Snapdragon Double Mix
Wonderful warm days, cool nights. I can not express how much I love autumn.
This is usually the time I up end all my all drab/dead pots that lost their lust for life around the same time temperatures hit forty and I got caught up in the school routine.
I usually just throw the dead plants out and throw the soil from the pots if it’s old on the lawn as a quick top dressing.
I love grouping my terracotta pots. Before I even start to plant I work out which pots I want to use and usually have grouping of three or four all different sized and shaped terracotta pots. I also work out where I’m putting my pots and does that area get all day sun, some shade and sun or all day shade.
Next I get my potting mix. I always use, what is in my eyes, the best quality potting mix – Searles Platinum Potting Mix 30Lt. I find that if I give my plants the best possible start in life they are more likely to flourish with little input from me. I use Peat 80 for everything in pots whether its roses, vegetables, azaleas or flowering annuals
Pansy Mixed
Plants in pots do need a little bit more care and attention than plants in the ground. I try to give my pots a complete organic slow release fertiliser with Organic Link every three months and I alternate my liquid fertilisers fortnightly. I use Triple Boost and Silica and Potash. I am sometimes a bit forgetful with the liquid fertilising but I have realised that if I want my potted plants to stand out and look really amazing once a fortnight is best.
Next it’s time to choose the plants.
The best thing about this time of year is that I can start filling all my empty pots with winter flowering annuals like pansies, tall snap dragons, primula and violas! Plus all year round annuals like lobelia and asylum.
I’m not usually an annual person. It’s not that annuals are that much work, it’s just I’m too much of an impatient gardener to wait for the seedlings to grow into plants and flower! But I just love the cooler flowering annuals.
Viola Mixed
Some of you may be wondering what an annual is.
Annuals are a range of plants that usually flower and grow for one season, many do grow for longer. Winter flowering annuals such as pansies and violas will usually only grow in Ipswich during the cooler months by the time Christmas is here they have completely died off.
I may only get five months of winter annual joy but how could I not love the bright infusion of colour these wonderful plants can bring?
The best thing about winter annuals is that many of them are perfect for cut flowers. Snapdragons and stocks can last for a couple of weeks inside in a vase.
This weekend get outside, get dirty and breathe back some life into your old pots.