What is the secret of great summer pots?

Boost the roots

When planting up summer pots, a great trick to use at the onset is to give the plants a dose of Richard Jackson Root Booster. You’ve probably guessed that the hidden secret behind most good plants is a great root system and this is especially relevant for plants in pots and containers. Richard’s Root Booster has been developed with three natural ingredients and is used by professional gardeners too. It’s designed to ensure your plants will grow great roots!

The product’s unique blend of three special ingredients encourages root development, which helps them grow stronger and healthier and is 100% natural. One application works for the lifetime of the plant too. You can see some of the great results I have achieved at Driftwood in recent years. Even Chester, our mixed breed terrier can appreciate the difference! Well, I like to convince myself that that is the case.

Chester and Geoff at Driftwood — Chester helping to inspect and deadhead the plants. Image: Adobe Stock

Use lots of plants

My philosophy has always been to cram a lot in and then the plants will fill out and if you are lucky, conceal the containers and you then just see a sea of colour.

Each year, prior to the new patio in 2022, I’d spend up to £800 on summer bedding plants. I never worried about colour combinations, I just purchased what was available in the nursery on the day of my visit. The fun then came, back at Driftwood, deciding how to plant them all up.

Quirky planters

While the plants are important, so are the containers, so it’s really important for me to choose the right ones. I suppose I have a very eclectic mix of containers in my garden that have been purchased over the years. I’ll introduce you to a few of my favourites below.

This orange, wooden, half boat, window box has been a firm favourite for over 10 years now. You can see it looks perfect, packed with trailing plants, fuchsias, bidens and geraniums to name but three. I saw this advertised online and couldn’t resist the purchase.

Orange boat at Driftwood — The wooden half boat window box is packed with trailing plants. Image: Geoff Stonebanks

On a shopping trip to Columbia Road Flower Market in London a few years ago, I came upon this beautiful metal trug which is the perfect foil to display plants such as geraniums and gazania. More importantly, its portability means it can be moved, in a moment, to another location to maximise its beauty.

trug at Driftwood planted with gazanias and geraniums — The metal trug from Columbia Road Flower Market in London. Image: Adobe Stock

I have a pair of lovely rusty metal urns, which were a 50th birthday present, so they have been around in my garden for almost 20 years now. Last summer I planted them with some beautiful gazania which looked perfect, along with a piece of garden art, a metal kingfisher, installed alongside for good measure.
The metal trough, shown below, was a wedding gift to my parents, many moons ago, made by Dad’s brother-in-law, it looks great with geraniums packed in each summer.

Metal trough at Driftwood — The metal trough looks great planted with geraniums. Image: Geoff Stonebanks

Back in 2004, I inherited 4 large terracotta wall pots from my Aunt, who had passed away that year. They take pride of place on the north facing back wall of the house every year and are filled with beautiful trailing fuchsias and geraniums.

Terracotta wall pots at Driftwood planted with fuchsias — The four terracotta wall pots planted with trailing fuchsias. Image: Geoff Stonebanks

I’ve got a few quirky containers out there as well and one of them is a fun fire hydrant planter. Once again, I saw this online a few years ago and fell in love with it. I tend to put succulents in it so the overall look of the container is not lost by plants tumbling over the edge.

Secrets of success

It goes without saying, that great results such as these only come about with some hard work along the way. I love to think that I am an artist in the garden, creating a tapestry of colour each summer, packing the plants in and letting them run wild. This is greatly helped by feeding them Flower Power too, enabling such great displays to be created and maintained. So, there it is, my secrets are revealed.

Be ready in case of frosts.

One thing to be very mindful of, if you put your containers out early in the season, mine nearly always go out at the beginning of May, in preparation for opening the garden at the start of June, is that there is still the prospect of frost in parts of the country. I always have some fleece on hand to rush out and cover plants if frost is forecast, fortunately, here on the south coast it does not happen too often.

Happy planting.