What to plant in pots for the patio tomorrow

[WhatYouTalkinAboutWillis]

We've not long moved house, have a lovely big garden with patio area that I'd love to make beautiful. I really like it when patios have lots and lots of containers and pots with all sorts of colourful flowers in. I've got a day just me and the DDs tomorrow (they are 3.7yrs and 1.9yrs) and a collection of pots and planters of all shapes and sizes found and collected from various places. So my question is what do I do with them now?!

I'd like to spend the day outside and get the girls involved, can I just go to the garden centre and buy some flowers or is it more complicated than that? What do i need to buy? Does it have to cost loads? I'm really not a gardener but I'm very keen to learn and the few small things we've done already the girls have really enjoyed so I want to encourage that.

Advice appreciated :)

there will be others along with far more experience, but to get started:

1. I use broken up polystyrene to put in the bottom of the pot for drainage, it's lighter than crocks (broken pots pieces).

2. as summer is approaching, pot saucers might be a good idea to keep water in; for autumn/winter, pot feet are helpful because they help water to drain.

3. buy water retaining gel and mix it in with your compost;

4. choose plants that are going to flower soon (eg geraniums, verbena) not spring plants which look lovely now and will be all over in a few days (such as pansies and violas).

5. I love summer & autumn flowering bulbs which you plant in a lower layer under the top level to come through later.

some ideas?

That's a great site traviata thank you, hadn't thought of edible pots the girls would love that.

What does the water retaining gel do (I know that sounds like an obvious question!), is it so you have to water less?

Also really like the idea of two lots of bulbs per pot, so do you mean you plant summer bulbs at the top and winter ones deeper down?

Sorry for all the questions!

Garden centres sell collections of plants to plant together which can be helpful

Try and go for lots of different heights of pots and plants. You can even do wigwams of sweet peas and nastursiums. Nasturtium seeds fine no need to buy plants.

Marigolds, asters, heliotrope, cosmos, Californian poppy, african daisy, petunias are all good. I've just planted a few gladioli bulbs in a pot for some height later in summer.

Another idea: chives, mint, marjoram. They'll have fun making pizzas and pasta with herbs that "they" grew.

And yes, nasturtiums grow from seed and are absolutely indestructible. So that will be fun for them.

We have put loads of our strawberry plants in pots this year and they are doing really well. The boys love going out every day and picking the ripe ones (and eating them on the spot, of course).

Which way is it facing? Some plants can stand hours of hot sun, others need partial shade.

How much time per week are you willing to spend looking after your plants? X

I use John Innes number three compost at the very top of my pots, as if you forget to water with that, the water goes in quite easily when you next water, whereas with other composts it dries to a lump and it's really hard to get the water going in again without a lot of faff.

In hot weather you may need to water twice a day, so a hose on a reel with a hand attachment helps if you have a lot of pots.

Thank you all for your advice, I'm saving this thread for future reference as our little gardening enterprise grows (well, hopefully!)

We bought nasturtium seeds and some wildflower seeds then lots of pots of already grown flowers, I tried to go for the ones suggested above and I think we got a lot of those but letting 4 year old dd1 chose was possibly a mistake as she just picked up anything purple regardless of my feeble "but its not on my list" protestations.

Blondie not much time if I'm honest, daily watering is fine, and I did get some liquid plant feed for the ones that said they needed it, but really I'm just hoping for 'plant and leave' as much as possible.

Elliptic the main patio is sunny about half of the day. Although we live in Cornwall so the weather can be a bit odd and unpredictable sometimes, it was baking out there yesterday really lovely spending the day with the DCs planting and getting messy. Just hope the flowers survive DD1s enthusiastic attentions.

Daily watering and making sure you deadhead (pinch the spent flowers off) at least weekly will keep them looking good!

nasturtiums didn't work in my garden - the snails demolished the lot!!!