???? Every crop, pot size and planting window written down:
The Potted Patio Manual
https://thepottedpatio.gumroad.com/l/containermanual


There was a woman on my street who bought all her flowers
in April.

Every year, same trip, same garden centre, same trolley
full of little plastic pots at four dollars each. She
spent a fortune and her patio looked lovely in June.

Mine looked lovely in March.

She was not a worse gardener than me. She was buying at
the one time of year when everybody else is buying, and
paying for the privilege.

Here is the part nobody says out loud. The best value in
the entire gardening year is sitting in that same garden
centre right now, in September, in a paper bag, looking
like a handful of onions. Nobody picks it up because
nothing about a dry bulb promises anything.

So the September shelf gets ignored, and the April shelf
gets emptied.

Two of the seven below will flower for you THIS autumn.
Not next year. You put a dry bulb in a pot this week and
you have a flower before Halloween.

And one of them is the only plant of its kind that goes
in now, at a depth that will feel completely wrong to
you. Plant it the way you plant every other bulb and you
will get leaves for years and never once a flower. I will
not name it here.


WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

7 flowers that must go into pots in September, counted down
Why an autumn-sown hardy annual is twice the size of a
spring-sown one
The two that flower within three weeks of planting, in
October
The one that must be planted at ONE INCH when every other
bulb goes at six
Which seed must never be covered with compost, and why
people keep failing with it
Why one of these must be sown direct and never
transplanted
The bulb-feeding advice that is backwards in almost every
article you will read
Which flower keeps blooming in December and January
How to get three separate flowerings out of one pot for
about nine dollars
Exact pot depth for every single one


A FEW PLAIN CAUTIONS

Check your USDA zone before you sow. These windows assume
a first frost from early October to late October. If your
winter comes early, move everything up two weeks.

Do not feed bulbs when you plant them. A bulb already
contains everything it needs for its first flowering.
Feeding now pushes soft growth that will not survive the
cold. Feed after it flowers, when it is building next
year's bulb.

Do not cut the leaves off an autumn bulb in spring, no
matter how untidy they look. Those leaves are the only
thing feeding next autumn's flower. Cut them and you get
nothing at all.

Do not buy soft or squashy bulbs. A good bulb is firm all
over, like a small onion. One soft one in a bag will rot
the pot.

Do not transplant a taprooted annual. If the label says
sow direct, it means the root will not forgive you.


Nobody makes a living telling you that a two dollar
packet of seed sown in September beats a four dollar
plant bought in April. There is no product in an empty
pot and a bag of bulbs. The money runs entirely the other
way, which is probably why you have not heard this.

So go and look at whatever pots are standing empty this
week. Take one thing off this list and put it in. Come
March you will have something flowering while everybody
else is still waiting for the garden centre to open.

Then tell me in the comments which USDA zone you are
growing in, just the number, and which of these seven you
had never heard of. I read every one of them.

Next time, what to do with your pots in October, because
half of what you plant this month needs one thing done to
it next month, and skipping it is how people lose the lot
in the first hard freeze.

September is not the end of the season. It is when next
spring gets decided.


CHAPTERS
0:00 Why September is the deadline
1:38 Why nobody sells you this
2:55 7. Calendula
4:22 6. Nigella (love-in-a-mist)
5:42 5. Iceland poppy
7:05 4. Violas
8:32 3. Sternbergia + the feeding myth
10:11 2. Colchicum
11:51 1. Madonna lily — the one-inch rule
13:43 BONUS: three flowerings, one pot
14:49 Your week in one list


#ContainerGardening #FallGarden #SeptemberPlanting
#BulbsInPots #PatioGarden #BalconyGarden #MadonnaLily
#Colchicum #GrowYourOwn #SmallSpaceGardening
#NanaRuthsPottedPatio