How to Make a Planter
Posted By: Category: Design, Seasonal AdviceTop tips from our talented Bedding Manager who, with her team, handmakes all the gorgeous planters at Riverside. No wonder they are one of our most popular items!
You can follow our video guide for this blog on our Instagram or Facebook.
Preparing your Pot:
We have a great range of Outdoor pots at Riverside from @aptapottery and @mimspottery. For this range of planters we have selected the Low Bowl for an Alpine Planter style.
If you’ve got any broken pots or crockery, you can put a few pieces at the base to cover the hole. It stops compost from blocking up and falling out, and so helps drainage.
We use a compost-gravel mix for our pots - SylvaGrow Multipurpose and some Horticultural grit. Fill the pot up ¾ so that you have space to dig in the plants.
Planting Up:
When picking out our plants, mix up colour, size and texture. Our bedding area is full of plant perfect for this. Use our planted-up pots as inspiration or come up with your own combo!
We try to keep a style in mind to help make them cohesive e.g. Little Cottage vibes, red colour scheme. It is best to experiment with layout on top your pot before to get the right arrangement – it can be easier to start with the biggest or brightest. We have spaced out these plants a few centimetres for the Alpine planter. You can fit the plants in closer if you want a fuller look. If you want your pot a certain orientation too, then make sure you think about this before planting!
Gently remove the plants from their pots- they may need some encouragement. Most plants will be fine to pop in right away but if there are roots wrapped around at the base, you may want to break a bit away to help them to grow into the new soil.
Move some soil out and place in the plant. Give it a bit of a wiggle and push so it sits well in the soil. As you add in more plants you can use the extra soil to tuck in around the bases. A little shake of the pot can show you loose patches and even out the top layer of soil.
Final Touches:
Stand back and make sure you like your arrangement. Now you can add any extra decoration. We have added some decorative gravel on top to fit the Alpine pot style – we like Horticultural Washed Gravel and Golden Grit from @Kelkayltd
Use a watering-can to clean the planter and wash off any bits of soil. Then, give the planter a good water. Ready for display - planters look great grouped on a patio or next to the front door!
We’d love to see how you have planted up yours!
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