Elevate Your Outdoor Spaces Year-Round With Container Gardens

Have you seen container gardens outside homes and businesses in the Salt Lake valley? They’re becoming more popular for enlivening outdoor spaces like walkways, balconies, porches and backyard patios. Container gardens can highlight certain architectural elements and even bring more vibrance to areas you want to liven up.

Unlike traditional planted gardens and flower beds, containers have a lot of added versatility because they can be moved to different locations depending on sunlight exposure needs, and seasonal interest. When thoughtfully planted and cared for, container plants become a living decorative element to our outdoor spaces.

We hope this blog post will help you get started with container gardening in Salt Lake with beautiful blooms and interesting arrangements that will elevate your outdoor living spaces.

Step 1: Planning your container garden

The first thing you’ll want to consider is where to put your outdoor planters, because this ultimately determines the types of plants and flowers to use. Most containers require at least six hours of direct sunlight each day for the best growth opportunities and flowering. Look for available sunny spots outside that could also benefit from pops of color from flowers like your entryways, seating areas or blank outdoor walls.

Choose the right container type and material that will both suit the climate and a mix of plants. Terra cotta pots will hold onto the moisture in the soil, while decorative metal planters may need more frequent watering. Also consider how the planters will look proportional to the space around them. You can add a trellis to help support climbing vines to draw the eyes up and add more vertical appeal.

Assess the quality of the soil if you’re going to plant directly into containers, instead of using the removable nursery inserts. Premixes with compost will provide the necessary nutrients and drainage, and determine if an automatic drip watering system or simply a wand attachment to your garden hose will provide adequate water for the plants.

Do you want to convey a cohesive color theme using different plant combinations, foliage shapes and textures? The designers at Cactus & Tropicals have experience creating signature styles for traditional or contemporary outdoor container gardens.

Step 2: Best plant selection for amazing container gardens

Combining annuals, perennials, evergreens and grasses make eye-catching container arrangements, so when you’re choosing plants consider their sizes when mature, the growth rates and coordinate the varying heights for the best layouts.

We recommend positioning the taller plants centrally, surrounded by the mid-height plants that will help create a focal point and fullness. Out experts at Cactus & Tropicals have a wide variety of unique plant mixes best suited for Utah’s different climates for optimal plant growth and success.

Step 3: Work with container gardening experts

While do-it-yourself container gardening can bring a sense of accomplishment, Cactus & Tropicals provides full custom garden design services to homes, businesses, event venues and more. Our plant experts can consult with you to curate the best mix of plants, pots, soil mixes and arrangements to bring your vision to life.

Whether it’s special seasonal outdoor containers, or scheduling fresh container garden arrangements every 3 months, our team will take care of soil replenishment, pruning and flower rotations for continual beauty to your outdoor spaces.

Step 4: Caring for your outdoor planters

Once everything is planted, it’s time to incorporate care techniques to make sure everything remains healthy and vibrant for the season ahead. Soil should stay evenly moist, but not overly soaked. Every few weeks, snip off the dead portions, prune branches and deadhead the spent blooms by cutting back to the closest leaf nodes.

As the seasons change, swap out the more temperature sensitive annuals for cold-tolerant roots and hearty greens.

In the winter, perennials in your containers will need insulation from freeze and thaw cycles. Move the containers to more sheltered areas, remove excess plant debris and refresh the soil to prepare for spring planting.

Bring your outdoor spaces to life with container gardens from Cactus & Tropicals

Container plantings help bring pops of color, added foliage and textures that refresh over the seasons. Cactus & Tropicals has everything you need for DIY outdoor container gardening, plus custom design services to help your achieve your goals. Contact us today and bring your vision to life!