Plant pots

[Cookiedough123]

After spending a fortune every year doing my plant pots and them dying I am wondering what is easier..?

Seeds or bedding plants? Or neither and any other ideas?? I have about 10 to do! Thanks

Seeds are easy and cheap, I just thrown them in. I plant twice as many as the packet suggests to compensate for my haphazard ways.

Where/what are you planing into? Soil type/condition and aspect make a difference.

What were you planting that died?

I’ve got a container garden full of perennials, alpines, ferns and hostas.

They come back every year.

Bedding plants are annuals, live for a year.

I don't know that much about gardening but am trying to learn and like to plant quite a lot of our plants in pots. I mostly just buy plants - I like things like lavender and rosemary, these seem to last quite well and even if some bits go dry, cut back and maybe repot every couple of years. I've got a plant called 'Daphne' that is on about its third year, it's taken a while to get going but now it is flowering beautifully. Another idea is to plant bulbs like tulips and tete a tetes but obviously you would have a lot of the year with just bare soil. Final idea, if you have a shady spot, you could have a group of Hostas - but these die back in the winter - I thought ours had died and was going to get rid of them until I looked into it. They don't need much looking after.

The only things I've successfully grown from seed are courgettes (but it got too big for the pot) and mixed salad leaves.

Often bedding plants that are in pots, are in pots that are too small. They dry out quickly and there is little nutrient in the soil. I put my bedding plants around perennial plants such as Cordyline or a rose which are growing in large planters.
I put Cosmos in very large pots, with annuals such as lobelia around the edges.

You need to check if the plants you buy are suitable for container growing. What size pots do you use? How many do you put in each pot? Are they becoming waterlogged or not enough water?

When you say they die... at what point do they die?

If it is during the summer, then they might be drying out because you aren't watering enough. Do the pots have drainage holes in them? If not, then they might be dying because you've drowned them.

If they die in the autumn, that's what bedding plants do. They are mostly tender annuals.