Planting Your Inspiration: Seasonal Container Gardening

1. Introduction: Take a look around. Nature is awesome. It's great for inspiring patterns, textures, illustrations, artwork, but we don't always have access to nature all the time. Maybe you live in a big city and green spaces are harder to come by. Or maybe you live in upstate New York like me, and there is a very long winter dormant period for plants. Or if you just don't have enough space to grow big lush garden. So what can we do? Well, we can plan to container garden. Container gardening brings the garden to us. It allows us to create a micro-climate where we can take something fresh and beautiful and plant it in a limited space. We can swap them out seasonally and we can take inspiration from our container gardens all season long. I'm so in, in this class, I'll guide you through the container gardening process so you can source inspiration directly from your planter. Hi, I'm Lauren Weber, artist, designer and horticulturalists from upstate New York. I studied landscape architecture and Plant Sciences at Cornell University. After graduating, I interned at Disney with their amazing horticulture team. Talk about a magical experience. And I spent eight years growing plants, caring for plants, and do a floral design work at a local mom and pop shop closer to home before I started my own business, garden girls studio. And now I get to share my plant and design knowledge with you. If you're new to container gardening and you're looking for a way to grow some fresh inspiration, then this class is for you whether you're sourcing a color palette, fresh inspiration for your artwork, or just looking for a fresh space to work. Container gardening can set the stage for artistic and creative success. For your class project, you will plant a container garden to keep you inspired all season long, you will learn how to choose the right plants for your environment so that we can set your container up for success. I will walk you through the planning process and break it down into easy to follow steps. And we will touch on watering and maintenance techniques to help you keep your container thriving as it grows. This class is for all skill levels, master gardeners status is not required. But certainly master gardeners are welcome to join in on the fun. Artists, creatives, plant lovers. Now is your chance to create your own fresh working space. If you've ever wanted to house your own ornamental container garden, then this class is right for you. By the end of this class, you'll not only have new planting skills, you'll also have a growing resource for your creative projects. The techniques you've learned in this class, we'll get you on your way to expanding your plant knowledge and sourcing your creativity. Now is your opportunity to get growing. So if you're ready to get started, let's dig in. 2. Class Project: Let's get started. In this lesson, we're going to talk about your class project. For your class project, you are going to create a container garden that will keep you inspired all season long. You're going to choose your plants, create the environment for your container. Use our thriller filler spiller theory to create your container garden. And you're going to use our planting guide checklist to make sure that you've set up your container for success. Last but certainly not least, you are going to watch your creativity bloom so that you have something to be inspired by all season long. When you're done with your project, you are going to go ahead and upload a picture of your project and a short description to the class. Project gallery. Be sure to share your favorite parts of your project and the moments that you had challenges with. That way we can all grow and learn together as you're working on your project. I can't wait to see what you come up with. So if you're ready to explore how plants can help you stay inspired. I'll meet you in the next lesson. 3. Sourcing Inspiration: Container Gardening for Creativity: I'm so excited to get started. In this lesson, we're going to talk about how you can find inspiration from your container garden. So I want you to take a moment and think about what inspires your artwork. Many plants and flowers aren't really your thing. I challenge you that you can still find inspiration from a container garden. You can look closely at different leaf feigning or pedals leaning to get good geometric and textual patterns, needs some color palette inspiration from a simple photo of this container garden. I can create a whole palette for my next illustration. Even if it's not flower related. And by the flexible nature of container gardens, we have the option to recreate our container gardens seasonally, giving us an opportunity for fresh inspiration every season. Even if you don't want to gather inspiration directly from your container garden, you can totally use your container garden to liven up your workspace. I find that fresh plants make my work environment feel more cheerful. So don't underestimate the power of a fresh workspace to help boost your mood to create. How do you get inspired? Well, you can grab your camera if you've taken any of my classes before, I'm going to encourage you to notice the details. So I want you to get close. I want you to look at the veining on your leaves. I want you to look at the coloring on your pedals and check out all the little nuances and details. It's one thing to look at a plant from far away and notice, hey, this caliber Cola has a trumpet shape. But when you get closer, you're going to see so many more details that you might not have noticed. If you had just taken a picture from far away, you can sketch it out. So grab your sketchbook, pen or pencil, whatever tools you have in front of you, sketch your container garden. You can sketch the plants that you have themselves. Knows the different leaf shapes. Are they round? Are they jagged? Or they multi leaves? Are they different colors? Let's start noticing all those little details and sketch them out. One of my favorite tricks is to bring samples from a container garden right up to my desk. So if I flowers that can be cut or brought in, I'll make a little vase or bring them right up on my desk. I'll sketch them there. Also, if you make a little vase of flowers or leaves, sometimes you can have it for a few days and you can enjoy a little bit longer inside. And if you're recomposing inside a vase, again, more inspiration. Another way to find inspiration. You can just do your artwork outside your container garden. Sometimes just a little extra fresh air and a new environment where you have some fresh green growth. Something is in bloom, might just get you in the mood to create something new and different. Even if you're doing an illustration of a cupcake or an a band playing in a parade. Sometimes just getting away from your desk, getting outside, getting near your garden me space will give you a little extra mood boost to help you feel inspired to create your next piece of artwork. I'm going to encourage you to create a container garden that is going to help you keep your creative juices flowing all season long. Whether you're choosing a color palette that strikes you, or you're choosing a beam that strikes you, or you just fall in love with the plants that you see and the details that you found in them. And take some time to take some photos, some sketches, and be with your plants so that you can create some amazing artwork. So now that we know how a container garden can help a source inspiration for our artwork. It's time to talk about setting up our container garden for success. So let's dive in. In the next lesson, we're going to talk about some plant basics. So if you're ready to get started, I'll see you there. 4. Plant Basics: Key Concepts and Terms: Welcome back. In this lesson we're going to cover some basic planting terms and concepts that should be useful as we proceed with this class. There are so many different ways that plants crop up in our day-to-day lives. But in this class we are primarily going to be focusing on container gardening. So I'd like to cover a few basics before we get started. Plants need a few essentials to thrive. They need light, water, nutrients and a structure for their roots to feel grounded. In our case, this structure is going to be soil. Plants may need different quantities of these resources. But these basic resources are essential for plant health. These factors will be super important for creating an ideal environment for our container garden. A few terms you may hear me talk about here in there. Let's talk about annuals and perennials. Annuals refer to plants that only make it through one growing season and they do not come back the following year. They just aren't hard enough. The weather conditions in that environment are going to be too harsh for them to come back the following year. So perennials refer to plants that are able to come back year after year. They are able to withstand environmental conditions like cold snow and they're hardy enough to come back year after year. Keep in mind that what's an annual for me, like most of these plants in front of me are annuals. They aren't likely to come back year after year here in New York. But that doesn't mean that they won't come back and live all year long in your environment, there are different regional growing zones that will indicate plant hardiness. For me, we have harsh winters here in New York, so not all plants come back year after year. This is why for me, container gardening is kind of special. Every season I can swap out new plants and enjoy these blooms while they last, this is some of the best color I will see this season. But for you, these plants may survive all season long and into next year. So you gotta know your growing zone and know that what works for me may be slightly different for you. Let's talk about bulbs. A bulbous, technically in anatomical storage structure that some plants have. The group of plants that have the storage structure can be referred to as bulb plants, in short as bulbs, tulips, daffodils, highest sense. A lot of times these are really early spring blooms are some of the first color that you'll see in the season, at least here in upstate New York. And it's possible to create a container garden from bulbs. Okay, So let's talk woody versus herbaceous plants. Woody plants have a sturdy, rigid structure that is not easily pliable. Think of trees and shrubs that have Barker woody branches. Woody plants do not fade back to the ground at the end of the growing season, a skeleton of their branches will remain above the ground even during dormant winter periods. We likely won't be talking about them very much here with our container gardening. Some house plants might have a woody structure. But for the most part, I'm going to be working with herbaceous plants. Herbaceous plants are more vegetative. They often fade back to the ground during their dormant season and re-emerge again in the spring if they are perennials or if they're like these and their annual, they'll only last the growing season. You won't find what on these plants, but they have vegetative growth, especially along the shoots and their stems. I wouldn't even say green. It might be purple or blue or different color. Again, most of what we're going to cover in this class is herbaceousness in Upstate New York, that's my region. Be sure to do some research and find the plant hardiness zone in your region so that you can container garden in your space to determine your plant hardiness zone, I'm going to recommend that you google your country's name plus plant hardiness zone or zone map, and look for a.gov website or a reputable educational websites that you can determine what hardiness zone you are in. If you're ready to get started. In the next lesson, we're going to talk about plant selection. So if you're ready to choose your plants, Let's jump into the next lesson. I'll see you there. 5. Plant Selection: Welcome back. In this lesson, we're going to talk about plant selection and how to choose your plans for your container garden. So if you're going to your local garden center or your local plants sale, I want you to think about a few different factors. One of the first things you should think about is plant care. To the plants that you're choosing preferred son. Do they prefer shade? Do they have high water needs, but they want a ton and ton of water, or do they have low water needs? Is it a succulent garden where they don't quite so much water, sometimes mixing these types of plants together, it doesn't create a good environment. It may help to choose plants that have similar light and water needs. If you want to mix and match different plants together that have different needs because they're super cool and super inspirational for you. Consider putting them into separate containers and grouping them together. That way your succulents don't get over watered. And your petunia is in high water plants all get the nutrients and the resources that they need. I'd like you to also consider not choosing all blooming plants. Look at foliage plants. A lot of times they've really cool colors, textures, designs, patterns, shapes, forms. It's really easy to get drawn toward the pretty, pretty flowers. Trust me, I do it all the time. But let me tell you there are some really awesome foliage plants out there that are so worth looking at and can inspire your next project. The next thing I want you to consider is heightened spacing. Now, in the next lesson we're going to talk about reading a care tag and that's going to help you determine your light conditions, the water conditions, and all of those resources that your plants are going to need. But the other thing that your character is going to mention to you is how big your plant is going to get. So even if you look here, this lush cascading plant did not start out this large, likely this planter contains two or three smaller plans. But even so, those smaller plants did not start out large enough to cascade over the edge of this pot. It started small. But when you're shopping in a garden center, you're not always going to see full-sized plants. These plants are going to grow. You're going to want to check into your care tag, see how big and tall your plant is going to get in. Make sure that you're putting it in the correct planter size. For example, if you buy a giant shrub and you plant it in a small container, it's probably not gonna be happy and it's probably not gonna thrive. Same thing if you buy a small petunia and you don't realize it's a landscape petunia. That petunia, It's kinda get huge. It's not going to be sized appropriately in a small pot. And if you've mixed it in with other flowers and plants in they take over those plants and the other plants in that container may not thrive. So I want you to pay attention a little bit to what end size your flowers and plants are going to be, so that you can make sure that you're putting them in an appropriate container and you're mixing them and spacing them with your other plants appropriately. And the last and most important thing I want you to keep in mind, choose plants that are going to inspire you. Now, maybe those plants have a certain color palette, a certain texture. Maybe you just see that plant from across the room and you're like, I have to have it. I want to draw this plant. I love the leaf painting. It's going to create a great background for my illustration of cupcakes, whatever you choose. The most important thing is that these plants spark your creativity. So just lines that excite you. Plants that get you feeling inspired and energized to get outside and create and explore. So decided to choose compatible plants is all well and good. But how do we know a plant water enlightened needs? How do we know how big a plant will get or how it should be used? Well, luckily, if you're shopping for plants at your local grower or garden center, most plants come with a care tag. In this care tag will give you a ton of information to help you decide if a plant is right for you and your container garden. So in the next lesson, we're going to cover some of the information that you may come across while reading a care tag. So if you're ready to get started and to learn more about care tags and how you can choose the right plants. I'll see you in the next lesson. 6. Care Tag Guide: Plant Features and Needs: So let's chat about care tax. When you go shopping at the garden center or at a plant cell, a lot of times you're going to see plant tags or stickers that are going to tell you a little bit about your plants, ideal environmental conditions, and basic needs. Let's review a care tag so that you can get a good idea of the types of things that you may see. First up, light exposure. Light exposure refers to whether your plant would prefer to be in sun or shade. While light is one of the most important resources for plants, it doesn't mean that every plant wants the same amount of light. Some plants prefer more light and some more shade. You may see phrases on the care tag that say full sun or full shade. But what does that mean? Let's break it down. A good marker to determine if you should get some loving plants or shade loving plants is the six-hour rule. If your environment or your space where you're gonna keep your container garden gets at least six hours of sunlight, then I would aim for some loving plants. If your space is going to get six hours or less of direct sunlight, then you are going to want to aim for shade loving plants. Now this is not a hard and fast rule, but it should give you a good guideline for where to start with your container garden. Now, what is direct sunlight? Direct sunlight means in the sun, no curtains, no shade, no filter. It's going to be in the sunlight, just like we are right now. Now. Shade, even in the shade, plants are still getting light. Unless a plant is closed in a windowless closet somewhere, they're still getting some amount of sunlight and that can be filtered light through a window or under an overhanging roof on your porch. Even in that shaded space, your plans are getting some amount of sunlight. It's just they're not gonna be in the harsh direct sun, like you're sudden loving plants would be. The next thing you may see on your care tag is a hardiness zone. In the United States, we have the US da hardiness zones. A plant's hardiness generally refers to if it can withstand the coldest temperatures in that region. So here in New York, we get very, very cold temperatures in my region, I'm in a zone five plants here. You need to be able to withstand negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit and the winter in order to be considered hardy for my zone. And a lot of these annuals can't withstand those cold temperatures. But I can enjoy them for my summer season. But if you are in a different zone where these plants are going to be harder than you may be able to keep these plants all year long. So be sure to check what zone you are in. If you aren't in the United States, be sure to see if your country or region has hardiness zones. This will help you determine whether or not your plants are going to be hardy for just the season or if they will be able to live all year long. Another really important factor that you're going to see on the care tag is size. That care tag should tell you how tall And how wide your plant is going to get. You want to remember that the plants that you're purchasing probably aren't at their full size. So make sure that you choose a planter that can accommodate all of the plants that you choose as they grow. You want to make sure there's enough room for your plants to breathe, get some sunlight and they're not being shaded or overcrowded, which leads us into spacing. A lot of times on your care tag, you will see dimensions for spacing. This tells you how far apart to plant your plants. A lot of times this is really important for landscape planting or when you planting outdoors. And it's something good to keep in mind when your container gardening, I tend to plant a little bit tighter than the dimensions on my care tag. I'm not going to plant them so densely that they're going to overcrowd each other. But I do want to make sure that they're lush and fall. This planter, for example, is not one plant. This plant are probably has at least three plants inside of it. If you were to read the care instructions for this planter, this amount of plants in this container would probably be too many. But in general, each of these plants has enough space to get light and air into spill out of its pot. Now there are a couple of times when planting your plants close together, maybe an ideal solution or short-term solution. For example, I tend to break the spacing rules on a care tag. If I've got a big event coming up, I need to make containers for a wedding or a party, and I want that planters to look lush and full quickly. Then I am going to go ahead and over plant those planters just a little bit, knowing that after the event, I can transplant those plans into a better, more optimal space where they have room to breathe, airflow, get the light and the water that they need without competing for resources. The other time when I don't follow all of the spacing rules is when there's a short growing season, I have maybe three or four months when these plants are gonna be at their prime. So I plant my plants just a little bit closer than it might say on the care tag. Not a lot. I still want them to get their light, their space, and I don't want them compete in for water. But in general, it is a good idea to follow the care instructions on your care tag for optimum results. Blooming time, that all plants blue, all season long. Now, luckily with these annuals, their optimum blooming period is going to be during my growing season. The garden centers have forced them to bloom so that I can enjoy them all summer long. But keep in mind that if you're planning a landscape plant or if you are doing some other kind of gardening, you want to see what your optimal bloom times r. You want to think about how you can have seasonal color for an extended period of time. So maybe all of your plants aren't blooming at the same time and they're alternating because of how you designed your garden. If you know that you have a plant that's going to bloom at the beginning of June, maybe the plant that's next to it is gonna bloom at the end of June. That way you can have color all Qianlong. Another factor you may see is basic maintenance. You may see pruning instructions or dead heading instructions. A lot of times even these plants and blooms are going to have spent flowers throughout the season. And you may need to prune or deadhead your plants to keep them at their most robust. The next section you might see on your care tag, water and drainage needs. If you have plants like these annuals here, it may tell you that your plant wants a moist but well-drained soil. Garden centers also sell pawn plants and if you're struck by a pond point across the way, you're going to want to know that that pond plant is going to thrive in an environment where its roots are wet almost constantly. Same thing with your succulents. Your second ones are going to want a well-drained soil that isn't perpetually moist or damp. So reading your care instructions, It's going to help you determine the type of soil and water needs for your plant. The caretaker may also describe the plant's habit or form. Is it a vine amounting plant? Knowing how your plant grows and the shape it develops will help you in the next lesson as we talk about planting composition and aesthetics. Some care tags will also give you usage recommendations. This is super helpful for container gardening. Remember that landscape petunia that I mentioned to you? Well, it's going to mention that that landscape petunia, It's probably ideal for a Landscape Planting. Now it's going to look like any other petunia on the table when you purchase it. But once you get it out and growing and a little bit further on in the season, you're going to see that it is vigorous in its growth and it's not going to grow like the other petunia that you saw, that garden center. Whereas a standard petunia is gonna do really well in a container garden. So the usage recommendations are gonna give you indications like this plant will be really helpful for container gardens. Or it's really great for landscape planting, or maybe it's a good border plant. So as you're going through the garden center, be sure to look at your care tags. It's fun to choose all the pretty plants, but if they won't all thrive in the same environment, your plants may struggle through the season. So in addition to making sure that you have plants that are going to inspire you, make sure that you're setting them up to succeed. Choose plants that are going to thrive well in the same environmental conditions, Primarily, similar light conditions, similar soil and water conditions. And if you chosen plants that really need different environments, consider planting them in different containers. Now, pro tip, once you've chosen your plants and you've brought them home and you're ready to garden, makes sure you don't throw out those care tags, hold onto them. They are great for taking notes throughout the season, remembering what kinds of plants you chose and the variety names in case there's something you love or something that just really didn't work. Save them, put them in a little notebook and take notes throughout the season, at the end of the season. That way you can determine if there's a plant that you want to try again next season because he loved it so much. Or if there's one that just really didn't work and didn't thrive well. That way you can avoid it again next growing season. So next thing I wanted to talk about is planting aesthetics and composition. How to create a really beautifully composed container garden. So if you're ready to talk about planting composition, I'll see you in the next lesson. 7. Planting Composition: Form, Balance and Perspective: Hey everyone. So in this lesson we're going to talk about planting composition. How can we make a dynamic plant composition? Let's talk about plant rules and container gardening. Well, for starters, plants have different growth habits and form. Again, refer back to your care tag to see what your plants have been formed. Will be, keep in mind, some plants grow tall. Some plants go wide. In some plants are vines and will spill over the edges of your pods and containers. How can we mix all of these habits together to create one finally, compose planter. I'm going to recommend that we use the thrillers spiller filler technique for creating our plantar composition. The key is to have a mix of plant forms to create a dynamic composition. Using the thrillers spiller filler model, we can see how a plants have it plays a role in creating our planting composition. I think of thriller plants in two ways. Often thriller plants or the show is to plant designation, but also may include the tallest plants in your selection. You want to create a mix of heights and forms and your container garden. If you have a tall container, tall thriller plants can help visually balanced the height of your pot and the height of your plants. Thriller plants can also be particularly showy flowering or foliage plants. Often I will use showy grasses, foliage plants, dahlias are my favorite flowering plants to be the star of the show. Spiller plants are you're trailing cascading or vine plants. While thriller plants draw the eye up, spiller plants draw the eye down by spilling out over the edge of your container. Spiller plants are dynamic, exciting and create flow. If you have a simple container, they add interest as they grow down over the edge of your pot. One of my favorite art techniques is to extend my work outside of the standard canvas or frame. So spiller plants help extend your work outside of the pot and create a natural flow. Filler plants are mounting or rounded plants. They fill the gaps between your thriller and spiller plans to create fullness and your planter. They create a central base for your planting composition and add visual support to anchor your thriller and spill or plant dynamics. Plants can also play more than one role. Depending on your project. One plant could be a thriller or a filler. Another could be a filler or a spiller. Designating a plant's role can depend on the size of the container you choose, as well as the combination of plants you've selected. The key is to choose a mix of plants with varying heights and forms. The benefit of creating a dynamic planting composition is bio-diversity. With bio-diversity, we have all of these different platforms, textures, varieties, colors, all in one space. This diversity can help fuel our creativity and give us a rich supply of inspiration for our artwork. So to give you some ideas of how you can use these plants in a container. I've provided some plants are planning ideas in your class resources. So be sure to go into your class resorts and download those documents. So you can see some different ways that you can compose your container garden using the Thriller spiller filler model. I also want you to consider before you're planting how your plantar is going to be viewed. Are you going to be looking at it from the front or will this planter be viewable all the way around? Thinking about how your planter will be viewed is going to help you determine how you should plant your plantar. If your plantar is going to be viewed from the front, you're gonna wanna put your tallest plants at the back of your planter. And you're going to want to put your shortest plants toward the front so that all of them are seeing. If your planter can be viewed all the way around, you're going to put your tallest plants in the center of your container. And you're going to want to work your other plants around it in an even balanced way. You want someone to be able to view the container all the way around without feeling like they've missed out on something. So as you're shopping in the garden center, consider the spiller filler thriller strategy as you're browsing for plants. Now again, this is not a hard and fast rule, but it's something to think about as you're choosing your plants to make sure that your plants aren't all the same height. And your plantar is gonna be a little bit more dynamic as it grows. So now that we've talked about compositional strategies, I want to take us into the next step, what we're going to talk about soil and building the foundation for our planting. So if you're ready to talk about soil in containers selection, meet me in the next lesson so that we can start prepping our soil and our container for making our container garden. 8. Soil and Container Selection: Building the Foundation: Welcome back. Let's talk about soil structure and creating the proper environment for our container gardens by choosing the proper soil for our plants and container. So when we're planting plants in the ground and we're doing traditional landscaping, there are a number of pre-existing conditions and factors in the soil that will determine how the plants are going to grow. We're talking soil structure, whether it's sandy or loamy or clay soil. You also have to deal with factors like pH, soil compaction, drainage. All of these different factors that will impact how our plants grow and thrive. Now, luckily, we're container gardening, which means that we can create that soil environment that is ideal for these plants. We have the power and the control, which is pretty awesome, right? We can create the factors that they need. So if you can't remember what type of soil your plants need, Let's go back to the care tag. You're going to want to look to see if your plant needs well-drained soil. Maybe if it's a succulent and might want sandy soil, check and see if there's any requirements on the care tag or if there's any notes or clues to what type of soil your plants may want. And to be honest, for most annuals like these, a standard potting mix is probably going to work just fine. Most standard potting mixes come with fertilizers, aka nutrients already built in the majority of garden center, plants will likely be happy with this mix and you should be good to go for your planting. Now if you wanted to make your own gardening mix, that is also totally an option. A lot of times you can pick up Pete, gardening, vermiculite gardening, pearlite, compost, manure. There are all sorts of tools out there for you to create a unique blend. It's not something that we're going to dive in deep in this particular class. I'm going to recommend that we keep it simple and we use a general potting mix. Next thing I want you to think about is drainage. So the container you choose, does it have holes or a blocker in order to let water reached the bottom of the pot so your roots are not sitting in soaked water. Most of the plants that you see here are going to want well drained soil, which means they don't want to be sitting in water. They don't want wet feet or wet roots. If your pot doesn't have a hole in the bottom, if it's plastic or a recycled material that you can drill through, I'm going to recommend that you put a few drilling holes in it, especially if it's an outdoor planter, to make sure that it gets its drainage. If you're putting holes into an indoor plants are obviously you're gonna wanna use a saucer or some sort of retention container at the base of your planter to make sure that the water isn't spill out onto your table. Now, if your planter doesn't have holes and there's no way to put holes and without breaking it, like if your plantar is ceramic or pottery or something really fancy, then that's okay. I'll hope is not lost. You can take a couple of avenues. If you're planters small, you can use gravel or small rocks and you can put them at the base of your container before you add in your potting soil. This will leave a little bit of basin at the bottom of your planter for the water to sit without it fully drenching your soil. Your other option if you have a larger container, I don't necessarily recommend using a ton of rocks or gravel at the bottom of a large container, especially if it's ceramic and heavy already. I'm going to recommend my special trick that you use recyclable, reusable containers. One of my favorite things to use, our milk jugs or a soda bottles, things I'm going to be recycling or reusing anyway. I put them at the bottom of my container. They are empty, lightweight, and the water can filter down. And this is also good factor in that you don't want those big giant containers to be full of soil. Wet soil is very, very, very heavy and it makes it much easier for me to move them around. They look super big and heavy, but they'd be even heavier if those were entirely filled with soil. And of course, at the end of the season, to not throw those containers out in the compost if you're recycling your soil, Be sure to dispose of them properly. We do not want to pollute beautiful Earth that we have other considerations for drainage. If you have a good potting mix, you should be okay. A lot of times those potting mixes come with perlite, vermiculite, all built-in. So your planters will have good drainage, perlite, vermiculite aid water retention and water movement aspects in your planter. They help water move through your space. If you're thinking about soil, soil is made up of a bunch of particles. These particles tend to be different sizes, right? So clay particles are super, super, super, super small. And those super small particles, water is harder to move through. That's why clay soil doesn't drain so well, whereas sandy soil drains super-duper. Well, the particles are super big. So those big particles, water can move through much faster and much more quickly. And that's why some potting mixes you run into. We'll have drainage enhancing particles built into their composition so that water moves efficiently through your soil so that your plants aren't sitting again with wet feet are wet roots which can lead to rot and other issues that we just don't want. The next thing you'll want to consider is the size of your container. You don't want a teeny tiny plant in a huge container. It's just not going to be ideal for your plant in that environment. Now if you've got a whole bunch of plants and you will need a larger space to support all of the plants that you selected for your container garden. Now if you have a giant shrub and you're placing it in a small planter, that also won't work. So make sure that you're choosing a planter that is conducive. The plants that you are selecting and the number of plants in your container garden. Again, refer back to your care tag. See about the size that your plantar is going to get. One of the things I like to do is lay out all of my plants. And I space them on my table. And I make sure that they're going to look good or fit well inside my container. Before I start putting it together. That way I make sure I have an appropriate size container and that they are all going to be happy in the space that I've chosen in their new micro-environment that we are creating. Other considerations, set the mood with your container garden. He doesn't just have to be parts of a plant. Put it in plop. Think about the kind of mood that you want to create with your artwork. You want to create something earthy. Do you want to create something upscale and lifted up? Think about the kind of mood that you want to create with your artwork when you're thinking about how you want to compose your container garden. So if you have your soil and you're already, and if you have your container all selected, we're going to move on to the next lesson. It is finally time, we're going to start planting our container. So in the next lesson, I'm going to cover planting basics and I'll show you some techniques for planting your container. I'll see you there. 9. Planting Guide: Digging Into Container Gardening: Welcome back everyone. It's time to get planting. In this lesson, we're going to go through a technical guide for how to plant your container garden to get started, you may want a few supplies on hand. You may want gloves or an apron to minimize your mess. You may also want a trowel, a watering can, a bowl for mixing your soil. And of course you're gonna need your soil, your container, and the plants that you chose for your container garden, for your watering can. Of course you don't have to use a traditional watering can. You can use a cup of water hose, whatever you have at your disposal that'll work for you. As I mentioned in the previous lesson, if you have a large container, consider filling the bottom with light plastic bottles or something light in nature so that you don't have to fill the entire container with soil. The root systems on your smaller annual plants likely won't reach the bottom of your container anyway. So adding in a layer or two of plastic soda bottles, recycled bottles, anything that you have that is lightweight and can fill up some space will help with the drainage of your container. So you're gonna take your potting soil, whether it's your own mix or mix that you purchased, already mixed from the garden center and you are going to put it into a larger container. Now this can be directly into the pot that you're going to use for your container garden. Or it can be a separate mixing container. I tend to use a larger container because I like to premixed my soil with water before I put it into my planter. This will help make sure that the soil is evenly mixed with water. And our plants are off to a good start as we're planting. Now you don't want to over saturate it. You want just enough water in the soil that you could theoretically make a ball with it and throw it against the wall and it would stick there. But not so much that you could fully wring it out. Now get your soil nice and mixed and loose. This will help make sure that there's places for the roots to grow and it's not overly compacted. Sometimes when you buy a bail or bag of soil, they've been sitting on a palette for a long time and the soil can get compacted. So loosening up the soil beforehand is going to help make sure that your roots will be able to grow between the spaces in between the particles in your soil. So I'll put my mixed soil into the planter that I'm going to be planting in. I won't fill it all the way to the brim going to leave a little bit of gap because as we add our plants, they already have some soil. That soil space is going to take up some volume and our container leaving space, the edge of your planter will also give you room when you go to water your plants or later on, so that the water doesn't spill over the rim of your planter as you're watering it. So don't fill your pot all the way to the brim with soil, you'll wind up having to take a little bit out that fill up most of the way. Again, you can gently set your plants around the container just to make sure they're going to fit and look nice before you do your final planting. Next we're going to start planting. So take your plants one by one. You're going to take a whole 1.5 to two times the size of the root ball of the first plant that you're going to plan. You're going to remove the container that the plant was originally planted in, and you're going to set it into the soil. Make sure that you keep the soil level of the root ball of your plant flush with the soil level in the new container. If you plant too high, your plants are likely going to be drying out because your roots are gonna be exposed to the air. If you plant too low, your plants will likely rot because the stem is going to be oversaturated with wet soil and it's going to rot through. Your plant is at the correct height. Make sure you fill in those little gaps between the container and the root ball. You're gonna want to pack the soil, just a smidge, but you don't want to over pack it. Remember, we don't want compaction. We want to make sure that our roots have places to grow and they shouldn't have to work too hard to get through that soil. Continue adding your plants until you're happy with your container, making sure to fill in those gaps between the plants so that you have a nice even cellular level throughout your plantar. If you find that there are high points and low points in your soil, make some adjustments, even if you have to pull out a few plants and restock them into the soil so they're a little bit deeper or add a little bit of soil, so they're a little bit higher to make sure that the soil level is slashed. If there are high points and low points in the soil, your water as you're watering it will pool, will sink so that the water throughout the container will be spread irregularly. This will favor certain plants over others and may lead to issues later down the road where some plants are getting more water than others, which your plants may not thrive. And so you wanna make sure that your planters going to have a nice smooth surface for the soil so that the water will spread evenly. So when you're all set, dust off your planter, clean it up a little bit. I'm sure it got a little bit messy. I know I get a little bit messy when I work. So there it is. We've covered the basic planting steps. How to mix soil, add it to your container, dig a big enough hole. How to tuck your plants into the soil, and how to keep that soil of a flush To continue this process until you're happy with your container and you're all done. We're going to talk about some watering basics. Some of the most common issues I came across when I was working in my garden center positions and my growing positions were, how much water does this need? How do I water this plant? So I know may not be the most fun topic, but it's going to help keep your plant or going for a long time so that we can maximize the inspiration for our artwork. Because if we take care of our plants well, we can have our inspiration sources even longer so we can create more projects and more art work. So if you're ready to learn a little bit more about watering practices, Amishi in the next lesson. 10. Watering for Container Gardens: Welcome back. In this lesson, we're going to talk about watering strategies and water management with our container garden. One of the most common questions that I would hear when I was working in the garden center and the growing positions that I worked in is how much water does this mean? Well, it's a very simple and common question, but the answer is it really depends. So I want to talk you through some different scenarios and dynamics so that we can talk about how much water your plants may need, the amount of water that your plant needs. Not only depends on the type of plant you have, but also it's environmental conditions, the light conditions, the temperature conditions, and the air conditions of your containers environment. So let's unpack that. If your plant is in a full sun high heat environment, it will likely need more water than a plant that is going to be in full shade and in cooler temperatures. If I have a 120 degree Fahrenheit summer day, my plants may need water not only once, but maybe twice that day. On a cooler day, water transpires more slowly and plant systems tend to slow down. So these are all factors. When you're thinking about how much water your plant is going to be using. If your plant is indoors, it's going to be similar factors. If your plant isn't a bright sunny window and may use more water than a plant that isn't a really shady location within your home. Or if your plant is kept in a really cold room, it's probably going to drink a lot less than the plant that's kept in a really hot, warm room. Other things to think about are your air conditions. So wind, air vents, any sort of blowing system is going to dry out your plants faster, meaning they're going to need more water. And even with all of these factors in mind, some plants are just simply thirsty or than others. Some plants just need more water. So how do we deal with all of these variables? The truth is, it's gonna take a little bit of work, not a lot. Just a little bit in the first few weeks that you have your plants, I'm going to recommend that you check on your plants once, maybe even twice a day, depending on how much heat and how much light your plants are getting. How do you check on your plants? Well, let's talk about a couple of soil tests. You're gonna look at the color of the soil and you're going to feel the soil to see if it feels wet. The color of the soil changes as it dries out. Take a look at these pods. Do you see how the soil changes based on saturation in the pot all the way to the left can see this soil doesn't have an ounce of water. It's soil structure is vastly different than the pot all the way to the right. In effect, its color is vastly different to, you can see this pot all the way to the left that doesn't have an ounce of water in it is not only gray are in color, it's desaturated. The soils even separating from the edge of the pot. You can see it's just, you're now that is the max dry level that this soil can be at. Now in the pot all the way to the right. The soil is rich in color. It is saturated. Particles aren't dusty. They are looking glossy, almost oversaturated. So you'll notice the rich, rich, rich black color. This may be even a little bit too damp. So you're going to want to choose soil that is just damp. And you can use a visual to see that you want your soil color to be a little bit richer. And throughout the week you can see the soil is going to start to lighten a color. So if you see that your soil starting to be a light color or if it's separating from the pi, It's definitely time for a drink. So you can use the color and the structure of the soil as indicators for when it's time to water your plant. The other factor is feeling the soil. Does it feel damp? I know it seems messy and muddy, but I will just feel the soil in the pot to see how saturated it is if the soil is still damp, I'm probably okay. I don't need to water right away. I'll check it again either later or the following day. The other thing to look at is how does your plant look? You'll start to develop what I would like to call it plant eyes. As you start getting your plant eyes, you'll actually start to see how your plants themselves respond to water. You can look at the color of the leaves. And you'll notice that some leaves start out gray, but leaves that are naturally as saturated, deep green, when they're dry, they're going to start turning a little less saturated and there'll be a little bit more gray. It's subtle, but it's a good indication that your plant may need some water. I've seen plans come to me that are too wet, that are also drooping and they are wilting. Will is not always an indication of not enough water. It can also indicate too much water. It's definitely an indication that there's probably a water or temperature issue, but it's sometimes hard to determine what that will it's being caused by. So as you check on your plants once or twice a day, you'll start to notice how much water they're using. Once you know how much water your plant is using, you can back off on check-ins a little bit, but I want you to keep in mind if a variable changes, you should go back to checking on your plant or your container regularly. So if the temperature starts to drop, or if you have a heat wave coming, or if there's a really windy day, make sure you go check on your plants to see if they need water, because there's a chance that they used more or less depending on the day. Or maybe you had a giant rainstorm and your plants are overly saturated, you may need to pull them out of the rain for a little while just so that they can desaturate so they don't start to rot. So make sure if you're weather conditions, light, temperature, air conditions change, that you are adapting to make sure that you're meeting the needs of your plants. Okay, so cool. We've determined that our plants need water. Now what, how do we water them, right? We just soak them with water. Well, let me give you a few recommendations that you can keep your plants and blooms in tip-top shape as your watering. So most of these plants that we're working with here. They want water at their base. Now, if you water them from the top, sometimes that can damage the blooms on your plants. So water can create damage on plants, either start rotting puddles or you can have a bit of burn from the sun or heat. I'm going to recommend that you try to water below your blooms when possible. So you can take either you're watering can or your hose or a cup of water. And even if you've to tuck your blooms to the side or snuggle the nozzle of your hose or you're watering can enter the edge or into, deeper into your pot so that you're not impacting the blooms from the top. The other bonus to watering below the leaves and flowers, there's gonna be less sun damage and less, less blossom damage. So you're going to have better looking blooms. So you can have sharper inspiration for your illustrations and projects and artwork. Now, how much water, while in general with these types of plants, you're going to want to saturate the soil. Again, we've created our containers so that they will drain well. So you don't have to worry too much about your plants sitting in water. Again, if there's a torrential rainstorm, you may want to move them. But in general, we've created ways for our soil to drain. So make sure that you're giving your plants a good drink. Now, what is a good drink? Look at the root wall basically on your plants. How much water would it take to saturate that soil? Now again, you don't want to over water, but especially on a hot day, the soil is going to drain and you want to make sure that your plants get a good drink. If I just give a really quick drink to these plants, if the water is not going to soak into the deepest depths of the roots and the plant is not going to have enough water. So visually, try to see if you have a container, how much water would it take to fill that container? Knowing that you want to make sure that all of the roots get enough water so that your plant has enough resources to grow and thrive. Again, there will always be exceptions. Obviously, cacti and succulents aren't gonna need water as frequently or as often, but they do occasionally still need a drink. And any flowers that are in blooms are probably gonna be using a few more resources and will need water including cacti and succulents. They will need a smidge more water than normal. So keep an eye on your plants. Make sure you're doing your tests and checking on them to make sure they have adequate resources so they can continue blooming, Thriving all season long. Now how do you tell if something may be wrong with your watering? Well, I like to do the mushy crunchy test and I'll just touch on this quickly. But if you notice that your plants are starting to drop leaves or there may be an issue or if you're facing wilt, I want you to check to see if those wilting leaves or those Falling Leaves are crunchy or mushy. If they're crunchy, likely your plant is either in too much sun has too much heat or it does not have enough water. If those leaves are mushy, likely your plant either has not enough sun, isn't too cold temperatures, or as facing too much water. So these are factors to kind of start working with as you're trying to figure out what may be wrong with your plans. Again, there could be a ton of reasons why your plant is starting to turn, but it's usually one of these three conditions, temperature, light, or water that your plant is facing. So it's a good place to start and make your small adjustments before your plant or takes a real turn. So now that we've covered watering basics, I want to touch on just a little bit more maintenance for your container just so we can make sure it's looking at optimum as we are grabbing our sketchbooks and our cameras and starting to create our artwork. So if you're ready to learn a little bit about container maintenance, meet me in the next lesson and we'll review just a couple of easy techniques that you can use to keep your containers looking fresh. I'll see you there. 11. Plant Maintenance: Hi everyone. In this lesson we're going to talk about container gardening maintenance. In general, your container might need a little bit of light pruning or dead heading. So if you have leaves that are decaying or at the bottom of your plant, you're going to want to pick those out and clean out the base of your plan can help prevent rotting and fungi from developing and creating issues from your plant down the road. A lot of times when leaves fall into the base of your pot, they are in a dark place. They're not getting a lot of sunlight. And this is a fresh greeting brown for mold to develop. If your mold is starting to develop, it may write out your plants so you don't want that. So I'm gonna recommend you take a little bit of time even if it's once a week or once every couple of weeks, just to clean up the base of your pots from any plant, from any plant material that might have died or fallen off. And this is typical standard leaves falling off is not necessarily an indication that there's anything wrong with your plant. It's pretty typical for leaves, especially on the inside of a really large container to fall off because they just don't have enough circulation and that's okay. But you want to make sure that you clean it out a little bit here and there just to prevent mould and fungi from growing on your plants. The next technique I'm going to recommend is a little bit of dead heading. Dead heading is simply the removal of spent flower heads. So if you remove the spent blooms, it's going to encourage your plant to continue blooming. Why? Because the seed pods for your plant are not going to be able to develop once seed pods develop your plant and innately knows, yes, I've done my job. I've tried to reproduce for next year, I've created seeds and my job is done. And likely the bloom rate is going to lower on your plants. They're going be like, I don't need so many flowers now because now I have all these seed pods and I've done my job for you, remove the spent flowers before they can develop seed pods. It's going to help keep your plant blooming because it's not going to register that any seed pods were created because they weren't. So it's going to help keep your plant blooming all season long. Now it may seem tedious, but generally it's worth it. A lot of times I get busy and my summer and I don't always get to all of my dead heading the way I should, but I try to make an effort when I can to snip off spent blooms and you can just use a little micro snips, or sometimes you can even just pinch them right off and they will be good. Now, you want to be careful not to pinch plant too far back because that could delay blooms if you've pinched off buds. So make sure you're just pinching off your spent flower heads. So I'm going to recommend that you look over your planters once a week, maybe twice a week, just to stay on top of this maintenance. It's going to feel like a much more manageable project and it won't get so overwhelming and don't forget in terms of maintenance to keep an eye on the weather. Again, harsh weather conditions can damage your plants in your containers if they're outside. So be sure to keep an eye on the weather. If you see harsh conditions coming through that your plants may not be able to tolerate, be sure to bring them in or pull them into a safer space so that once that whether passes or clears, you'll be able to enjoy your plants. So now that we've covered light maintenance, I want to talk a little bit about seasonal container gardening just to give you some ideas throughout the year that you may be able to use to source inspiration for your container gardens. So if you're ready to talk about some seasonal inspiration, I'll meet you in the next lesson. 12. Seasonal Container Gardening Ideas: Hey, welcome back. You needed a little bit more inspiration for your containers. I wanted to give you some seasonal ideas are that you can use to enjoy your container garden all year long. So whether you are experiencing spring, summer, fall, or winter, there are ways to take your containers and use them to source inspiration for your projects all year long. Now, thinking about your environment will play an important role in your container gardening. For me, I live in upstate New York about half of the year. We have a lot of snow. We have a lot of weather changes seasonally. So often I have to swap out my container gardens season by season, I might have something different, summer, spring, winter, fall. But if you can have your container all season long, I say go for it. That is awesome. If you're like me and you have to swap out seasonally due to environmental conditions. That's not necessarily a bad thing. You can swap out seasonal inspiration. You can change your color palettes. You can see new textures fall, for example, It's one of my favorite seasons to get textural inspiration, winter, I start to appreciate evergreens and berries, sticks and twigs and all of the lines so that they create. So think about each season being a new inspirational boost for your projects. So in the spring here in New York, one of my favorite ways to use a container garden is through bald planting. Bulbs are some of the first color that we see here in the spring. And We are usually ready for bulbs. And it's a little bit of color by then because we've seen so many months of snow in winter. And what's nice about bulb gardening is generally those blooms don't last a long time, but when I'm done, I can plant them in the ground. And if the squirrels and chipmunks don't steal, don't steal them, they will come back the following year. So a great option for bulbs is actually container groupings. So you can keep each type of bulb plant in its own separate container and group them together to make a bigger composition. That way, when the balloons are all spent, I can have my highest since in one place in my garden. I can have my tulips in another place and my daffodils in a third place within my garden. And I know exactly which bulbs or in which containers and they're not all mixed up. Now, it can be fun to mix and match them. And if you're okay with just mixed spring bulbs, which is a great time, then go ahead and plant them all on the same space. Generally, they like shallower soil bed so you don't need a deep, deep, deep plantar for bulbs. Something shallow will do just fine. Of course, you can see right here, right now, I'm sourcing summary inspiration. I have all of my annuals here, New York, this is the most vibrant color that we will get, or C, all season long, all year long, really high jumping from my begonias, my geraniums, my caliber CO, is my coleus. All of the different types of plants that I wanted to see soak in. And a lot of times I'll even take extra pictures, extra sketches of this time of year. And these animals really are a breath of fresh air. They're great seasonal color. They want less than two the winter, but that's okay because we have some fall ideas as well. Fall is one of my favorite times for container gardening because of all of the textures at my disposal for fall, a lot of these annuals, it's a little bit too cold for them, but we do have mumps and moms come in a variety of colors. We also have awesome produce like kale, apples, pumpkins, all things that can be worked into a container garden. How cool is that, right? And you can mix some of these things in place, your mini pumpkins and gourds into a container to give it a little bit of extra character. I'm fortunate in that I have a number of planting beds around my house that I can use and source seed pods and grasses. Fall is the perfect time of year for fun foliage, seed pods, grasses, all of these amazing textures. And I love trimming these grasses and seed pods and things. I will bundle them and put them on my front porch. I will take branches. You can cut them, tuck them into the back of your container. You can really do some cool fun things this time of year. So don't underestimate fall. Things aren't all like going into dormancy. There are some really awesome sources for inspiration and your art work this time of year and winter is a brilliant time for evergreens. I never appreciated evergreens until I took an intensive plant in class in college. We spent a couple of months learning just about evergreens and all the different types and I'm still not perfect at naming them all. But let me tell you, there are pints first, spruces, cedars, I can go on and on and on. And these evergreens all have different needles. They have all different berries, and they have all different qualities and characteristics that you can use. And they may not be the prettiest or they're not big blooms. But there are some really cool textures and patterns that you can find With those plants. Now the other things that you can find in winter are often berries. So non-edible barriers don't eat them, but you can find holly berries or snow berries, different barriers that the blooms are done. Now you can find all the fruit, the berries, the seed pods that were left behind for birds and critters and for the plants to continue flourishing and following season. So it's a good time to start appreciating those extra characteristics that are not the standard blooms that you'd see on say, annuals. The other thing that you can source this time of year are branches and twigs. Dog widths, for example, have the most stunning yellow, red, burgundy branches. You wouldn't see when those plants are covered and foliage for the rest of the year. Now what does this mean? These aren't plants, right? How do we containerize these? Well, what I like to do in the winter is I will take my planters that I've had from the summer and the fall, and I keep using that soil and I will prune a few of my evergreens, or I'll go to my local garden center. A lot of times they will have extra bows, evergreens, and you can purchase those vows to use and planters so you can tuck them into the planters, the same planters that you used all summer long for your container garden. And you can create these beautiful evergreen planters using different types of evergreens, the long needle pines and the full balsam fir, and all of these different cool things. You can add in your dog with branches or whatever you happen to find holly leaves. And you can create who really stunning porch planters or patio planters or whatever kind of planters you have for your outdoor gardening space. A lot of times I'll even add little bows or ribbons just to make them a little bit more festive. So all in all, you can take these containers and use them for inspiration all year long. So I'd love to see the different ways that you have found inspiration, whether it's summer or winter, spring, fall, and share. In the project panel, I want to see what containers you've made and if you're switching out seasonally, keep adding to your project. I want to see how your container garden is adapting season to season. So don't forget to share and I can't wait to see what you come up with. So if you're ready, I've just got a few extra notes in the next lesson and we'll wrap things up. I can't wait to see what you come up with. 13. Conclusion: Way to grow. Now that you have your container garden and the resources and tools you need to help it thrive. You can enjoy it. Whether your plantar is going to brighten your space or bring you down a fun path to creativity. I hope you find so much joy watching your plants grow, and I hope you learned something new and had some fun. Be sure to upload a picture of your final project to the project gallery. And if you change your container gardens out seasonally, keep adding to your project. I'd love to see how your container gardens adapt and change from season to season. Share your favorite parts of the project and the parts that you found challenging. And if you found any tips or tools that you think are going to be helpful for our community, share those too. The more that we all share, the more that we all can grow and learn. Thank you all so, so much for following along. I cannot wait to see what you grow.