Does anyone know of a webpage that has a good chart showing types of flowers along with minimum and preferred container size. A lot of folks just go for large pots but some of us have tighht space and limited budgets so I'm looking for good info on specific sizes, and minimums, for specific plants.
determining range of container size
I never worry about it, I just get a container I like and some plants I like and in they go!!!! Can always remove and/or prune as neccessary.
If you're talking a mixed container planting, then pick a container you like and fill it up. You can look in Plant Files and many other sources to find how large plants are going to get and use that as a rough way to estimate how many you should stuff in the container, although to get a nice full look sooner most people will space things closer in containers than you would in the ground.
If you're talking one plant though and want to know the right size pot to pick for it, the answer is it depends on how big the plant is now. It's not recommended to jump up more than one pot size at a time as you're potting up. So even if a plant is eventually going to be 20 feet tall and need a huge pot, if it's still small and is in a 4" pot you don't want to put it right away into a 50 gallon pot, the most you would want to do is move it up to a 6" pot when it's getting too big for the 4" one.
I'm posting about pots for a single plant and looking to get by with the smallest (but still best practice) because of expense and space. Almost all of my container gardening has been vegetables and the online extension sites often have charts showing best practice sizes for peppers, tomatoes, various herbs, etc., and so I thought there might be a similiar chart for flowers on a website that someone might know of. Basically I have a ton of seed grown Dahlias (collarettes and Victorianas) which are supposed to grow beteen 12- 16" in height; a couple of tuber Dahlias (30"); Strawflowers, Nasturtiums, Hollyhock, Echinachea (Coneflowers); Moonflowers and Zinneas. I've managed to find quite a bit of information on all of these flowers but nothing about containers size.
As long as I'm sitting here typing dumbquestions, i have another. I've read here about not overpotting but about using the next size up (and I read that too late because I already moved most of my plants from their 16 oz cups to one and even three gallon containers. Now i'm wondering if they will die or be unheathy because of this and if I should repot them DOWN; but I'm also wondering how they know... how do they know if they;re in a bigger pot or a really big pot? Does this have to do with too many nutrients? I can't imagine what else would matter, especially because if i wasn't doing containers (but was plating them in a raised bed) what would be different about that compared to a very large pot?
The biggest risk (in my opinion) when you overpot is that it makes it easier to overwater. When you have a big container and you water it, the plant's roots can only take up a little bit of that water, and the rest will just sit there and increase the risk of root rot, etc. To understand why a container is different situation than a raised bed, please read tapla's sticky thread on this forum, he explains it way better than I do! If your plants are really fast growers then you may be OK leaving them in the bigger pot (as long as you're extra careful on the watering) but if they're slower growers I would bring them down a size or two for a while.
For annuals I really wouldn't worry. Just use good, fluffy potting soil that provides adequate aeration and you should be fine. I have never had a problem.
This message was edited Apr 22, 2007 10:42 PM
Again, thanks to all of you for so much good advice and I hope it keeps coming (and that there are others out there who are benefiting from it too).
Below are a couple of ideas that seem to be working well for me so I thought I’d share them (instead of always being the one asking for help); please forgive if these are things that everyone already knows to do (or maybe knows better than to). They're just a couple of things I've recently discovered and hope someone of you might find them helpful.
MIXING CONTAINER MEDIA: The past couple of years I've mixed ingredients in a large tub or used a lidded 5 gallon container which I turned and rolled, but I don't think the mixing was all that good and with the open tub there was always so much peat and perlite dust to breathe. This year I tried using a tightly closed "tall size" plastic kitchen trash bag (about 1/2 full), rolling and kneading it on a large work table. I think the mixing was actually very good because of the way the perlite was so well distributed, and there was virtually no dust to breathe.
AN INEXPENSIVE WAY TO MAKE TEMPORARY SPACE FOR TOO MANY YOUNG PLANTS WAITING FOR THE WEATHER TO WARM:
Pic #1 (in case you aren't familiar with what PVC looks like)
Pic #2 inside
Pic #3 Covered with plastic sheeting
Pic #4 With heat lamps on
With the weather still too cold, I needed some expanded indoor storage space after potting up seedlings, so I made my own double-decker shelf very easily and cheaply. I went to Home Depot and picked up a few 10 foot lengths of 5/8” PVC (plastic plumbing pipe) and some elbow and “T” connectors -- I think the whole frame cost me under five dollars. (I already had the lights, of course.) Then I used three sheets of corrugated cardboard for each shelf (putting the cardboard’s fluting in alternating directions) and set my plastic trays on the the cardboard shelves. One could also use (lightweight) 1/4" plywood — or whatever will safely span the horizontal pipes without sagging too badly or collapsing. Then I suspended four florescent light fixtures, two for each self, from the horizontal pipes.
This might be particularly useful for someone without a workshop, tools, or much workbench experience because all you really need is a hacksaw with a blade for cutting plastic. The cuts don't have to be perfect and if you use a little lubricant you can get them all the way in and turn them more easily to adjust the angles. (If you fit the pieces together tightly (pounding them in) you don't need to glue them and can then take the frame apart for easier storage when you're done with it for the season.
It's not real pretty to look at but I only had it in the house for about a month, then easily moved it to the garage (it only weighs about 5 pounds) where I’m now using it at night when the temperature forecast is too low to risk leaving the plants in the portable greenhouse outside.
Once I moved it to the garage, along with the fluorescent lights (I removed the upper deck because didn’t need it anymore) I covered the frame with plastic sheeting. I move them to the greenhouse on warmer days but they get an extra boost of florescent light in the evening, once they're back in the garage for the night.
And last, on the nights when even the garage is risky, I got two inexpensive halogen worklights from the local nox store ($7.00 each) which get VERY hot. I CAREFULLY suspended them inside the sheeted frame and found that leaving them on for only about 30 minutes will bring the temperature into the high 70's when the garage temp is in fact only 50. I've used hot water jugs in the past but this is a LOT easier and you can just turn them back on if you want to give them more of a boost without having to refill jugs and such. BUT...
While none of the material is exactly flammable (more like meltable) I NEVER LEAVW THE LGHTS ON unless I’m are right there in the garage. I just find other things in the garage to putz with while I'm waiting to warm up the plants.
Sorry this post is so long, but I'll assume if you weren't finding it interesting or useful, you stopped reading paragraphs ago.
Pic 2
Pic 3
Pic 4
You certainly are devoted to your plants. I hope they reward you generously.
Well done, I like the light stand idea, I have the lights and can't afford a regular plant stand. Since all the lights are in a spare bedroom I think it would be perfect for me!! Nobody but me goes up there anyway, and PVC could be painted if I want, right???
Three Gardeners- Glad you found the PVC idea useful. I believe to paint PVC you woill need to use an epoxy or other plastic-adhering paint. (From past experience with this stuff I would srongly suggest you do it OUTSIDE. Nasty stuff to breathe!)
Something I forgot to mention about working with PVC tubes and connectors, if a person isn't familiar with it: Because this stuff is intended for plumbing, there is no corner connector available to join four pipes together (actually there is but they're hard to find and very expensive). I'm talking about where 2 horizontal and 2 vertical pipes would come together.
I was just about to try and write out the way to get around this but since I'll be taking everything out of the frame in just a bit I think I'll just post another pic showing how this works (because a picture is worth a thousand words - or in my case, 10,000 words).
Here are the couple of pictures I said I would post. Here's what the frame looks like naked. You can see that the work-around on horizontal and vertical pipes is to stagger the T connectors. I put one piece of vertical pipe in to show how you would go about adding a second (or even third) shelf. The nice thing about working with PVC pipe is that you have a lot of flexibility in how you design it.
I've also included a picture of how to join the pipes and connectors with panhead screws if you have a drill and a mind to. You really only need to use screws as a precaution if you're planning a fairly heavy load (potted plants). You relaly wouldn't need them for seedling trays, and maybe not even for the potted plants - it's just an option.
Hope some of you find this an inexpensive, temporary way to deal with too many pants
