Video Wednesday: Container Gardening Tips from the US Botanic Garden

If you have ever been to the U S Botanic Garden on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in the summer, you have seen their wonderful container plantings -- big, bold, and healthy in the hot sun. In this video, USBG gardeners, Margaret Atwell and Beth Ahern, share some of their container gardening tips.

A few tips I learned from them that are not in the video footage:
~ Margaret likes to use 6 different plants per container.
~ They use their own soil mix -- basically a light potting mix.
~ After potting up, they sprinkle in Osmocote slow release fertilizer.
~ They do not use any rocks, gravel, or other fillers in the bottom of their pots for drainage.

BTW, if you are reading this post anywhere else on the Web aside from the Washington Gardener Magazine blog, you likely won't be able to see the actual video. To watch it, go directly to washingtongardener.blogspot.com.