Millie grows a lot of plants in pots – it often helps provide the exact conditions that they need, which wouldn’t be possible in her heavy clay soil. But plants in containers need to be checked over every few months to see how they’re going. Subscribe 🔔 http://ab.co/GA-subscribe
Here are her tips for a pot plant audit:
1. Food – do they need a feed?
Plants in a pot are reliant on you for all their needs, including food and water. Millie uses a small handful of organic fertiliser three or four times a year, with a top up of liquid fertiliser in the growing months. Top dress with a bit of compost, leaf mold or worm castings adds an extra boost. She mulches with crushed recycled brick or other gravel.
Make sure you water well when you fertilise.
2. Water is key.
The smaller the container the more often they need to be watered – some die after one drying out. And don’t forget that wind can help dry plants, too – moving plants out of the wind will help reduce water loss through transpiration.
Millie half-buries some plants in the ground to keep crops such as strawberries out of the slug zone while keeping the soil and roots cooler underground.
How you water also matters – to give plants a really good soak submerge the whole container in water for up to 30 minutes – until all the air has bubbled out.
3. Move up.
There comes a time when a feed or water isn’t enough, and that’s when you need to move a plant into the next size up of container, to give the roots more room to move and some fresh potting mix to grow in.
Millie wears gloves and dampens the potting mix down when repotting her makrut lime. She adds a small handful of organic fertiliser and tops with a layer of gravel mulch to reduce evaporation and protect the soil from being disturbed by the harsh jet of hose water. She tip prunes the canopy growth to reduce the stress on the newly trimmed roots.
4. Location.
Millie has a rose that is struggling in its pot, so she decides to plant it out in the garden to see if that helps to revive it. She’ll take cuttings in case it does not recover so that the plant will still live on.
Filmed on Taungurung Country in Central Vic
Featured plants:
Leafless rock wattle (Acacia aphylla)
Bay tree (Laurus nobilis)
Citrus ‘Chinotto (Citrus cv.)
Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa cv.)
Makrut lime (Citrus hystrix)
Rose ‘Wildflower’ (Rosa cv.)
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