How do you know how many plants to put in a given container? When a plant says to plant "x" inches apart (assuming you are planting it in the ground), do you modify that when it's going in a container? I plan to be planting mostly perennials/tender perennials that I will overwinter indoors, so these plants will be in these containers more than one season. Tamara
Sizing question
I'm fairly new at this also but I generally look at the plant size when mature and the plant form (is it upright, full and bushy, or does it have a vining habit. Ones that tend to vine or can be used in a hanging basket I usually pot up in a medium size pot and fit in as many as I can allowing about an inch between them. A large erect growing plant or a specimen I will plant by itself. If it has a large mature size I use a large pot or repot to a larger pot as it matures. Also there is an excellent post by "tapla" on making your own potting soil and he gives an in depth look at water movement in container soils.
Hope this helps. There are at lot of members here who know a lot more than I do. Charlie
I overplant my containers and it seems to work. I can't remember which catalog it was, but they were saying to divide the spacing that you would use in the garden by 2 if you were putting the plants in a container and that sort of follows what I do. I figure if it gets too overcrowed, you can always pull a plant out, which I have never done. Also, go check out the pots at the nurseries. A 10" pot of NG Impatients has 5 plants.
TY, TY! Now if the weather would cooperate, I could get outside and get these things potted up! Tamara
If other cultural conditions are good, plants can still look good under horribly crowded conditions. The most noticeable symptom of crowded roots is the plant's failure to extend. Branches or stems stop elongating and internodes become very short. In some plants, that are naturally leggy, this can be a blessing. In many houseplants (especially woody ones) that have a tendency to grow leggy on a diet of poor indoor light, we can partially correct the tendency toward long internodes by growing them tight (rootbound). Eventually, however, the inevitable watering problems rear their head as the soil gets too compacted for water to penetrate. We usually then see individual branches or parts of the plant die, but I doubt that you would see such severe conditions in a single season of growing.
There really are no guidelines. I pack display containers very tightly - probably twice as many plants as most people do. If the plants suffer, it is more likely to be from lack of air flow (fungal issues) than tight roots, but I do have a preventative program to keep fungal issues at a minimum.
Al
with annuals in containers on my deck-I plant rootball to rootball-I shove them in, and mulch well on the top. I figure that with every combo that I am trying one of them is going to bomb over the summer, and if it doesn't the cont. still looks good-if I water....like Tapla says, its the watering/or lack there of in the end that gets you. I tend to go with containers that are deep, and I keep them on the dry side so the roots go down and I don't have to water as much.