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Plants in Containers
167 Plays2 years ago
On this episode of Hort Culture, we explore the world of container plants. you can grow beautiful and healthy plants in pots, baskets, boxes and more. We will talk about containers, soil, water, fertilizer and more! Tune in and discover how to create your own mini plant oasis with container plants!
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Introduction to Hort Culture
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Hort Culture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production, and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow. Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello, everybody. If this is your first time joining us, welcome. I am Alexis. We have Ray, Josh, and Brett with us today. I feel like it's been a while since we've said our name, who we are. We're just like, we know things listen to us. We're the regulars. Facts, but also if you're new to this, that is who we are.
Hosts' Expertise and Goals
00:00:38
Speaker
And we do, in fact, know things. And so welcome to our podcast about knowing things, specifically plant. Thank you. Oh, wait. No, that's the audience. Yes. Yes. We hope we play the role as audience. You guys are so cool. I'm just going to leave a review of this podcast and say that it's great so that other friends and family can learn about this great podcast.
00:01:03
Speaker
Thank you anonymous listener. What Sesame Street character was that? That was me as Elmo. Brett. Going through puberty. You are wearing red again today, Brett.
The Significance of Container Plants
00:01:18
Speaker
Well, we were going to talk, our plan, our idea was to talk about some container plants today, some potted plants. It's a little bit different than kind of some of the things we talk about. We usually try and relate everything we talk about onto a very commercial scale for those of our farmers in the group, all the way down to a homeowner who may just have a tree in their yard or something like that.
00:01:44
Speaker
I think in some ways, you know, talking about containers definitely has a commercial aspect. So we can talk about, we could talk about commercial mums. We, we can talk about, um, you know, commercial hanging baskets, uh, you know, all kinds of stuff there. But, uh, I think we each kind of have our own personal love of, uh, some, some form of container plants. Brett, I know you have a very special love of one particular kind. My endless love.
00:02:13
Speaker
Well, I think for me, the reason my bias or my reason for wanting to talk about this is that, as you mentioned, the world of horticulture extends from yes, those tomatoes in the ground, whether it be a commercial field or a home garden. But it can also be that we have a lot of folks who are living in apartments and or they live in an area that they don't have access to getting stuff in the ground for one reason or another or
00:02:39
Speaker
There are some people, some crazy people among them who decides to take these crazy tropical plants and try to grow them inside their house, figure out a window or a door or something, some way of getting light into them. And so it's just a way of acknowledging that not all horticulture in our culture is in the ground or is soil based all the time. Yeah, yeah. Heresy.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah, I mean that's the reason. If you are growing a little pathos in your office window or your apartment window, you're engaged and you're part of the culture of horticulture, as Alexis would say. And we want to acknowledge that and also we really like it. And I have some plants that I grow in containers we can talk about later. I just find containers really enabling. I love the possibilities that growing
00:03:36
Speaker
things, whatever you choose to grow in containers. I think it's just really flexible.
00:03:42
Speaker
enabling and it allows people to grow where maybe they could not grow before. That's why it's so exciting to me. No matter what life stage you're in, no matter where you're at, as long as you have a bit of sunlight, you can usually accomplish growing other than mineral-based soils and some kind of growing medium if you have access to that.
Container Use in Large-Scale Production
00:04:02
Speaker
Yeah, containers have huge implications for people with other abilities, maybe some physical limitations or otherwise for one reason or another.
00:04:10
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. And yeah, and certain types of big scale commercial production rely on containers, right? Like if you're selling live plants to people, it's going to come in some form of a container. So bad culture, like even right. Yeah, there's literally you split a bag of potting soil open and grow tomato and in the empty it out of the greenhouse and go back again, do that with thousands of bags of things. Yeah. Right. A commercial scale. That's a good point.
00:04:38
Speaker
Yeah.
Sentimental Value of Inherited Plants
00:04:39
Speaker
It's a lot of people's first dip into horticulture, I think is a house plant, right? Like an African violet, apothos, a jade plant, maybe a plant that, you know, and they come from, I think one of my favorite parts about, you know what? I have an idea for another episode. If you think this is a good idea, people listening, leave us a review.
00:05:01
Speaker
like plants that are passed down. So often the plants that you get from grandma or your great aunt or our plants that are house plants. And so I think that's so fascinating. I had a woman call me the other day and she was talking about it was like something that her great grandfather brought over the mountains from Virginia and
00:05:25
Speaker
You know, it's just such a cool, there's a lot of history that goes into it. I have one of those on my porch, Alexis, that's four generations old on my wife's side. And I'm informed if I ever let that die, that I will be next. No pressure. It's a type of lily. It's like some sort of amaryllis, isn't it?
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah. Or is it a blood lily? And it's not a blood lily. It's one of the big orange lilies. And ID did not have to go back and look it up. But it is, I think, at least four generations old in her family. But yes, I cannot let anything happen to
Media for Container Growing
00:05:56
Speaker
this. It's currently doing very well on the porch. Had a little mealybug infestation. We've got that under control. But the history and the love that's went into it, like, yeah, that's a great point, Alexis. Just generations of care went into these things and division and, you know,
00:06:11
Speaker
different people hopefully have shared that. So yeah, it's awesome. So anyways, we're very excited. Although we all love to be outside and I could talk all day about soil, as you probably know by now, there is something.
00:06:29
Speaker
There are some really cool things. I worked in a greenhouse all through undergrad and have a love of tropical, you know, quote unquote house plants, but just growing plants in media, which is, you know, maybe, maybe that's a good place to start is kind of the, one of the differences or several of the differences there are between
00:06:50
Speaker
growing in a pot and growing outside. And one, you know, Ray hinted to earlier is we're not growing in a mineral based soil, we're growing in a potting media. So who wants to, I could talk about that all the time, but I know that a lot of you have thoughts on that.
00:07:07
Speaker
The two are very, and we've touched bases on a different podcast. If you are a consistent listener, you know that we've touched bases on this, that you can't just take a mineral-based soil out of the soil column and put it in a container and expect to grow things in it because it doesn't behave like you would want it to. Right. And when you say it doesn't... Yeah, it's not the case at all. When you say it doesn't behave the way you want it to, what do you mean?
00:07:30
Speaker
Turns to concrete, usually, in that you take it out of its native environment, not to over-complicate things, out of the soil column, out of its ecosystem, put it into a container, and it will almost invariably turn into something that's a lot like concrete. It'll get very hard. It'll be a very inhospitable growth environment.
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah, it doesn't drain properly. Even if you've got holes in the bottom, it doesn't drain properly. Airspaces go, so you can't do that is number one. And there's lots of artificial growing medium. I mean, everything from coconut fiber to the typical peat based materials that we'll find at your local box store.
00:08:08
Speaker
There are so many cool growing mediums out there whether you're growing something like an orchid or a tomato and they're customized based on the fertility needs if it's pre-incorporated fertilizer based on the drainage needs if it's a desert based plant you can get you know ones that have drainage characteristics so
00:08:25
Speaker
Really, the success in containers to me is either making up or purchasing a pre-formulated mix for your container. That's the beginning and basis of everything. In field soil, in ground, in your garden or whatever.
00:08:41
Speaker
The elements we're thinking about are clay, sand, silt, and loam. So what are the key? Sand, silt, and clay, the big three, which are not present. That's not present in a peat-based mix at all. It's not a, in fact, you'll see on the base. Soil-less medium.
00:09:00
Speaker
And it's interesting when you bring that up to like a master gardener class you're just speaking to someone they're like, what do you mean soil is it's my potting? What all what all what all is in there actual mineral based on some of the options.
00:09:15
Speaker
Yeah, lots of things can be sand can be like fine. Pine fines is big and like commercial industry. It's, it's very dependent. Like, I mean, you know, Ray was saying, it depends on what you're trying to do. If you are trying to just fill a couple of pots to have a couple of plants, a pre-made mix is probably where you're going to want to go. But if you're, you know, going to be filling hundreds and hundreds of containers or
00:09:39
Speaker
You're doing something much larger scale. Paying full retail on that is going to hurt your bottom line. So you have to look into kind of the raw materials that can be found and mixed together to sort of create the industry or academic term as a substrate to plant into. That is your kind of soilless media. But sometimes things can be like sand, like pea, coconut coir or cocoa coir.
00:10:07
Speaker
Perlite. Yeah, coconut fiber. Perlite is the white stuff that you see in the natural media. I always want to get vermiculite and perlite. Which one's the volcanic
Ensuring Proper Drainage in Containers
00:10:17
Speaker
ash? That is... Perlite. I always have to think about that, yeah.
00:10:22
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Verilite's the white stuff you see in your potting soil, and then if you see anything like a shinier substance, that's your vermiculite. The two do different things, don't they, Lexus? Verilite does one thing and vermiculite does another. They're both mostly for drainage, but you create different pore space with them because your vermiculite's going to be more like a flat, almost more like clay where it's real flat. The pore space is different versus a perlite is going to have much larger pore space, a lot of aeration held in those.
00:10:51
Speaker
I know a lot about perlite because my master's research was looking at growing cucumbers in a greenhouse in soilless media. Do you ever feel like when you share this information with us that it's just like perlite before swine?
00:11:19
Speaker
And so and so the in the in those mixes there's kind of like organic
00:11:23
Speaker
components. That's the coco coir, the peat moss, I mean, the peat and the it could be pine vines. Yeah. And pine vines is one that was kind of like holding on to some water, holding on to some nutrition. It gives you know, it's like, yeah, basically, it's like you're trying that. One of the things that I had read was, you know, in the if you're planting in a field,
00:11:50
Speaker
your drainage benefits from the fact that the capillary action, which is everything, everything weird that water does has to do with its surface tension and that pull.
00:12:01
Speaker
And so the capillary action of what's going on further down is helping pull things to drain out. And in a container, you just don't have that. So you're having to kind of create a soil that will help move the water or not a soil. I mean, that's where it gets a mess, right? Like potting soil. In some cases a larger, a taller container will drain quicker and dry quicker than a shorter container because the water column is stronger on that taller container.
00:12:29
Speaker
Not, I mean, if it's small, small, it's a different story, but it can be, excuse me. If we're talking about, if we're, if we're going to talk about that, I feel like I have to bring up the, uh, and I get a lot of pushback on this when I teach this people who do containers, whatever kind of container you do, there is this mindset, uh, and that you should put gravel in the bottom of your container, like a couple inches of gravel. And then you put your soil on top.
00:12:57
Speaker
You know, maybe it's not gravel, maybe it's big rocks, whatever, just some larger media and then you put your soil, your soil is substrate, your potting mix, whatever on top of that.
00:13:08
Speaker
And what you do is you kind of create a false soil, like layer there, and that you actually will inhibit that soil from draining because it's going to hold in that top potting soil mixture. And it doesn't want to drain into that large porous area of gravel or whatever it is you put there. And so you can actually have root rot, even though you are trying to have, you know, good drainage happening, the opposite effect can happen.
00:13:36
Speaker
I get a lot of pushback from people who are like, I've always done this and
Choosing Plants and Media for Container Gardening
00:13:40
Speaker
I always tell people, if you've done it and things are good and they're surviving, then that works for you. Maybe the way you water or wherever you keep it that works, do what you're going to do. But if you're new to this or you've been having trouble with this, it's because you're in a pot, it's very important to have a consistency of whatever media you are using the entire way through because you will cause
00:14:03
Speaker
a lot of problems with your drainage. It's almost like the old school firefighter bucket brigade where you're handing water from one person to another and everybody's evenly spaced and you can reach it, they can reach it. And then at the end of the line, the people have like 20 feet between them and then you can't hand that water off to the next person.
00:14:27
Speaker
It's interesting. I had seen you had mentioned this before and you know, people kind of bringing this up and not being best practice but I so I've seen
00:14:40
Speaker
gravel use, but in a double potting system, right? To where like they have a really nice container that doesn't have holes or something like that, but is very aesthetically pleasing. And they'll line the bottom of that with gravel, but then the plant truly is in a completely separate container than inside that. Yeah. And that, you know, I'm wondering how much of it is people who have seen something like that and then
00:15:04
Speaker
Not realizing that it makes common sense. And it's one of those things that it's not actually true, but it feels like it would be. Yeah, that's what I think. Yeah, it just defies logic. And what about get you guys take on like larger containers? Like, let's take a stock tank, because I've seen this a lot. You know, they're really deep. And to fill that thing up with, let's just say prepared potting mix would cost $1,000 or more, cost a lot of money.
00:15:32
Speaker
And there are methods if it's larger can you kind of use a little bit of bottom field if it's a much larger container cuz don't the physics change a little bit there. It's deep enough you're saying yeah. So the for something like a stock tank that's only gonna be you know two foot maybe three foot high i don't i'm sure the physics do change i'm not a physicist i'm a horticulture but i there's two things that i will recommend for that which don't.
00:16:01
Speaker
and do the thing that we're talking about with the gravel and do that you know drainage inhibition but so one is just to fill it with like a solid substance so like as an example you take buckets old buckets out of holes in them or you don't use them anymore heck I've used like old stock tanks that I can't fill with anything and I flip them upside down and so then what I get is kind of like a shallow bottom or false bottom on there and so I still get the benefit of having a really calm shimming it up however you can accomplish getting a bottom in there yeah I got you
00:16:31
Speaker
The other way is that you have a slower transition. So if we go back to the, you know, visual of the bucket brigade, okay, you have every, you have all the short people, those are your, you know, your media, and then you gradually get taller. So in this case, it would be, you gradually increase the size. So you don't go from someone who's, you know, five foot tall to someone eight foot tall. You do five foot tall, then six foot tall, then seven foot, and then eight foot is your big gravel pieces. Aggregate gets grabbed through the column. It's not like.
00:17:00
Speaker
You don't go from one extreme to the other.
00:17:09
Speaker
have ever tried to fill up a four by eight 12 inches deep potting soil. I haven't. Oh man, Brent. Yeah. Story of my life. We had a grant last year and it was a couple thousand dollars and we had a community garden. They said, oh, we're going to fill these boxes up and they had like six or eight four by eight boxes. It did about three of the six or eight and that was it ate a couple thousand dollars worth of potting soil so quickly.
00:17:34
Speaker
And there's lots of great calculators you can go online and, you know, just put in keywords, extension service, you know, a raised bed container calculator. And that'll tell you how many cubic feet or whatever of mix you need to go into these things. Well, and then so I went through that with this community group, I said, you know, this is going to take a lot of substrate. Josh, there you go. There's your word. It's going to take a lot of mix in there. And so everybody's trying to save money.
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah, what's difficult is the want the the people who have this figured out down to like a science right of what is the most profitable way to make this in bulk. That is like one of their operating trade secrets. I mean, like, I've been able to tour some really large container nurseries. Like I went to one up in Oregon for, you know, well, I won't say the name of the company, but
00:18:24
Speaker
They were huge, right? We're talking like several hundred acres. They have a lot of stuff. And they have, you know, like.
00:18:35
Speaker
a very involved process for bringing in pine vines and they have their own in-house composting system and different aggregates. I mean, they order all these bulk materials and they'll talk about the mix and broad strokes, but what it all comes down to and their fertilizer is like,
00:18:56
Speaker
They're not going to tell us about that. That's a way to protect their margins. A lot of these materials aren't even sustainable. That's why I guess is one of the motivations for introducing core fiber long time ago is it's a more sustainable product. I substrate those in there, but like Pete and I, you don't make Pete.
00:19:18
Speaker
Really? It takes a few years to make that, yeah. It's essentially like we extract peat a lot faster than it comes in, whereas on the Cocoa Core is a byproduct of these large coconut plantations. And there's tons of it. It ships very easy. It's compressed. There's a little bit of an issue. And
00:19:36
Speaker
Because a lot of these things like Pete's the same way. If it's completely dried out, it takes a long time to be able to get water to adhere to it again. Yeah. And Coco, of course, the same way. And so when it's shipped totally dry, there's like a brick of this stuff that can turn into a ton of it. But it takes some processing. And it's a little difficult because, you know, the the logistical network isn't there yet to deliver
00:20:01
Speaker
you know, bulk Coca-Cola everywhere in the US. I just recently had my first experience with the Coca-Cola and bought it. That's C-O-I-R for those Googling at home. And they shipped it to you in this little brick that you can rehydrate and it fluffs out and you can get them like, you can get them off of consumer websites. Like it's not like just an industry thing. So we've kind of launched out into the bigger, if we pull back to the little smaller and we think about those folks in apartments or with a patio or a little space,
00:20:31
Speaker
and maybe focusing on the container gardening side. Okay, so looking at my agent colleagues here, somebody comes in and they're like, I want to try container gardening. What do you want them to have on their list, their shopping list to go and pick up? You know, maybe let's say three different plants.
00:20:52
Speaker
Probably not corn. I'm just going to go there. And that's the first discussion I have is, well, what do you want? Is it ornamental? Is it edible? And if it's edible, what is your family going to eat? We try to reconcile that with what we know will do well, given the space that they have and how big of a container. There's a big difference between a box and a individual five gallon container. That's where I usually start.
00:21:22
Speaker
So I'm a little container I don't have much space the patio does get some sun we really like tomatoes and we'd love to do something else but we're not really sure what we want to do yet you have any you know good options for a container garden.
00:21:40
Speaker
Well, if you like tomatoes, I usually start with a determinant, something like a patio. Specifically, it'll say tags are pretty good, seed tags and even tags when you go to buy them. They sell out very quickly, so you have to go early in the season, but look for a patio, tomatoes, smaller varieties. They grow to a point in height and stop. But if you like tomatoes, you probably are going to like peppers because that's in salsa also.
00:22:02
Speaker
bell peppers and things like that are great, you know, plants to have. And what kind of container am I looking for? That's some really, that's the two most common ones I see. What's that? A tomato, one of my minimum just rule of thumb sizes for a tomato is a little bit larger. That's more like a eight to 10 gallon I like to have. I know you can do it in a five gallon container, but it's a little bit more difficult. So a little bit larger container for tomatoes. Pepper's about half that. Five gallon one's just fine. Five to eight on peppers.
00:22:32
Speaker
So we're doing something smaller, like let's just say like a window box size, because that's kind of a, I think a size people can identify with.
00:22:42
Speaker
I really love leaf lettuce in a container. And we're talking more about a cut and come again type, like a leaf lettuce, like the kind that you buy cut and just like a, huh? Not a head, not iceberg, not romaine, a leaf lettuce. And so this is something that you can go out with a pair of scissors and you can cut and it's going to refresh itself.
00:23:05
Speaker
If you've got a shady area that you can keep it in, it will last longer throughout the summer because lettuce is going to be a cool season crop, which means you can start getting some of that earlier in the year. It does really well. If you have a pot that's a little bit deeper, like a little bit of a taller pot, but it doesn't have to be large, you can do something like carrots, you can do radishes. Radishes are, if you are struggling with
00:23:30
Speaker
I feel like I talk about radishes a lot, but I've been growing them this year. They're just on my mind. They're so easy and they're so fast. If you really need a confidence booster, you can have radish harvests from the time you put them on the speed. They're a good confidence booster. If you really want or if you've got kids involved,
00:23:52
Speaker
Uh, and they, uh, you know, really kind of need, I mean, it's not instant satisfaction, but something to kind of keep them motivated. You can see those radishes growing and you're harvesting in a month. So you can really see from week to week, the differences that they make, but you know, even carrots will do well. If you have a, something a little bit of a deeper container, you know, sometimes you have those ones that are tall and skinny, uh, and those carrots and all of those, you're just fine. But leaf lettuce is definitely your direct seeding.
00:24:21
Speaker
You're not having, you don't have to have transplants for that. You can just kind of see this. Right. So it's a really deep option. What kind of, what am I filling my window box with as far as media?
00:24:32
Speaker
So I'd recommend just like a regular old potting soil, nothing fancy. You can buy the cheapest potting soil you can find and that will be fine. That's usually the best way to go. You kind of have to pay attention a little bit depending on what you're growing. If you're growing something like a microgreen that takes very little soil, you can even grow those on mats.
00:24:52
Speaker
You have to kind of pay attention because a lot of the formulations I've noticed last 10 years, they want to preincorporate because they can charge more. They want to preincorporate fertilizer. That is something very good to know if it's precharged with a fertility mix. Very good to know because
00:25:08
Speaker
Fertility is something that's incredibly hard to control in containers anyways, because of the frequency of watering and you just don't have, the medium just doesn't hold fertility like a mineral based soil. But it is good to know that if there's fertilizer up front, because that will feed, if it says three months, it's probably going to feed much, much, much less than that. But that's a good fact to know like that. Like old lettuce, like old lettuce box chef. For lettuce and things like that. Yeah. Alexis, lettuce.
00:25:39
Speaker
My recommendation for like a smaller box, I'm kind of a bang for the buck sort of guy. So I always like to recommend and fantasize. I started with culinary herbs specifically. Like I really like onion chives. I think it would be like onion chives, maybe like thyme and they'll do well in kind of a small space. Basil works awesome.
00:26:08
Speaker
And, you know, like that's a way you can really, you know, if you're having to buy, having, having access to fresh herbs really takes, takes the game up and it can save a lot of money. Cause I mean, if you're going to the store and you're buying like, quote unquote, fresh herbs, they're weeks old and they're very expensive, but if you're pulling them right off the plant and into the pot that you're cooking in or the pan, also like herb containers, because you can control them a little better. Certain, certain herbs like to get loose in the garden.
00:26:38
Speaker
Sure, like a little mint or something. I'm looking at you, mint. You can even go outside, even in small containers now, you can like Bushmaster cucumbers or the Bushtop cucumbers. You can even grow cucumbers very well in very small containers. They have a very limited root system and they don't grow, it's like two to three feet bonds.
00:26:59
Speaker
And they'll go two to three feet. They don't bind like a traditional cucumber. So variety selection is really important in containers. Whether it's a tomato, you don't want a big boy tomato generally in a container unless it's huge because they're just going to grow, grow, grow and topple your container. The same goes for cucumbers and things like that. There are plants, peppers included, just lots of garden crops that have been developed just for containers.
00:27:24
Speaker
I think another thing just as far as the container gardening that I'd like to throw out is the you know, beauty is truth and truth beauty. That's all you know on earth and vegetables are cool too. I think someone famous said that once but there's a lot of flowers that you can do in containers. We actually have a blend. We do a lot of stuff in the ground obviously I've talked about but
00:27:48
Speaker
We also have a lot of container accent plants and you can get a cool container that looks cool that is part of the design. And again, if you're on a patio or you just have a little patio area or you don't want to get into the ground growing game, we do like petunias and geraniums and coleus and there's a lot of different options of stuff, especially in the annual side of things.
00:28:14
Speaker
where you can just put, and it's amazing. We have this little row of pots of petunias on the side of our driveway that I built this little kind of stand thing that...
00:28:24
Speaker
obscures this really gross asphalt job that these people did previous guys living here. And it's amazing just walking out and seeing that little accent of color, that pop of color and fresh, just like, I don't know, it just feels so welcoming and it has a tangible positive influence on my day. And it's just a container. It's nothing crazy. And like you said, it's cheap potting soil, a little bit of a time release fertilizer that, cause it didn't want stuff we had, didn't have it. And that it's a,
00:28:54
Speaker
Even if that's all we had, that is like a remarkable little accent piece that...
00:28:59
Speaker
works really well. And I think people, you know, going out on that patio and maybe it makes you want to spend a little more time outside and get a little bit of more vitamin D and it just, I'm constantly amazed at how those little touches can just drastically improve. And it's the same way when I get a bouquet from Alexis or from the Bel Air Blooms or any of the other growers, it's just like, man, that is just so much, like, it's just better.
00:29:27
Speaker
It's just better if there's some sort of reflection there but at the very base level yet it softens and brightens the space and that's another way you can use containers.
00:29:38
Speaker
When you're talking about containers, no matter what you're talking about, I don't care if you're talking about houseplants or whatever, but a lot of the time people are doing this combination, putting multiple types of plants into one container and they do that a lot in that annual flower production. One thing I see, and I see this at box stores, so big businesses created these, big
00:30:05
Speaker
No better than to do this type places do this, but they'll combine what I consider a shade plant with a full sun plant. And so make sure that if you're making your own container, you're, you know, where you're going to put it. First of all, I'm going to put it right over here in this corner and it's, you know, hot at, you know, four o'clock and full sun on it. It's a full sun area.
00:30:26
Speaker
only choose full sun plants. You're going to get the most success out of that. But if it's in a shady area, don't put a plant that likes a lot of sun in that shady area or mix it in because what's going to happen is somebody's going to beat somebody else out, right? So if you're in a shady area, the shady plants are going to beat out sun plants because they're going to be much happier and healthier. And you're also not going to get as many blooms because that plant we talked about, heat stress and drought stress before and so ties that in.
00:30:54
Speaker
that plant is going to be more stressed because it's not in the ideal situation. So just kind of think of that. If you're the one making that or buying that plant, make sure that it's suitable for where you're going to put it, even if it's in a container. Brett mentioned something that's really, really super important, I think, in containers, one of the most important things to me.
Fertilization in Container Gardening
00:31:13
Speaker
You mentioned a slow release fertilizer, but that's something that becomes much more important in containers because you're watering so much more often, you're just flushing all the time.
00:31:23
Speaker
a lot of times in a container much more often in a substrate as we mentioned doesn't hold nutrients very well so your slow release fertilizers are a good option in a lot of cases not all cases but a lot of cases because it sort of buffers the release somewhat the thing about those
00:31:41
Speaker
those time to release fertilizers is a lot of those that have a specialized coating that sort of holds under the fertilizer and it slowly releases as you water. A lot of those will say they'll feed, you know, two to three months. Yeah, but that's based on 70 degrees. If we're in a warmer temperatures than that,
00:31:57
Speaker
That's gonna be more like three to four weeks, five weeks. So remember that. You just don't add a coated fertilizer and think it's gonna last that long. If we're in the summer in Kentucky and our last episode, we talked about heat stress. We get hot here in Kentucky sometimes. Just know that that fertilizer is going to go out.
00:32:17
Speaker
into the plants much faster than if it were cooler. So that's, but it's, I still think it's a great option. Because every time you, you water, you're going to get that dose of that. And micro dosing is much more important in containers to provide a constant feed of fertilizer. And even knowing that it's really difficult when you grow something like a tomato in a container, it's really difficult not to have blossom end rot and other nutrient deficiencies, super tough.
00:32:46
Speaker
unless you have a lot of experience. It's just tough. So I think fertilizer is important. You generally have to fertilize more than you think, particularly when you're growing vegetables in containers. Is that true for flowers also? I think people are more accustomed to using fertilizer on flowers in containers. It seems like the ones I've worked with.
00:33:10
Speaker
I think we've roundabout said this, but not directly said this. When you grow a plant in a container, no matter what it is, you give it everything. There's no buffering there. Other than if you're lucky enough that it rains and your container is an area that can get rain,
00:33:29
Speaker
There's no buffering. When we have soil, we have buffering for heat, we have buffering for water, nutrient availability. We have that naturally in the soil when we're planting there. We don't have any of that. You have essentially a sterile environment. You have to give that plant everything that it needs.
00:33:50
Speaker
That being said, talking about, you know, medias and those, you know, those substrates and fertilizer. Personally, this is a personal preference and just something I've learned over the years growing all types of container plants is I don't like to start with a media that has a fertilizer in it.
00:34:07
Speaker
So a lot of the time, those of us who are doing potted plants, we're not doing just one type of plant. When you're doing small, you might be potting up this plant for tomatoes, but over here, you're going to do your petunias, but you also have some pothos and jade insides. You're going to use that same bag for a lot of stuff. All those plants have different nutrient recommendations. They have different areas. There are going to be some are annual, some are more like a perennial.
00:34:30
Speaker
So that in itself says, I don't need that. It's also a lot more expensive to buy it, like fertilizer in that bag. It might not seem that way, but when you kind of think about it, then buying your fertilizer, whether that's slow release or whether that's just something like a miracle grow that you're going to have mixed up or on the end of your hose and apply every time you water. And so it's a lot more expensive in the long run.
00:34:57
Speaker
And also, it's not the best for everything. And so you can fine tune your fertilizers if you are the one applying it based on the size of your container and all of that jazz. So my recommendation to you would be not to buy any
00:35:13
Speaker
any fertilizer with a starter in it. And especially true if you're gonna grow something with seeds. So I do not recommend any fertilizer when you're first starting seeds. It can cause some damage to those really young plants. They don't need fertilizer when they're first coming out of that seed. And so you're gonna waste a lot of that fertilizer or potentially damage those young seedlings by having it too early. So don't waste your money is my recommendation. I found it's gotten a little bit harder for me to find
00:35:45
Speaker
noncharger starter media at box stores. And I even had to like contact one of the manufacturers because it wasn't immediately apparent, whether there was or wasn't. And there was. And it was just, yeah.
00:36:02
Speaker
Yeah. One thing, if you're not sure, fun fact, anything that has fertilizer in it will have the three numbers on it for nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. So if you're just looking whether or not has some... Because I agree with you, Brett. I have looked sometimes and been like, is this got a fertilizer in it or not? It's hard to find, but it will always, because it's law, will have the
00:36:25
Speaker
percentage of fertilizer in it on there. So you'll just see three numbers. So it might say 10-10-10, or it might say just 0.2-0.1. You know what I mean? It might be very, very minimal, but it will always have that. So if you see those three numbers separated by dashes, you don't need to look any further. You know it's got fertilizer in it.
00:36:46
Speaker
So that's the, sometimes it's really difficult to find. And if you're just getting started, don't get too worked up about any of this. Just buy something that looks good, throw a plant in it and try. Like, but as you, if you're like us, the one plant will suddenly become many, many more and you want to get more specialized and you want them all to do well. It just kind of. Yeah.
00:37:07
Speaker
Not only will the plants multiply, but so will your ambitions. I'm trying to justify my addiction here. If you look out back, I have multiple things in containers. And I'm so excited you guys about, you know, we've talked a little bit about containers, but these soft containers that you can get at online order sources, you guys gotten into those and tried any of those.
The Rise of Soft Fiber Bags
00:37:31
Speaker
Like the bags and stuff like that. Yes, like the fiber bags. The fiber bags. They did great, right? Yeah. I've been using those for a lot of projects here the last two or three years. And I know the quality varies a lot with those, but so excited over stuff like that. And I love them so much. I'm even using them at home in place of, I was getting used nursery containers. I'd go and source and spec and buy.
00:37:54
Speaker
for a few bucks, use containers, clean them up good. But now I've switched over using 10 gallon grow bags and they've worked exceedingly well. I don't know how long they're going to last, but I guess container technology is one of those things that has come along too. And the lightweight, they can ship you five in a pack that's vacuum packed and they're
00:38:13
Speaker
a little two inch by six inch container tiny. And here you've got five, 10 gallon containers that come in this tiny little package. And it's amazing. I know they've been used in other countries for a long time and they've been used commercially, but pretty excited about that becoming more prevalent with homeowners.
00:38:33
Speaker
We've used, as I said, a lot in the county as demos and people are just blown away and they have handles. You have to kind of be careful because when you wet down potting soil or your substrate mix, it can get really heavy, but you can still move them around. It's pretty amazing. What can we get the containers for that? So yeah, containers. I think we can do a little brief primer, key differences, et cetera, for
00:38:56
Speaker
houseplants and maybe leave it open. We'll talk very briefly about them and then if folks want a full-length episode on the houseplant vibe, we can do that.
00:39:07
Speaker
Yeah, we, yeah, I love houseplants. Yeah. So I feel for you to guide this because I, I talk about all kinds of stuff, but I would say like, cut her off.
Alexis' Passion for Houseplants
00:39:23
Speaker
Cut her off. How many person that ever made indoor plants fun out of master gardener group. Tell me that.
00:39:31
Speaker
They said Alexis was the only one that ever made indoor plants the presentation worth. I know that was actually good. We're surprised. That's Alexis. She was very passionate. I like talked at them for like two straight hours, so that's surprising. I was like, why are they listening? This is indoor plants. This is something we don't really do. Yeah, but they loved it. Good stuff.
00:39:55
Speaker
Well, like I kind of mentioned before, so all through undergrad, I worked in the research greenhouses on campus and they were the houses that they used for like demonstration and all the classes. If you're trying to find them, they're actually clear they're not green. That common mistake. Actually, there's common mistake houses. Yes. Yeah. Common mistake, common mistake. Yeah. I mean, you can see green through that. It's not like chalky or whatever that is. I mean, hopefully if you're doing it right, right.
00:40:22
Speaker
But anyways, the whole collection, so everything from desert plants to the deep jungle type plants and so kind of got a full spectrum. And one thing like we've already talked about media, but I can't stress this enough is knowing, I tell everybody when they say houseplants, my favorite thing that people say is, I have a brown thumb, I can't grow a cactus. I killed a cactus. Someone said that to me the other day and I said, girl,
00:40:47
Speaker
where are cactuses from and she said the desert and i said and house the desert and she goes oh and i said there you go so when you're thinking about house plans if you have one if you want to go buy one the the thing i always lead off with is
00:41:04
Speaker
Where is that plant from and how can you best recreate that environment? Some plants are more adaptable than others. So that's why we say pothos and jade are some of the easiest ones to do because they are just so adaptable to dry, humid, wet, cold, whatever situations.
00:41:21
Speaker
But then you've got other plants that are going to be much more particular about their humidity levels and with houseplants is a big deal. They're watering schedule. Usually our houseplants die by over watering more than under watering. As an example, I water my houseplants at most twice a month. So if you're watering every week, it's probably too much if they're still inside.
00:41:44
Speaker
But there's like, there's this whole thought process and that is the thing that has helped me the most is where's this plant native to? It's a quick Google search will help you. If it's native to the jungle, it probably needs high humidity. If it's native to the desert, put it by your heat register where there's going to be lots of dry air and somewhere with a south facing window, cause it's going to need some light. Um, and that's like the best advice I can give you. What about, are there different media considerations there?
00:42:16
Speaker
Yeah, and Brett, with your knowledge and bonsais, you can talk a little bit more about that. If you've got succulent type plants, so string of pearls is one that everybody loves and everybody kills. I am here to tell you that I have had my string of pearls now for five years. You didn't have to flex on them like that. You did not have to flex on them like that. I think I know what I'm talking about.
00:42:36
Speaker
I am flexing so hard. That's a trance flex. In case you missed it. Oh, and by the way, did I mention it's a very good interesting of calls? Not just lightly here. It's very, very well. If you know, you know.
00:42:47
Speaker
If you know, you know, and I also have a tricolor string of hearts that I've kept alive for two years now. So if you know, you know, but, uh, what I've learned with those is that they tend to, we get rot on them. Most of the time people kill them because they rot or, and then they see them rotting and they stop watering them because they don't want them to rot and then they don't water them enough. So it's kind of a two step.
00:43:13
Speaker
root rot yep so they just kind of they rot right out and I was using regular potting soil that I use with all of my house plants but I'm using that potting soil just plain old bag of potting soil the cheapest I can find at a box store nothing fancy all my other house plants do great cannot keep these more fleshy succulent plants alive so what I ended up doing is cutting that
00:43:38
Speaker
soil, that potting soil media, and I added more perlite to it. And we talked about perlite earlier, it's that white substance. And so I, that creates more pore space in there. And so what I found was these succulent plants, you know, we're not, they're not true cacti, but they're not really, you know,
00:43:55
Speaker
tropicals either. They like a lot of water but they don't want that water to stick around very long and so I needed some to be able to water them pretty consistently but that water to drain away relatively fast. So I just added more perlite into that mixture and we got good drainage. Now the opposite might be true if you're you know well not really even the opposite but like orchids. Orchids are a great example they there's a specific orchid mix that you can buy
00:44:21
Speaker
You can also make your own, but it's, it's bark because orchids are epiphytes, which means they literally live on the outside of trees and they hang out and they just catch a bunch of leaf litter and they decompose that as they latch onto the side of a tree. So we want to mimic that. And so we use this woodier substance. There's lots of air that surrounds that root system. You know, Brett, what's your experience with bonsais? Cause I know bonsais. Your comment about the.
00:44:47
Speaker
the balancing the drainage with the water desire of the plant. You kind of manage the, you manage your media depending on, or you choose your media based on how much water you want to have stick around. But in general with bonsai like the drainage is the name of the game. Because the smaller the container gets, the harder it is to get oxygen into the container.
00:45:15
Speaker
down at the roots and the easier it is from water to pool. And so there's all kinds of specialty components, but a lot of, a lot of like a traditional bonsai mix would include
00:45:26
Speaker
pumice, lava, rock, and not lava. Well, not if you want it to be a long-term practice. Exciting replanting season. And then this thing, this thing called Akadama, which is a hard clay, pelletized clay that eventually breaks down into a clay type substrate over time. And that's it. There's no organic material at all.
00:45:54
Speaker
And so you're, it really does start to approach something more analogous and there's like all kinds of variations on that. Some people do a hundred percent Akadama on like more things that want more water and they'll do higher proportions of other things for things that are drier. Yeah. But essentially you're starting to move toward almost like a hydroponic system where there's your, it's just water flow and nutrient, like little micro doses of nutrients or
00:46:23
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot there, but yeah, it's a very similar thing where you want the water to not stick around too long because root rot is a major, major problem in those systems. I always wondered why that was so
00:46:40
Speaker
why it seemed like there was nothing that held water or not really in comparison to what we normally think with bonsai. That makes a lot of sense. You took my words and made that one. I think in general, you mentioned the containerized environment in general, whether that be with outdoor plants, indoor plants, bonsai, any number of different combinations.
Addressing Overwatering Issues
00:47:03
Speaker
When you have total control over that environment, which you do in that case, especially if it's inside, like a houseplant inside, most of my bones I stay outside year round, but, or all of mine do, but, um, you, when you dump a bunch of water into that container repeatedly, you are controlling the environment in a not so good way. Uh, and you're drowning it, you're creating opportunities essentially for the,
00:47:29
Speaker
Roots don't have enough oxygen and then they start to die and decay and the bacteria and other microflora take over and start to kill it. So that overwatering I think is a big problem in most containerized environments in general.
00:47:44
Speaker
Here's a thought I just had. Do you think people who like to feel power have a lot of containerized plants? Because you have all of the power at some point, and it's like, can you tell a person who does not have a lot of power in other ways of their life by the amount of container plants that they have? I feel that my container plants make me humble. I have just the opposite of they have the opposite effect of me.
00:48:09
Speaker
Yeah. You crave the great power or you fear the great responsibility. Great power comes great responsibility. Keep your plans alive people.
00:48:22
Speaker
Well, yeah, maybe that's a good place to summarize this and kind of wrap things up.
Recap and Resources
00:48:29
Speaker
Containerized plants, there's a lot going on, I mean, ranging from kind of indoor plants and outdoor plants, basically houseplants for people, people who have space limitations, maybe they just have a porch to work with, something like that. Or maybe they're looking to grow exotics, things that are not really conducive to
00:48:46
Speaker
the environment that exists outside, ranging all the way to kind of container production and people who are growing plants for commercial reasons, but to sell those live plants and needing to grow them and deliver them or sell them in a container.
00:49:02
Speaker
We talked about the needs. I mean, something we kind of couldn't get away from is how water behaves in those container environments and the critical component of what you are putting in the container and what is it made out of. If you're just doing something small, working with a pre-mix that you can buy at a big-box store is gonna be fine. If you are needing to fill many, many containers, you're probably gonna have to
00:49:30
Speaker
kind of construct something out of a mix of different components and what's available and in a small container you can grow a lot you can grow spinach you can grow chives you can grow thyme you can grow basil you can grow lettuce there's a lot of different things you can grow in those small things as well as you can grow things that are simply attractive like flowers and some of those special ones like things that grow in tree bark orchids pretty wild but
00:50:00
Speaker
Or you can go really over the edge and get into bonsai production like over the edge. You can go cray. Yeah, you can completely. You can answer the question, how can I make a plant so right on me?
00:50:22
Speaker
One resource that we forgot to mention that might be good for those of you who are wanting to do container vegetable or herb gardening that we have is the Home Vegetable Gardening in Kentucky booklet. This is something that you can get at any of your Kentucky Extension offices. We'll have copies for you, but you can also look it up online if you're the kind of person who just wants to be able to read it online at any time.
00:50:47
Speaker
An easy way to look this up is by typing in the letter I, D as in dog, dash one, two, eight, and then put UKY behind it. So we call that in the, Ray and I would be like, Oh yeah, ID 128. Uh, so that's, yeah, that's what we call it. Uh, but it is the home vegetable gardening guide in Kentucky. That's what it's called. And so there's a whole table in there that says, okay, tomato needs this size container.
00:51:17
Speaker
this is when you plant it. Lettuce needs this size container and this is when you plant it. So it's kind of a foolproof way to get started if you're wanting to do containers for vegetables or herbs specifically. So just kind of wanted to throw that one out there.
Engagement and Future Topics
00:51:30
Speaker
And then of course, like we've started doing,
00:51:33
Speaker
leave us a review so we would appreciate that that makes the algorithm happy and makes more plant people be able to find us so so please do that or share if you think somebody would like this episode please share this with them we would love to reach more people and hopefully you're enjoying it
00:51:51
Speaker
You can also contact us. Our contact information is in the show notes. And so if you would like, please let us know what you want to listen to. So, you know, we kind of hit on two more specific things, houseplants and bonsai in this episode. So if you want to hear a whole episode on one of those, please let us know. Obviously I would love to talk about houseplants and I'm sure Brett would love to talk about bonsai and I would love to hear about them. So, but we want to do what maybe is for
00:52:18
Speaker
For you all, and we know those are very specific, we kind of usually cover a lot of more broad topics.
00:52:25
Speaker
This pod is for the people, for our plant peeps, right? Our true leaves out there, as we've fondly refer to them as. Shout out to you all. So please leave us a review, shoot us a message. You can follow us on Instagram at, at Hort Culture Podcast, and you can let us know on there if there's any cool ideas that you have. But I believe that is it for the day. In July, we're going to be talking about cut flowers because it is Kentucky cut flower month.
00:52:53
Speaker
So we're very proud of that. Obviously I'm very excited. So hopefully we're going to have some cool guests on here to talk with you guys about some cut flowers and some special episodes. But anyways, as we grow this podcast, we hope that you will grow with us and we will see you next time. Thanks so much.