Drainage for your pots & containers

This time of year is a great time to talk about rain, lots of rain, coming snow and the fact that your pots and containers need drainage. Oh boy, do they ever at this time of year!

This is one of my very short tips & tricks for winter that I had mentioned on youtube last year and it’s in my garden planner to go around and check this weekend, so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to remind you guys too.

Over winter with all the wet weather and very little sun to dry it up, your pots and containers can get waterlogged.  The first thing to do to remedy a waterlogged pot is check your pots all have drainage holes in the bottom, but…. also have a think about where your pots are sitting.

If you are like us, you might have pots sitting out on concrete areas or slabs… this can create a seal on the bottom of your pots and stop the drainage holes working properly.  We learned this the hard way, with swimming pools where hydrangea should be – oops!

Don’t worry though, there is a solution, add little feet to your pots. Yup, pot feet. They are probably officially called pot risers but I like the name pot feet, it makes me smile.

I had a chat about this on the video channel in April after we’d had some crazy snow and one of the things that seemed to be popular was that I had found little “invisible” feet rather than the big terracotta fancy things. 

I’m guessing the old fashioned lion’s feet have gone out of fashion and the little rubber ones are way cheaper anyway.

You just add 3 or 4 under your pots to lift it just a little off the floor, leaving space for the water to drain. Don’t worry if you have pots on shingle or as we call them “chuckies”, this won’t cause a seal and will let the pots drain naturally, as long as you have drainage holes. You only really need to think about this if you have hard-packed ground under the pot.

Another little tip for you though, if you move the pots – perhaps to mow the lawn etc, remember to pick up your little feet and reposition them. I keep losing them because I forget and I end up with wonky pots.

Nobody wants wonky pots!