A-Z Garden Tips: Underfilling Urns

We have a pair of oversized urns on our front porch, which we plant with various annual flowers and greenery each spring. First, however, these gigantic containers must be filled with potting soil.

Lots and lots of potting soil.

That’s a lot of heavy lifting, and it can be costly. But I found a simpler solution. Before planting in these urns, I gather a few pails of pine cones. We have several pine trees in the yard, so this is easy.

I fill each urn about halfway with pine cones. Then I dump in the potting soil and plant the flowers in it.

The pine cones eventually decompose, adding organic matter to the soil in the urns – sort of like mulching from underneath. This also helps to prevent over-compaction of the soil in each planter.

In the fall, when I clean out these containers, the soil comes out pretty neatly, as the roots are not embedded in the bases of the urns.

Gotta love simple gardening solutions.

NOTE:  This blogger has no affiliation with any product/s mentioned in this post and received no remuneration from the manufacturer/s or product promoter/s for this post.

Image:
Pixabay - public domain

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