How to Plant Potted Perennials
with
Gretchen Siegchrist
Has the time come to plant your potted perennial in your garden bed? Learn how to super charge your perennial's root ball with a fertilizer solution, and see how to plant it so that it will have a better chance of thriving.
Transcript: How to Plant Potted Perennials
Hi, my name is Charlie Siegchrist for About.com Home and Garden. One method that I have used for installing perennial plants really gives them a head start in life.Mix the Plant Fertilizer
To begin with we mix up some water soluble fertilizer. The label directions for mature plants tell us to use 1 tbsp to the gallon. We will be making a dilute mixture. We have here a five gallon pail into which we will put four gallons, not filling it quite full, and we will only put in two tbsp of fertilizer, half strength. This material dissolves entirely. Just stir the hose around at the bottom and make sure all the granules are coming in contact with water.Fertilize the Perennial
Now, the perennial that we have here is a member of the mint family called bee balm. The way that we can supercharge this plant for a good start in life is to do what is called plunge it. We put the pot into this pail of water so the root ball is getting charged up on this nutrient solution. The leaves we can splash fertilizer on them as well. The plant is able to take fertilizer up through the leaves. So basically we have sort of given this plant a super charge.Prepare the Perennial Bed
The best perennial beds start with the fertility in place and with the weeds fully under control, so we are in a good situation here. For installing the perennial it is simply a matter of taking out soil.Plant the Potted Perennial
We remove the plant from the pot, center it, put our soil back and form up a little basin that will then allow us to water the plant. These little basins are small. Rather than use the garden hose, which has a highly erosive effect, possibly, use an old fashioned watering can. Just add water to the point where the basin becomes full. You can poke around to get air pockets out of the soil. Add soil to replace what got lost to air pockets. Then you can water again. And that happy little bee balm a year from now will be this tall and this wide.Thanks for watching. To learn more visit us a homegarden.about.com on the Web.