Container Gardening Lessons

I learned a few things this summer about gardening on a deck. Some of it I already knew and conveniently forgot in the excitement of creating a summer paradise.

Petunias: They're hardy, readily available, colourful. They are also very common, require excessive deadheading, produce a yucky sticky substance during the deadheading process, tend to get leggy and are really overdone in many gardens. I already knew this, of course.

Watering: Container gardens demand frequent and consistent watering throughout the season. If you are planning a vacation, you will need to have someone come to water your plants. If your vacation is during the hottest days in July or August, you will need to water at least every day and possibly twice a day. I think this is something we all know too, and try to convince ourselves that if we over-water Friday night, everything will be fine until Sunday night after a weekend away. It won't.

Fertilizing This is a new learning for me, compliments of my novice gardener husband ... he who does the garden maintenance. If you cut the strength of the fertilizer by half, and apply it three times as often, you will have much more abundant flowers. And yes, it is important to use the right fertilizer.

The three numbers on the labels of fertilizers are important. They represent the content of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, (N-P-K) in that order. In very simple terms, here's what each of N-P-K will do for your gardens:

Nitrogen: Promotes growth
Phosphorus: Promotes rooting and flowers.
Potassium: Winterizes your plants.

I used a fertilizer with a higher P value (middle number) on the flowering plants. This is also good for your vegetables. I used fertilizer with a higher N value on the herbs, because I wanted more leafy growth and not flowers. I didn't use a higher potassium fertilizer because I'm not too concerned with winterizing plants.

For a more complete description of fertilizers you can check this site.