The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson

The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson

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The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson
The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson
Not enough time to water your pots and containers?

Not enough time to water your pots and containers?

Making life easier with time-saving ideas for drought-tolerant, low-maintenance pots of colour through the summer

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Jo Thompson
Aug 07, 2024
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The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson
The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson
Not enough time to water your pots and containers?
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A bee’s breakfast

It seems like such a good idea, doesn’t it? To fill our pots and creating layers of fabulous colour - especially during July and August when a good container planting brings much-needed colour to the garden?

Great for jollying up dull corners, and fabulous for small spaces, plants in pots and containers can totally transform your garden.

The grim reality, though, is that pots need watering

Unless you’re planting succulents, every vessel will need at least a tiny bit of water - out in the garden, the plants’ feet are going to be in some sort of medium (eg soil or gravel), and they will have access to some sort of moisture.

But when the plants are in pots, it’s a very different matter - the only water they get is whatever watering we decide to provide. Even a summer rainfall won’t really be enough, as the leaves will prevent the water getting to the soil - which is where the water needs to go. If you see wet leaves and flowers, this isn’t enough. It’s the soil that needs to be wet. And so it is that in August, our watering duties can take forever (even longer if there’s a hosepipe ban and you’re recycling dishwater and bathwater. Luckily we haven’t had to do that yet this year.)

Easy drought-tolerant container recipes

My mission, as ever, is to create a shortcut wherever I see the possibility, and one labour-saving approach is to ensure that lots of my pots don’t need more than a quick spray of water on the soil every few days. I’m going to take you on a tour of these containers, and today I’m sharing the recipe for each of these pots.

To reduce the amount of watering, there’s one important thing to do when you’re planting up your pots:

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