Easy Garden Tips: Plants in Pots and Burning Heat

If you’re a user (and a fan) of regular pots, planters, containers or window boxes (instead of self-watering ones), here’s a useful tip, custom made for your needs. How to get your beloved plants through the hottest weeks of the summer -- safely and successfully, is probably one of your main concerns.

It’s getting harder and harder to keep the container plants from wilting or dying out in the burning heat of the hottest summer days. Did you try different things to improve the matter but nothing really worked both ways (for good drainage as well as for keeping the moisture in the soil)? So did I. In Southern Florida, nothing seemed to be effective enough.
Containers along the driveway and in sunny front of the house need the most water. One just can’t water enough!

Ice cubes work well (instead of watering). They melt slowly and really soak the soil (while the water quickly runs through, leaving the roots thirsty still). The problem is that for a lot of pots you need a lot of ice…
Packing peanuts at the bottom of the container work great for too much rain or watering. They also make the large planters easier to move since they are light weight. But at the same time, after only a few months, the growing plants don’t have enough soil any more and the roots caught in the peanut-layer start drying out.

Rocks or pebbles at the bottom of planters don’t do anything good for the weight of the planters, especially not the bigger ones. They work for drainage, but do nothing to keep moisture in the soil.

Color of the pots is quite significant. Avoid black containers whenever possible. In the heat of the summer they consume the heat much more effectively than the light-colored planters. That just dries out the soil even faster (and overheats the roots).

Mulch and compost work sufficiently for keeping away the weeds and preserving the moisture in flower beds and not that much in planters.
So, what’s the solution?

It’s either slaving away watering twice a day, give all the plants away and forget container gardening, or find something that would actually work.
I found an answer more by accident. One day I picked up a bag of sphagnum moss to block the drains from washing the soil out of the pot. While planting, an idea crossed my mind. I filled the big containers up to one fourth to one third of the height with the sphagnum moss instead of soil.

Months later, I am very happy with the results. The drainage is still good. The pots are lighter when I’m carrying them from place to place. At the same time, I’m not watering twice a day anymore. The sphagnum moss keeps the soil moist enough for a few days instead! And the best of all: my plants are growing and flowering like never before!

Note: This article is a result of my personal experiences; no scientific research backs it up. Your results may vary.