Effective Tips To Help You Conserve Water In Your Container Garden

Conserving water efficiently in your container garden promotes growth of healthy plants and also minimizes the need for regular watering. Observing the right container gardening practices helps in controlling unnecessary water loss and also boosts water retention in the container. Below are effective water conservation tips to help you control water loss and boost water retention in your container garden.

Use Double Pots

Using double pots for your container garden is an easy and essential way of conserving water for the plants. The double pots regulate the temperatures by providing a double insulation for the soil. As a result, water loss through evaporation is reduced significantly and your plants are more likely to get enough water throughout the day.

To create a good double pot for your container garden, you will first need the planter container in which the plants will be planted. After that get a bigger container that is large enough to hold the planter container and leave a few inches all round. Lastly, add a layer of gravel or sand in between the bigger container and the smaller one. The big, outer container and layer of gravel offers the soil great insulation that prevents excessive loss of water through evaporation.

Use Non-porous Pots

It's important that you use non-porous pots in your container garden so as to prevent water loss. Porous pots have a high seepage capacity and they are likely to leach out a considerable amount of water from the soil leaving your plants deprived of water. Otherwise, you might be forced to regularly water your plants more than necessary, so that your plants can have enough water.  

Pots made from solid stone or glazed ceramic are good non-porous containers you can use. Also, it's advisable to use pots with a light shade because they retain minimal heat, advises The Micro Gardener. In essence, dark colours retain heat quickly leading to more evaporation of soil moisture. Also, accumulation of high levels of heat can damage the root system of your plants, so you're safer with non-porous, light-coloured pots.

Add a Top Layer

Adding a cover layer in your containers prevents loss of water through evaporation. You can cover the top area with inorganic materials or organic materials depending on what you have. However, ensure that the top layer is clean and free of insects because the bugs can attack your plants or introduce disease-causing microbes.

Pebbles and plastic are great inorganic top layer materials that you can use, advises The Guardian. For organic material you can use a good mulch cover made of grass, woodchips or leaves. However, remember that woodchips attract termites and you may want to avoid using the chips if your home is prone to termite attacks. You can also buy a mulch compound from an expert plant supplies provider if you don't have an appropriate mulch compound.

Maintaining a container garden becomes much easier if you are able to conserve water in your planters. The tips above can help you conserve water in your container garden effectively. For more information, contact a wholesale nursery, like Din San Nursery.