’ll see my sweet people behind me working uh throughout this video let me show you what my supplies are and we’re going to talk about the plants that we are going to be using all right let’s start first things first you will notice that I have my hanging baskets here there’s one that is set up for you on top of a pot this is how I’m going to storm in the greenhouse cuz we’re not going to hang them yet these are massive hanging baskets from Ken Garden company I love their products because they are so um such high quality tough durable and will last for years and years these are 24 in wide they are huge so from tip to tip is 24 in and then the depth on them I want to say was like 16 to 18 in so really nice huge baskets there are a total of four of them so I have one here and then I have three over here the reason that I have such um large containers is because our front porch of course is nice and big you see our front porch from a great distance and I want massive baskets that really make an impact also because our growing season is so long these can go from April to November and I need as much soil as I possibly can have in my hanging baskets so that my plants stay nice and healthy and happy so that is why I have these huge ones I will try to link it um on the video description but you can just go over to Kinsman Garden company Kinsman I I’ll put all the links but it’s kenen Garden company so if you don’t like this particular design or they’re too big totally understand that they come in a whole range of um shapes and sizes and different kind of Decor so that is what we have there now the plants that we are putting in these baskets um we’re keeping it simple did this combo last year and it was by far one of my absolute favorites for my front porch my front porch gets no sun until probably about 2 to 3:00 in the afternoon and then it is blazing hot afternoon sun I need plants that can handle that so we are going to use the ever beloved Diamond Frost Euphoria is going to be my centerpiece and then the kind of the uh other co-star of the show is going to be these dragon wing red Bonas now they are tiny they are just little liners right now but they are going to be gorgeous in these baskets again did this combo last year and I loved it they were absolutely spectacular both the diamond Frost and the dragon wings are going to be in they can handle all that shade and they can handle the sun dragon wings tend to be more of a shade plant but because they’re predominantly in the shade and they just that little bit of afternoon sun even though it’s hot they performed great and I have lots of soil all that and they were beautiful in huge and massive so we’re going to repeat that again now my supplies the supplies that you’re going to need uh I’m a bad judge of like how far the soil and the compost goes so I have three bags of land and sea compost here and then I have four bags of The Proven winers potting soil back there in the the back and of course my biotone whenever I plant my perennials my annuals trees shrubs we use that biotone for that great strong healthy happy root system so what we’re going to do is I am we’re going to get the camera set up I got sweet thing with me he’s going to help me film and so we’re going to get the camera set up and I’m going to walk you through I’m going to plant one with you and I’m going to give you tips and tricks how to create successful containers because even though you may not be able to plant yet you can start planning and you can start Gathering your materials so if you need to order hanging baskets now’s a great time to do it if you want to go shopping for containers now’s a great time to do it gather up all your supplies think about your plants get your plans together that way when it’s time for you to do it you can hit the ground running and be ready to go so let’s get to planting number one tip trick for you when you’re doing containers y’all I don’t care if it’s a hanging basket or container get the biggest container that your space will allow espe especially if you’re like me and you have a very long growing season we want a big container that your space can allow because of all the soil tip number two please do not use any kind of filler in the bottom don’t use uh for in the South pine cones uh packing peanuts water bottles no we want this entire container completely filled with great compost and potting soil why do we want that we want that so that your plants their roots can get in there and have all this delicious food and water and space for those roots to grow because if you have happy Roots you have happy choots so biggest container fill it completely up with compost potting soil number two uh three I guess that would be we I learned this trick years ago from reading and I think it was fine guarding magazine is that you take a container again I do this with all my containers hanging baskets hay racks um just traditional pots whatever you’re going to take your compost and you’re going to fill the bottom onethird of the container with your compost and uh this Landon SE is a little it’s a little damp this morning so it’s a little heavy so we’re going to get in there and we’re going to fill up like I said that bottom third with your compost all right why do we do this we do this um for several reasons one thinking about that long growing season that I have when the roots of my plants whatever it is whether it’s a perennial an annual a shrub when those roots hit this layer of compost that’s a whole another level of nutrition that’s available for them and they are going to be happy happy happy also compost is going to help hold moisture for me yes it drains it’s not going to be sit there be S you know soggy but it does retain moisture so you’ve got a whole another level of moisture so we’ve got the bottom third with the compost then you’re going to fill the rest of it with your potting soil y’all use high quality potting soil I personally like The Proven Winter’s potting soil it is my favorite I have used it for years this is what I prefer it drains well but yet it holds water there is a fine balance of well draining yet holding moisture it does have slow relase fertilizer in there so I’m not going to add any um to this container right now before I hang them up onto the um front porch and I don’t know what is that six six weeks or so I will probably top dress with some slow release just because I do that before I hang them up but I personally Love The Proven Winners you can use whatever potting soil that you like that you prefer the one thing that I will caution you on is you’re going to get what you pay for all right so if some somebody’s having a sale cuz we’re getting ready to go into that season right you’re going to start seeing sales and they’re like oh get this bag of soil you know5 for $10 that is probably not going to be the best soil out there and it is going to uh come back and probably bite you as I suspected these hanging baskets are going to go ahead and take a full bag of The Proven winers potting so that is 1 and 1/2 cubic feet these are huge baskets y’all and because my liners are still just liners and not you know big old like a grande or a gallon size I am going to go ahead and fill it all the way up here with the potting soil so yes use a really high quality potting soil if it’s cheap you’re going to have cheap soil you’re going to have horrible results so just be aware go to your local Garden Center if you can’t get The Proven Winners go to your local Garden Center ask them them what they recommend and they will tell you next bioone this is a huge difference maker and y’all I’m just going to be honest with you when we first started using biotone I really only used it on my shrubs then I was using on my perennials I was like I don’t need to worry about it with annuals I mean they’re annuals they’re in they’re out why why waste my money of biotone on my annuals did it last year and it made a huge difference we put biotone down on the patio where we did the suuna mini Vista white patunas and they were unbelievable I didn’t have to do water soluble fertilizer nearly as much as I you know would have to do if I didn’t put the biotone biotone makes a big difference even for your annuals so use it so I’m just going to come in here and just do a little sprinkle as it as we plant this will J in there and it’ll be um it’ll work itself in all right so if you already had uh say you have the grind containers Grande of course is sitting right here beside of me this is that Grande um you can just mix it in with that in your whatever container you’re using and it will all work out just fine next thing when you’re putting containers together you need to think about um where you’re going to put this container is this container going to be in the shade is it going to be in full sun all day long is it going to be uh Morning Sun afternoon shade or vice versa that that’s really really important because different plants have different growing conditions that they like as I said before this is going to be in shade predominantly all day until the end of the afternoon and it’s going to get well in the peak of the summer it could get you know 5 to 6 hours of late afternoon sun this combo works really well together so know your sun conditions know how many hours of Sun and when those hours occur then you’re going to pick your plants according to that uh that sunlight right so as I said before I’m using Diamond Frost Euphoria Diamond Frost is listed as a full to part sun plant I’ve had just so much experience with this that I know that it will do really well here it can do absolutely full sun and it can also do half day sun I’ve even seen it do really well um in some shady conditions now this is a very young plant so my roots are not really all the way through the container and that is totally fine I’m going to come in here make a little well gently turn her over and plop her in the center I’m going to do two of these um Diamond Frost in here Diamond Frost will get to be 12 to 18 in tall and really the spacing is about a foot apart however because we’re using these in a container I’m basically going to plant them right beside each other because I want them look at one plant and nice and big so once you know your growing conditions your sun conditions pick likeminded plants pick plants that have the same Sun requirements you need to think about plants that have the same water requirements because some plants love water some plants don’t really care they can go either way and then some plants tend to like it dry so if you’re looking if you’re say you’re doing proven Winns you look on that tag it will tell you their water requirements uh drought tolerant low water needs average water needs high water needs so you will know that you need to put plants that have the same Sun requirements the same water requirements and then I would even dare say really the same fertilizing requirements because if you’re going to do uh say um not that I would ever put these two together but let’s say we put um patunas High feeders with the blue my mind of Ulus it hates to be fertilized so in a container that’s probably not going to do well because one doesn’t really like food at all and one likes a ton of food so that would not be a good combo to put together side note we’re going to come through and put look at these little te tiny little liners aren’t they cute so this is the dragon wing Ang this is the dragon wing red Bonas and we’re going to put four you can see where my hooks are um because this has a chain that goes up I’m going to put it between the hooks I don’t want the chain going right on top of it now y’all this is going to look so pitiful for right now and that’s okay right when you’re a gardener you have to be optimistic and dream about the future not maybe what you see right in front of you right now I mean this is going to look so kind of funny right now so once you have your like-minded plants of the same Sun the same water the same fertilizing requirements go for it have fun um basically you can do there’s there’s a couple of ways that you can go about creating your containers you can do what I’m doing doing a mixed container right so you can can have plants that are generally going to be the same size because my Bonas and my diamond Frost are going to be about the same average height they’re going to mix all in together it is going to be beautiful so they’re going to have this nice mounded Habit to them and they’re going to slightly spill over my Bonas are slightly going to come over that’s the beautiful thing about the dragon wings they kind have a weeping Habit to them it’s not going to be super long like a petunia but we will have some cascading happen these are all going to be about the same height you could go with that Thriller filler Spiller recipe we’ve done lots of videos on that or you could do a monoculture monoculture simply means that you have one plant but maybe multiples of it you could easily do a monoculture of just the dragon wing Bonas gorgeous you could do a monoculture of just Diamond Frost beautiful whenever you do a monoculture you’re going to have that one plant and multiples of it in that container this makes a huge huge impact from a distance if you’re looking to draw people’s attention and to really get their catch their eye do a monoculture it is stunning I always love to do this with a take a regular hanging basket that we have here at the nursery whether it’s like the super tunia Vista bubble gum or maybe it is the uh super Bell’s dreamsicle right whatever color it is whatever plant it is do that monoculture you will love it you don’t have to worry about finding like-minded plants because they’re all the same plant last tip is we’ve got it all nice and planted I’m going to come back in with my land and sea and I’m going to top dress top dressing um not maybe so as important with a hanging basket as far as the looks because it’s going to be hanging and you’re not going to see it but in your container that’s maybe like eye level ground level one it really dresses up the plant the container it kind of gets rid of the potting soil look look you don’t have you don’t see the peite you don’t see um the fertilizer and so it makes it a nice and clean neat tidy environment also again it adds that food in there it’s a nice top dressing of that slow relase food for your plants also it acts like an insulator when you add that compost you could even add mulch if you wanted to um it acts like an insulating blanket for your plants for your roots so now earlier in this season it’ll help insulate keep the warmth in keep those roots nice and warm in the summertime when it’s super hot it actually helps to keep them a little bit on the cooler side it’s just like the insulation in your attic of your house right it just helps to regulate those temperatures also it helps keep out any weeds because yes you can get weeds into your containers so it provides a nice little area if you were to get a weed it would be easy to pull it out so I know she she doesn’t look like much now she’s a little tiny she’s a little on the dinky side give me 6 to 8 weeks I’ll change your mind give me till uh into July I will really change your mind on how this is going to look so what we’re going to do is I got three more I’m going to get them potted up do the exact same method we are going to keep these containers just like this these are the mum pans that we use it’s a 10-in plastic terra cotta pot because these hanging baskets are not flat on the bottom so they wobble I’m giving them some feet here in the greenhouse they’re actually going to go where Jerry is standing right now they’re going to hang out there so when um it’s time to water them it’s easy to do when it’s time to fertilize Jerry can easily because of the fertigation system when he’s fertilizing these guys he can just swipe them just a couple of times give them some nice uh water and some food all at the same time and they will just grow and flourish and be very very happy so it’s as simple as that I’m going to get the other three done and then I’ll meet you back here in just a second all four of the hanging baskets have been potted up they are watered and now they sit and we just wait on some sunshine and warmer days and they will go ahead and just start growing like crazy one thing that I forgot to talk about is how do you determine the number of plants that you put in your container that is going to depend on the size of your container and the Vigor of your plants it’s a little hard for me to tell you exactly what to do um these being really large containers and nice and big tons of room for them to grow I like I said they have four of the angel wings and then two of The Diamond Frost now you might notice that the two in the middle actually have five Bonas that’s because there were two extras in the tray you know waste not want n so we just popped them in there um but you’re going to want to look as far as your num number of plants putting them how many do you put in a container you’re going to have to do a little bit of judgment and if you’ve had experience growing those plants then you know kind of how how they perform and what their Vigor is you can also look on like if it’s a proven winter plant you should they I believe they tell you on like the product page what the Vigor of it is like obviously the super petunia Vistas super super vigorous going be your most vigorous petunia you’re not going to put as near nearly as many Vistas as you would say mini Vistas or super Bells right because the Vigor of the plant is different super beas the Pink Cashmere the white out those are all very vigorous Growers um so you’re going to need less of them as opposed to something that has um that is more small and petite that blew my mind of Ulus maybe a por chilaca um those kinds of things right so you’re just going to have to use a little bit of judgment on on how many do I put in that container I can’t really tell you exactly look at the Vigor look at the size of your container and kind of go from there also look at your growing season if you’re like me and you have a really long growing season then I would be do less plants because those plants are going to have plenty of time to grow and get nice and big and you don’t want to have to be out there watering two to three times a day in August right if you’re in a cooler area and your season is shorter say Michigan or um I don’t know I’m think of Michigan right um if so if you have cooler climate shorter growing season you can tend to put more plants in there to bulk them up faster all right I hope this has been uh helpful I hope as you go through and you’re planning your spring and you’re planning your containers that this information has been helpful gives you u a little bit more maybe confidence in going out there making decisions if you’re going to those local garden centers talk to your people they will help you um I know we do here at Creekside and we advise people on how to put containers together as always we hope you found this fun informative and inspirational we’ll see you in the next video bye friends