Pots and containers can all too often look a bit tired come late summer. Understandably so, as restricted space, summer heat, and inconsistent moisture take their toll. It can be quick and easy to revitalize them, as a little makeover and TLC can keep them performing late into the season.
Trim them, feed them, and replace anything past its best with new plants that can carry the display forward into fall. A snip here and there can tidy up even the weariest plants, and they will all feel better with some extra nutrients. Then you can pick from a selection of late-season flowers to fill any gaps.
Afterwards, your container garden will be revitalized and reenergized to face the coming weeks and months. To help you give your container garden a late-summer lift, here are three expert-recommended tasks to get your pots looking their best. A good starting point is to get a bag of quality compost (like this organic compost from Amazon). A new layer at the end of the process helps any container look fresh and feeds the plants.
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1. Trim Tired Growth
(Image credit: Future/Jacky Hobbs)
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need to do a radical overhaul to refresh containers. A little fine-tuning and sprucing can be enough to give them a new lease of life and reward you with glorious pot displays into fall.
For the first step in lifting your container gardens in late summer, take time to give your plants a gentle prune. A little haircut at this stage helps spruce them up and prepares them for the new season.
Brandon McCormick, Landscape Design and Product Development Director at Hooks and Lattice, advises starting with a spot of deadheading. He adds: ‘Removing spent flowers and leggy stems helps plants look neater right away and can encourage another flush of blooms.’
Also use this time to assess the plants in your containers and remove any leggy, scraggly, or unsightly growth to smarten them up. This bit of TLC refreshes the display and can also unveil any gaps that may need to be filled.
‘One of the easiest ways to refresh container plants in late summer is to remove dead, damaged, or overgrown plants,’ recommends Rebecca Sears from Ferry-Morse. ‘Trim away broken stems, yellowing leaves, and leggy growth to improve the appearance and encourage new growth.’
Use clean, sharp pruning shears for any trimming. This pair of Japanese pruning shears from Amazon is perfect for the job.
Brandon McCormick is the Landscape Design and Product Development Director at Carlsbad Manufacturing Corporation, where he plays a key role in guiding product innovation across its family of brands, including Stone Yard, Planters Unlimited, and Hooks and Lattice.
As CMO and resident green thumb for the Green Garden family of brands, Rebecca Sears nurtures the company’s heritage but also looks to develop new products and solutions to help gardeners of all skill levels fuel their passion and become more successful in the garden.
2. Lightly Feed Containers
(Image credit: Future/Jacky Hobbs)
Any plants growing permanently in containers, whether annuals or perennials, need feeding regularly, especially during the summer months. After a summer of growing in limited soil and dealing with hot temperatures and potential heat stress, your plants will have endured a lot.
A gentle feed in late summer is advisable to give your container garden a lift and an essential dose of nutrients to keep them prospering into late summer and beyond. This can be accompanied by a fresh layer of compost or potting mix (such as this premium organic potting mix from Burpee) to boost the nutrients in depleted soil.
‘Apply a weak solution of a water-soluble fertilizer each time you water to give the plants a new boost of energy,’ recommends Kathy Jentz, an experienced author and host of the popular GardenDC Podcast.
A good summer fertilizer for flowers in containers is a liquid feed high in phosphorus and potassium. This encourages the development of new flowers, which will lift even the most tired of container displays. A blossom booster like this at Walmart is a great option for fertilizing container plants in summer.
Amit Gershon, the Founder of Balcony Plants, suggests using a tomato feed once a week. You can get a liquid tomato feed at Amazon to mix in a watering can and use to water your container plants.
Alternatively, you can use a liquid balanced feed. But never use high-nitrogen feeds when fertilizing plants in August.
3. Fill Any Gaps
(Image credit: Nicola Stocken/Future)
The rigors of summer can leave you with plants past their best, and sometimes there is little option but to replace them. Replacing tired plants with new ones that perform later in the season can add fresh color and texture without needing to design a brand new fall planter from scratch.
If you want to transition summer pots or hanging baskets for fall, swapping one or two dead plants with fall flowers that thrive in pots refreshes the display and gives the container a new lease of life.
‘The goal is to keep some of the established planting for fullness, then add fresh color and texture where the container needs it most,’ advises Brandon McCormick. ‘Chrysanthemums, asters, ornamental peppers, coleus, coral bells, ornamental grasses, and late-blooming salvias are all good options depending on the climate.’
Many gardeners like to think ‘thriller, filler, and spiller’ when planting up containers. The thriller is a statement focal point, the fillers are medium-sized plants to provide color and abundance, and the spillers are trailing plants that cascade over the edge,
For a fantastic spiller plant for a fall container, Rebecca Sears suggests alyssum, saying: ‘Alyssum is a great option for filling in gaps and adding a lower-growing layer that can carry into the fall.’
You can get a pack of six sweet alyssum plants in three-inch pots at Amazon to add to your fall containers. Or you can get a packet of ‘Carpet Of Snow’ alyssum seeds at Burpee.
Shop Plants for Fall Containers
A set of two live starter plants with multi-colored, highly decorative foliage. The leaves have pink centers with deep maroon and lime green edging.
‘Caramel’ is a compact variety of Coral Bells that reaches one foot tall and wide. It has large, heart-shaped, caramel-orange foliage and can grow in zones 4-9.
This live bronze colored chrysanthemum comes in a one-gallon pot and is perfect for adding instant color to gardens and containers.
Kathy Jentz has one final trick for refreshing any container and adding interest and whimsy, without needing to go out and purchase new plants.
‘If you have a big bare spot in a container, you can use non-plant materials to fill it in,’ she says. ‘These could be fun things like plastic toy dinosaurs or fairy garden props. Or you could go more natural and fill in the bare spots with seashells or interesting rocks.’
When you give your container garden a late-summer lift, why not think outside the box and make your pot unique? Who says all fall planters need to look the same?
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