Flower planter ‘things’

[FlyingHighandDry]

I don’t even know what to call these!
I am a completely novice gardener. I have 2 large pots.
I see plants in the supermarkets in little pots of 6.
Please could someone tell me what to do so I can have some beautiful flowers to look at and care for!
Do I use soil? Buy compost? Do I need ‘bedding plants‘ or do they have other names?

Essentially put compost in pot. Put plants in. Water.

"Bedding" plants are annual, so they will look fab this summer, then die with the frosts. I would use compost over soil as it has more nutrients, if you've got a bit of broken pot or a little gravel to put over the hole in the bottom of the pot to stop compost blocking it then that would be great, but not essential.

Make sure any compost you buy is peat-free. (Use compost, not soil from elsewhere in your garden.) Put a layer of broken crockery or stones in the bottom of the pot for drainage first.

Any of the plants in trays of 6 are probably bedding plants and will look great in your pots. You could choose a mix of trailing and upright ones.

Water every day in hot weather. They will look lovely.

I'm fairly rubbish at gardening but learned the hard way that there must be holes for drainage at the bottom of outside plant pots. I ended up with lots of mini ponds and dead plants. Apparently I should have drilled the pots first, who knew?
The plants I've managed to keep alive for a few years are mint, lavender and strawberries.

Show us the pots and where you want to put them

Thank you so much!
Sounds simple - I'm sure even I won't be able to mess this up!

Water them last thing at night or first thing in the morning, if the leaves are in the sun it will burn them. It also allows the plant to absorb more.

Don't just put compost in, it will run out of food for the plants in a few weeks. If you have a garden, mix in a few spade-fulls of regular soil, this will also bring in plenty of the micro-organisms that lead to healthy plants.

Thank you!
I would have watered them in the middle of the day when it’s hot to cool them down.
See ... I know nothing!

@Ifailed Thanks I didn't know that either.

As they say on Gardeners World you need a thriller, filler and spiller. So something taller and eye catching, something that will fill out and something that trails. I planted these up last week and though the choice of plants at Homebase was pretty uninspiring I think they turned out reasonably well, or will be when they've grown a bit. The pots were from Homebase too. I hope you will post picture when you've planted them up.