The Key to Bigger and Better Blooms | Container Maintenance Day 🌸

If you want stunning containers overflowing with blooms, it’s time to lock in your container maintenance routine! Today I’ll show you my simple routine that ensures my containers pump out blooms all throughout the season.

Wishing you all a beautiful day in the garden,
Kate

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Container Design 101 Series:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/w8R0KevcS5c?si=KrCaOl4gHXLbb6h6
Part 2: https://youtu.be/0TDXkkWEVZ8?si=OBCw8MQ_zPdxT_lw

Container Selection Basics:

Edible/Ornamental Containers w/ Crescent Gardens (links to containers in video description):

Fertilizers mentioned:
Fertilome – https://a.co/d/5EOwrWt
Buddha Bloom – https://a.co/d/aawqMVT
Tiger Bloom – https://a.co/d/9A1WbGf
Dr. Earth Flower Girl – https://a.co/d/gtmoPMX

Trellis Clips (this is an affiliate link that provides a small commission for each sale):
https://shop.seattleurbanfarmco.com/?aff=10

Felco F6 Snips- https://a.co/d/dAVkaVK

Dram Snips- https://a.co/d/6mtvBrF

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hello my friends welcome back today we are doing container maintenance it has been a busy week and I have not been out touching these containers and so I am going to invite you along as we walk through my weekly routine taking care of all the containers in my space now from my perspective a container is not just a set it and forget it program right we want to take care of this we have invested in the soil we’ve invested in the container we’ve invested in the plants and I want to make sure that these beautiful items are off to a great start but also that they continue to have what they need to bloom and produce the most stunning show throughout our beautiful season so I’ve gathered together some things that I just have in my toolkit these are the things that I reach for when I am doing container maintenance so first and foremost let’s talk fertilizer you have seen me go through setting up a container I will link the Myriad of container videos below in case you haven’t seen those before but I always start with really good potting soil and a granular fertilizer most of the time I’m using biotone in here because I want some nice healthy root development now that is only going to last me so long because this is a contained ecosystem so throughout its life cycle we actually want to be on a fertilizing regimen a fertilizing schedule in this house we refer to it as fertilizer Friday and I am coming back in and now for me I’m only doing it every other week some people really want to go for it in once a week but for me every other week is just fine so step number one first ingredient you’re going to need with container maintenance is a fertilizer we have two options um this is ferone this is a very lovely fertilizer it is a fertilizer that you’re going to mix into your watering can it’s like a little um like a little powdery situation in here I’ll show you what that looks like cuz this is actually what I’m going to use today there are several other options out there some of which I I’ve just loved and enjoyed this is just what I have on hand right now another option I’ve used is Dr Earth this is flower girl this is another really great fertilizer I have also used tiger bloom I will link that one below and there is a really great company it’s like a kind of a hole-in-the-wall fertilizer company here in Seattle they carry one called Buddha Bloom and it’s a beautiful organic with like bat guano and all sorts of good stuff in it um I’ve used that one with really good success as well so I’m going to link all of my fertilizer recommendations below but essentially what you’re going to notice with all of these is that middle number is higher okay first and foremost the next thing you’re going to need when we’re doing container maintenance maintenance is um Snips right so I have two here these are felco sixes these fit my hand really really well this is almost my this is you know almost my allpurpose snip that I carry around the garden when I do container work though if this is all you have use what you have don’t feel like you need to go out and buy anything but when I do smaller fine work I love these ones these are a dram little stainless steel snip and these are so great I use these when I am dead handing flowers I use them in the cup all the cut flow Garden all the time they’re just teeny tiny they’ve got like the sweetest cutest little Spring right in there they fit in my pocket so chances are if I’m in my cut flower garden I have these on me um the last couple things that we have is I do have some Vining elements on the patio that I need to Wrangle I’m trying to train my five star jasmine to climb up and over my uh pergola out here so I do have some jute this is just basic unbleached J twine and then I also have these These are compostable trellis Clips these are from a company called Seattle Urban Farm Co and I have used these with great success over on my fair trus I will also link that one in the com in the uh description below all right first things first when I am doing container maintenance I am basically going to do two passes through every container the first is going to be my initial pass I’m going to dead head I’m going to look for anything that’s slightly out of control um I’m also going to kind of just assess the shape because shape is very important in a container okay so with this container for example these little uh flower stocks for me on this hooka obsidian they’re not my favorite flower stock I still think they’re great texture but these ones are whapping me every time I walk through the door so I’m going to select to remove this flower stock um I don’t have anything really dead here everything is blooming really really beautiful I may take off some of these older uh Fern fronds though they’re not looking the best and then back in here I have my Snap Dragons and any Snap Dragons with spent blooms I am also going to remove okay so that’s step one last but not least I’m going to go through my center pieces and my centerpiece I just want to make sure it’s still in proportion I don’t have any weird funky growth going on this one is pretty much self-run operation I don’t need to do anything to it but there are a couple other that need attention after I do that first pass it through my container kind of taking out what needs to be deadheaded things that just aren’t working for me making sure my shape looks good then I’m going to come in with my fertilizer and almost every single fertilizer is going to give you specific descriptions for the ratio uh for some of them they’re going to say if it’s a powder it’s going to be a scoop per gallon um some will say it is you know tablespoons per gallon essentially every time I do this I take my empty watering can I put my fertilizer in here and then I fill it because when I fill it you’re going to hear me just crank on that spray and it kind of helps mix everything in all right let’s jump into it all righty I’m going to start by removing some of these flower spikes they are just super huge and I am hitting them every time I walk through the front door so I’m going to take off a couple of these because I don’t think it’s really adding anything super special to the arrangement here all right I just want to get in here to make sure you have all of these new little Snap Dragons are coming out so they look good there the Euphoria is coming right along I want this to be like a frothy little mid layer coming in and I love that it’s dancing with this lobilia so I’m just going to let that be over on this side though do have kind of a funky looking older Fern growth and I haven’t been doing a very good job of my watering my watering and I noticed I’m not hitting this Fern very well so I’m just going to get rid of some of this funky growth that’s a little bit burned here and we’re just going to start fresh it’ll push out new growth in no time all right and this little colius is looking good and then back here do you see this I have not been doing a good job of watering on this Rim so I am going to just let this be and hopefully the Cog Janella will make a comeback it’s a little light green in there so that will do it oh you know what actually look at this I’m just going to take off a couple of these leaves and I’m just going to pinch these off with my fingers CU they just aren’t looking very good in there but other than that look how gorgeous that lobilia is okay I’m going to fertilize this guy and then we’ll be on to the next one so I’m going to be using this fertilome today it comes with a little tiny scooper there’s a couple lines on here this lowest one is the one uh teaspoon and this is one tablespoon I am going to be applying one teaspoon of this fertilizer per gallon of water this is a 2 gallon can so and also I’m not super duper precise but that’s about two teaspoons so I’m going to throw that guy in first and then literally mix it in by using my superpow uh nozzle here and that’ll kind of foam it up all right by the way when I am doing this instead of my instead of watering my containers on this day I do my fertilizer application so this is a substitution for today’s watering and for a larger container like this I actually used maybe a third of a can here I really want to saturate this soil this one is needing just a wee bit more love than some of the others I haven’t done a very good job of watering this week and it’s been hot so the first thing I’m going to do is I kind of like to start with my Center and work my way out and so right here first things first I need to dead head this little guy you know when someone had made a comment about me putting a poisonous plant in a container that’s on a dining room I don’t have a problem with that um if you do that’s something that you as a gardener should know about yourself but for me I know that whoever’s coming is only enjoying these with their eyes and so I never worry about things that could potentially be poisonous if ingested the only time I get concerned is if I have little people around and then I keep a close eye or I educate their parents um this right here the sweet little Cosmo I’m just deadheading it but it is so cute it’s really filling in and then coming down around here I’m just Notting noticing some of this sweet potato vine because we got real hot and I didn’t do a good job of watering I’m just going to take off a couple of these leaves that don’t look as don’t look as cute and then with this picho I will come through and I just simply pull off these little spent blooms and you know most of the time this picho is going to do it by itself um but I just like to encourage it along now later in the season as this grows if it gets unruly or gets too stringy and long I will cut it back to maintain its shape right now it’s heading in just the perfect direction for me so I’m going to do nothing but pull off some spent blooms and call it a day and then Euphoria is looking good and this lobilia is looking really good this is the rift blue and what I love about playing with kind of newer product is I’m looking at how this shape progresses so the first pot that Lilia was getting really long and drap drapey that’s one that I play with a lot this one is really sweet it’s staying a little bit more compact which I’m really really loving all right with this Trio I’m actually going to groom all three of these and then I will come back and I will water all three of these in so let’s move on to the next this container is going crazy right now I’m so so happy with it um Cosmos are just like the most perfect Little Flower they just keep going and going and going they’re so super happy um they’re a great Cut Flower but one thing that I always tell people with cut flowers is the more you cut them back the more they bloom and the more they produce so it’s really important when you do a container like this to stay on top of the blooms constantly cutting them back because it’ll just it’ll just reward you with even more and then I’m also never afraid to cut really deep in that one’s kind of a funny little collar but we’re just going to let it ride I’m take off this one too oh okay looking really good and of course our sedum needs just no help looking super cute all right third container in this Trio I am seeing I want to get back in here I’m going to cut out the center of that snap dragon because it’s spent same thing here encourage all those other blooms to take center stage and I’m just going to hand pull my little picoa oh and then here’s where that watering failure comes in in I’ve got a couple of crispy leaves so I’m just going to remove these guys and then I do want to show you one other thing pluck out that Center I have picoa that is choosing to travel inward I think what I may do is I actually think I want to keep my yellow along the edge so what I’m going to do is I’m going to come back in here and I’m going to remove these little guys because I really want to keep the picho around the center here and let these Snap Dragons fill in the middle and the reason I’m doing this is because do you see how much more you can appreciate and see these snapdragons that’s what I want I want to give everybody a moment to shine and I don’t want one ingredient in my container taking over everything else now I’m going to do the same thing over here because this little guy is creeping it on that side so I’m going to flip over there all right what me to so I’m actually going to train that along the outside perfect oh you know what I might do one more over here so this right here is a compostable clip by Seattle Urban Farm Co and what you can do is you can see how it just kind of fold holds in half and clips together right there and what I’m going to be doing with this is I want to encourage my Claus to keep growing up this twine and so I’m just going to go ahead and take some of the heavier vines that are kind of starting to snap and I’m going to secure them Loosely to my twine I think I might do one more much better much better oh you know what I think I need to get one more up in there let’s just see how this one goes and when I grow a Vine like a Claus I will sometimes clip them just to each other to get them in the right direction so I don’t necessarily even need to clip all of them to the twine but this is enough to get them all moving together up this twine perfect the five star jasmine is growing so one of the first things I’m actually going to do over here is this was bound really heavily to the wooden steak that’s in the middle and that just wasn’t healthy I wanted to loosen it up so what I’m going to do is I am just going to do a very loose kind of Corral of sorts I don’t want it super bound I’m just going to do a nice light little Loop here and instead of me tying this directly to my pergola support what I’m going to do is I’m going to tie I’m going to crawl this up and then I’m going to bring it around here okay so instead of me just Plastering this whole darn thing this gives it a bit more of a natural look it’s not so constraint and then I’m going to let this Jasmine kind of find her own way you know we’re just going to see what she does it’s going to take a little bit of time to get there but you know she’ll find her way next thing I’m going to come in here with the same pattern I’m going to dead head I’m going to remove any leaves that don’t look great and we’re just going to keep going forward from there oh the other thing I’m noticing this colus is a new one that I am tring and it is trying to send up a bloom stock I don’t want it to send out this Bloom stock I would prefer to have more of a leaf canopy so I’m going to come in here and I’m going to clip it right above this Leaf pairing because look at this I have some lateral buds that are coming out so I’m going to come in here and I’m going to clip out that Center just like that these trumpets are so gorgeous so let’s just get after it we’re going to clean this bad boy up oh and you know what I also might do I might remove some of these lower leaves because the other thing I want to do is I want to lift the canopy a little bit I want this colus to get a little bit taller so I have more room for this lobilia and my lmia to kind of fill in around the perimeter all right you can see where my Snapdragon is all butted up so I’m going to remove some of these Center spent blooms oh see how I’ve already removed that one and these are further along so I’m just going to take off some of this and then also this margarite man I’m going to give it one more week and if this one doesn’t kind of pull itself together she’s out of here I’m going to put something else in because I just don’t want this like it’s looking I don’t know what is wrong with this batch but not a good batch filling in really beautifully okay looking pretty good and last but not least we have this little container of mint and this is just a sweet little pot nothing really fancy one thing that I could do though is do you see how I’ve got a lot of new growth coming out here at the bottom I could actually Top This growth and I’m going to bring you in closer and I’m going to show you where I would cut this if I decided to cut it actually I may cut it I may make some tea I think I should try that when you have a plant like this it’s really a Choose Your Own Adventure do you see all of this lateral branching that’s occurring if I were to cut this back I would simply select any point along here I wouldn’t do it up high I would do it down low and I would cut above where I have branching like this little cutie coming out of the main stem I would cut right above that in fact I could go even lower and cut here because check this out I have branches coming out either side so I may because this is a new plant to me I may try a deep cut here dry this maybe make it into a nice pot of tea tonight and just kind of play with it and see how the plant responds to my different cuts that I make all right here we go oo well that’s beefy holy cow okay that was pretty beefy and I’m going to let the rest of this kind of play out just to see what happens this smells really good it’s not as like it’s not as spicy it’s like a little bit sweeter it’s really delicate and almost like a little bit more fruity which makes sense because this is the Apple Min really like it one last note before I water you are only going to see me water this container and this container and you may be wondering why and here’s why this container is a non blooming container container with edible elements so for this one I only going to be using an organic fertilizer because I will be ingesting this and I’m not really worried about blooms it’s just the foliage so I’m going to use something different probably a very neutral basic um same numbers all the way across organic like Dr Earth or something like that all right friends this is super important I want to be super transparent and I want to tell you I made a mistake I was continuing my pruning with these little bad rides here however I actually always switch pruners between my Edibles in my ornamentals and if I don’t switch I disinfect and wash before going from ornamentals to Edibles so what you’re going to see me do here is actually take up my felos for my edible containers and here’s the other thing I just made that cut down here I’m not going to eat from that instead I’m going to cut off the bottom so we have a nice fresh cut here and I’m going to go over here and I’m just to be I mean honestly it’s probably fine but I’m going to air on the side of caution and I did a fresh cut with my sanitized sterilized edible shears okay so next this container is pretty much self-run it really doesn’t need a lot of work I’m still having it fill in the one thing I do want to do though is I want to encourage more lateral branching so lateral branches means we want the plant to get puffy we don’t want it to be like single skinny so we are going to go down here and I’m going to cut deep on this cam Queen basil so I get to enjoy this and because I’ve cut deep here everything else will start filling out in all these different directions which is going to be lovely and these little V was they don’t need too much work here I mean just maybe a little pinching here and there but I’m actually really happy with how these Little Cuties are filling in so I’m just going to take off a couple of these spent blooms get on to the next hi okay so this is really cute we just met a neighbor Vish who lives a couple blocks down and he’s been watching the garden for the past year and a half and it’s so fun like I cannot tell you how much I love a front year Garden because it’s like how many neighbors have we met this way so many so I just I just love it Oh and before I move on to my next edible container these little guys are going to be used for my violas because my violas are an edible element the other thing that you’re going to notice me do is I’m going to fertilize these Crescent Garden containers a little bit differently these are self watering so instead of me dumping fertilizer over the top I’m actually going to mix it in and pour it in this little hole right here and I’ll show you how we do it all righty so in here I have my gauge right here which has a little blue floaty down in the middle of it and this is where I’m going to put my fertilizer mixture so I just kind of pop that little guy in there and you’ll notice this guy start to rise so in this one I have mixed in an organic fertilizer and you guys I really honestly I don’t think I’ve filled up this container in over two weeks maybe even three this been awesome and you can see I’ve gone through and I’ve added a gallon and it has brought up this outer rim and that middle one is kind of on its way up too I probably won’t fill it up all the way because we might have rain in the forecast this week this should be more than enough but the fertilizer mixed into the reservoir here will help just slowly feed my plants and I’m using a balanced organic fertilizer made for vegetables last container of the evening and you’re going to notice I have both pruners we’ve got our ornamentals here and we have our Edibles here we have ornamental caliber COA we’re not eating this this is just to make it beautiful however I am going to be working with some of the plants in here so I will switch to this one to make sure I’m not cross-contaminating first thing I’m going to do is this tomato oh my God it is so beefy I am going to get rid of this like look at this Leaf this thing is so leathery and huge but I want to kind of lift it a little bit so I’m just going to take off a couple of the lower leaves do that one gosh I think I’m going to get rid of this one here too down here yeah that guy and I think I’m going get rid of this one here too I just want a little bit more air flow W look that leaf okay so wanted to do that and then this calber COA it is so happy in here it’s going bananas so what I want to do is I want to take it off of my golden oregano so I’m going to come back in here with my ornamentals and I’m just going to this is where it’s really Choose Your Own Adventure you get to decide as the gardener how you want to play in this container and so for me I want to give my golden oregano a little bit more breathing space and so I’m just simply going to remove I think I’m going to cut back in there those Little Cuties and then we get to see this more and then back here I have my basil and actually it’s looking really good you know I may go back in here with my Edibles my edible Clippers and just cut back a little bit here and then maybe I’ll put this in a salad maybe I’ll make spy tomorrow night this on the top okay let’s do the other side someone had asked me in one of the comments um if there was a concern about my Edibles touching ornamentals in this case no and I will tell you why it’s not like I’m putting a detura in there or something or like a euphorbia where I really don’t want any of that sap getting anywhere this one calra COA it might give you like a wee bit of a stomach upset um if you eat like a ton of it um but that is not the case here and like I said this is my garden I’m a super educated Gardener and so I feel very comfortable mixing um geranium mixing caliber COA mixing some like very benign lovely floral elements in with my Edibles and over here oh my gosh this time is so pretty it’s performing really well yeah I don’t care if it touches it really doesn’t bother me at all and I mean as long as you are educated you know what you’re doing you feel confident in it that’s really what matters the most but would I put something with like like a poisonous sap in here absolutely not absolutely not because that can that’s where you get into like contact dermatitis and stuff like that oh and I actually really like it when this calabra COA kind of gets up under here I’m like imagining all these little flowers with the red tomatoes I think it’s going to be adorable and take that little guy off right there beautiful okay so now my time has room my oregano has room I lifted my canopy just a wee bit and then I’m going to pinch back my basil on this side as well so again switching and I’m going to cut right above a leaf pairing here okay and then last thing on my list is you going to see me pour water into the reservoir because again I’m using a self-watering container friends that is going to do it for me I’ve got my containers pulled back into shape I’ve got amazing basil and mint to play Within the kitchen tomorrow and if this content has been helpful for you I would love to have you back we have a great little community of people going on here so subscribe like return we’ll see you in the next one in the meantime go say hello to your garden for me bye