I'm not stingy with # plants in a pot, but I don't go overboard. Cramming too much in there leads to overcrowding and competition for water and nutrients. Those lush containers exploding with color for sale in May? Going to be pooped about by mid-summer. But that's what people want and will pay for, so that's what offered for sale. Actually, it's smart on the nursery's part -- more sales for them since people then need to replenish their tired, bloomed-out displays come mid-summer.

Now, I can see if you're having some big shin-dig or something where you aim to impress and must have that WOW factor, but other than that no, it's a waste of money. What can be smart is to buy one of those over-sausaged hanging baskets or containers and split the contents into two or three of your containers at home. My sister used to do that.

There are some plants where just one plant in a pot is all that's called for -- something big like a geranium. For smaller plants, I do space relatively close together but not one right on top of another -- no specific # per pot that dictates it, just a good dose of common sense and knowing the general size and growth habits of the plants I'm working with.

All the containers you see here are one plant per pot:

Cramming too much in there leads to overcrowding and competition for water and nutrients.

I am just thinking out loud i.e. if one was attentive in terms of watering and fertilizing then maybe one could successfully 'overcrowd'?

(@mxk3 z5b_MI I always like seeing your geranium pots :))

It's a practice I picked up from watching too many gardening shows and is intended to make the biggest impact.

That's exactly what I was referencing in my original post!

as long as diligent watering and fertilizing regimes are followed.

I think I will try and do a few "stuffed" ones

Hey @gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9), I think this will be your first full season in your new digs? Do you have some interesting garden plans for this, your inaugural year?

It depends a bit on what I want out of the container. If I'm planting in an instant flowerbox, then I will stuff it more so it's all instant at once. If it's a grow in box, like something meant to be plush and grow in, I space it out more. If it's a cut and come again eating box, I tend to stuff more because I'm thinning it out on the regular. If it's a biannual box, I tend to stuff a year, then thin to spacing for the second year.

" Hey @gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9), I think this will be your first full season in your new digs? Do you have some interesting garden plans for this, your inaugural year? "

LOL!! I have plenty of plans but the weather and old age are not making things easy for me :-)) I'm off to a very slow start.

My garden is tiny - around 500sf - and will be containers only. For it to look the way I intend it to, I need a lot more broadleaf evergreens to give it substance. When I moved I only took what was already in containers so most of my BLE's were planted in the ground and got left behind. I've got lots of plant shopping to do!!

I've only purchased a couple of new plants so far but I am busy gathering supplies........multiple bags of potting soil ingredients, 2 new galvanized stock tanks for my few edibles (and I am excited about having them on hand), a hose and a weed whacker. Area is much too small for a lawn mower and besides, there's a lot of pots in the way :-) I had hoped to have had all the existing lawn removed and a walkway and river rock to replace it for a good container surface but my landscaping funds can't cover that expense so now it is a full DIY project.

I am not sure how photogenic it may be this season - gardens don't happen overnight, even in containers - but I'll see what sort of pics I can come up with as the season progresses.

"...if one was attentive in terms of watering and fertilizing then maybe one could successfully 'overcrowd'? "

Fertilizing is a once-and-done for the season with slow-release fertilizer. But you should know by now that I HATE watering. I hate it. I only do it when I have to. So I'm not going to overstuff only to have to keep up with the watering.

I watched the video through while making dinner. Yes, it's a nursery showing how they do planters, so of course they want you to buy large annuals and stick them in for immediate effect - bam. I'm cheap, so I would be divvying up all those plants and placing the bits in each planter I do - because they will grow happily and fill out the space. Like right I will buy THREE full-sized creeping jenny pots to put in one planter LOL! But they are a nursery, so of course they just want you to buy without a thought. I've learned to fill containers with things like succulents - go out into garden, rip a handful of succulents, place in container - done. So, I guess I'm a spaced out cheap guy :-)

I basically have one main plant per pot...but will add spare annuals to any space around the crown, if I can transplant without mangling roots. Have no problems whatsoever poking a handful of sweet peas, cornflowers, phlox drummondii, calendula, , limnanthes, nemesia etc. in existing pots because as soon as the annuals start to go over, I chop them down to the base. I don't really raise any long-blooming, tender bedding plants so am mostly talking about simple things like red flax or larkspur..or biennials. Also, it appears that many of my pots contain later flowering plants (salvias especially) so who doesn't want to see some blooms in May as well as September.

Glances guiltily as one pot with a large purple leucantha and 4 (FOUR!) scarlet geums stuffed in. Will sacrifice the geums as soon as they look dull cos I raise them from seed every year, so have no scruples about chopping out). I have heaps of smaller containers which only ever have room for a single auricula or handful of small bulbs, which I stash out of sight when gone over.

Yep, I do the succulent thing too, Lallennoxa - sedums are so easily raised from seed.

My neighbour does that sort of planting Rouge - they spend several hundred £££ every spring, then rip it all out in October. I absolutely don't garden like that at all. In fact, l don't even recognise it as 'horticulture' but it comes under another rubric altogether (one I am not immune to, just not plants) - shopping.

I have trouble keeping containers watered during high summer if plant roots are taking up most of the pot. But I do like the full look! I love the container eye- candy of thriller- filler- spiller, but often do pot groupings of single plants per pot instead.

One thing I may try this year, since life is short, is to pony up for bigger transplants, that I still would pot up to larger container but get bigger bang sooner. That also might allow me to place them in less than all-day sun ( still several hours of sun) because they’ve already had a good start.

Not sure this is a good strategy though since I guess transplant shock still takes a toll & maybe my usual 6-pack transplants are better.

But the squirrels! Always digging things up, so if not vigilant you come home to dehydrated little plants on the ground.

GGal, is this the first time you are growing in galvanized stock tanks? I have had that idea to try that in the back of my mind for a long time. I’d love to hear your first hand experience.

Mxk3 - So funny, I LOVE watering. LoL I have to catch myself from spending too much time lallygagging around with the hose. I think when I am watering, I’m stopping long enough to actually get a good look at what’s growing. I find it meditative as well.

BTW, I hope you post more photos of your deck garden this year, I really enjoy it.

LaLennoxa - I agree, nurseries in my area do everything to try to get you to buy the largest size annual. To me, I don’t know how it profits them because they priced me just about out of the market. I buy a whole lot less and now I start from seed too, rather than spend a fortune on plants for containers.

One nursery near me, has someone on staff that does a really good job creating these very pretty sample containers and then they make sure that the contents are all available only in the largest size and the most premium plants. I don’t feel I want to reward that kind of decision making.

And I don’t consider your methods ‘cheap’. Your financially sound decisions are frugal. Which never used to be a bad word, in a different generation. I also do what you do, and use plants from the garden in containers. I normally need to divide some perennials every season and I will add my own divisions to containers for a season and plant them out in the garden in the Fall. Sometimes I will use a houseplant in an outdoor container. And sometimes I try to overwinter and use those in the next year’s containers.

Does anyone plant bulbs in containers for spring display?

I don’t normally cram a lot into each container, I try to give each plant the expected room to grow. But - I think I might try a few pots planted close together this year.

Marmiegard - I do like an arrangement of single plants in containers too.

Squirrels used to be pests in my containers until I stopped feeding the birds. I don’t see them in my yard nearly as often.

"Does anyone plant bulbs in containers for spring display? "

I tried that one year, I think it was daffs or tulips or maybe both; they all rotted out over the winter, so I never tried it again.

I grow loads of bulbs in containers...but mostly cheap ones which I grow for one season then toss - tulips,iris reticulata, crocus, babiana, sparaxis, dahlias, begonias. Lilies and smaller narcissus are the exception in that I have ancient lilies and hoop petticoats which return, year on year, in the same pots. Species tulips are always good to grow in a pot,then replant in the ground the following autumn., but I don't bother with garden hybrids as they split too easily and come up blind the next year.

I’m discovering that about lilies as well. One of my large planters I leave on the porch and I think I unwittingly turned it into a somewhat perennial container - by placing overstock perennials in them, thinking they would likely die through the winter…then surprise something is growing in the pot next spring that I had forgotten about. So now I’m thinking this just may be the new way. Herbs can be great ‘returnees’ - tarragon is up early, thyme is a great filler, sage is great. I have a standard sage in the garden, so maybe I will look for a more broadleaf variety to add to the planter. Also brunnera! That’s the gift that keeps on giving from my backyard - I’m sure I could throw in a few and they’d easily take…oh the ideas…

Oh, and mxk3 my potted bulbs experiment this year was a failure as well. I got a whole lot of bulbs (tulips and daffodils) cheap at the end of the year, potted them up during our warm/rainy spells. All half grew and rotted. I think it would have possibly worked if I had a garage to store them in, but I don’t have that so they were fully exposed to the freeze/thaw elements.

I have a garage but it is not attached and not warm enough to winter over anything. And our basement is actually the warmest space in the house, [g] so can't do it there either.

I tried buying pre cooled bulbs this winter, for the first time, and potted them all up to bloom in the house. I bought too many and it was more work than I actually wanted to do. The Hyacinths were great, but I bought some Tete a Tete Daffs and only a few of them grew and none of them bloomed. So the whole project was a big disappointment.

I have gotten more pleasure out of buying a potted hyacinth at the grocery store and enjoying the fragrance for a week or so and then planting them in the yard when they are finished blooming. They always come back the next season and I've increased my bulbs that way too. I'd say half of the hyacinths growing in the garden were grocery store pots.

I think the rule is, that anything that is hardy to 2 zones colder than yours, will grow in a pot outdoors and keep coming back in the spring. I have two arborvitae in pots that have been out 12 months a year for about 5 years. They are ready to be replaced, but not due to cold damage. They just don't like being contained that long. They do have a mature height of 50ft, so...lol.

@prairiemoon - I hear you on the disappointment. I was so cocky thinking I had gotten these cheap bulbs and I was going to pot them up to have this glorious spring display, and I would outdo myself. Boy was I humbled. Well, at least the soil is all nutrient rich with those rotting bulbs. LOL.

@ LaLennoxa - Well, it's all a learning experience, right? Even if it's just learning what your limits are. Yes, throwing them into a compost pile will turn them into something good. I salvaged about a dozen hyacinth bulbs and half dozen daff bulbs, just by continuing to water them indoors until it was nice enough to bring them outside. The potted remains of the bulbs are outside getting watered when needed until it's time to plant them. But in your case, once they've been out all winter and didn't make it, you're right, they will turn into nutrient rich soil.

And you don't have to give up on a 'glorious spring display' for next year, you just have to come at it a different way next time.

Yes, I think what I had really reinforced for me is that planting directly in the ground works best for me for bulbs. I’ve taken on another double plot at a community garden. So one plot will be for garlic; the other plot will be my “holding plot” for excess bulb planting and overwintering stuff.