For a semi-circular shape, I would place one to two plants at the front and then fill in behind that with the rest. However, because some pots are long and others are squat, and because the sides of some pots are straight and others are tapered, the volume can vary. I have, on more than one occasion, used one of the Supertunia Vista ®petunias in these large planters. Some offer plants in P9 pots which are plants often less than 1 year old, many varieties of which can be more difficult to establish straight out in the garden.

Keeping reasonable notes on what I transplanted something into when I’m using recycled pots has been a challenge made by your post. While these numbers are a great starting point to figuring out how many plants you need for your container, there are some additional things to consider.That would mean if you’re supposed to use a “five gallon” nursery pot, your plant actually only needs the 3. Eliza is busy taking care of her baby, but we’ll make sure to pass along your gratitude for all her hard work compiling this info on garden pot sizes! Often the volume of a container is measured in liquid quarts or liters, but, of course, when you purchase soil you are purchasing dry (potting soil is not liquid).

Living flower arrangements can be useful if you need to have a high impact container immediately, say for a party the same weekend you are planting the container.

However, the most confusing part is sussing out what the advice you received actually means when you set out to brave the spiders hiding in your recycled nursery pot tower or peruse the racks of decorative planters at the local garden center. However, they tend to be relatively small plants and are primarily grown when the weather is cool which means they grow more slowly.

We like to use organic liquid fertilizers on a more frequent basis to ensure our containers get what they need. As with other pot size nomenclature, however, a specific number on a pot at one nursery may have a slightly different volume than at another nursery. These fillers do not break down quickly, preventing your soil from getting compacted and anaerobic before the season ends. In school, they often mixed up the measurements, sometimes using the metric system, and sometimes the Imperial units…we then had to choose one or the other (they stressed using the SI system as most countries have adopted the Metric System due to it’s simplicity using factors of ten).If your container didn’t come with its volume labeled, you can measure it yourself by filling it within 1-3 inches of the brim with water or potting soil and then using your largest kitchen measuring tools to find out how much it holds. For instance, Supertunia ® Petunias tend to spread and are quite vigorous, so with these we would recommend only three plants in a 14-inch container. Traditional planting is when you allow enough room between plants so the planter looks full after several weeks of additional growth.