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How to Care for Potted Plants

Glean tips for keeping plants healthy, plus our favorite flowers and plants for container gardens.

By

Madaline Sparks

Updated on May 10, 2023

Fact checked by

Isaac Winter

Do you think your home could use some potted plants? We couldn't agree more! There are many reasons to adopt a house plant. Bringing a little bit of the outside into your home can create a welcoming and calming effect. But caring for potted plants is different than tending an outdoor garden and has certain limitations. Here's our primer on how to care for potted plants so they thrive in your home or on your patio.

Choose the Pots

There are so many pots (aka planters or containers) to choose from! Depending on your budget and your taste, you can go with hanging baskets, terracotta pots, ceramic containers, or many other options. Here are some basic factors to consider when choosing your pot or planter.

Drainage

Make certain there are one or more holes in the bottom of your container to allow water to flow out freely. Insufficient drainage can cause roots to drown and the plant to die prematurely.

Size

It's best to give your plant some space to grow. When you're picking out a planter, choose one that's about 1 -2 inches wider than your plant's root mass. If you expect the plant to grow a lot, choose one that's 4 inches wider.

Material

Almost anything can be used as a container for plants. If you prefer lightweight containers, which are easy to move around and can weather winter temperatures, look for resin, fiberglass, and plastic. Bonus: These materials are not porous, so they absorb less moisture than unglazed clay or wood (this leaves more for the plant).

Choose the Potting Mix

Do not use soil from the yard or garden. It can be filled with weed seeds, insects, and fungal diseases. Buy potting soil at your local garden center instead.

Potting soil is a loose and light mixture of materials like peat moss, vermiculite, and, often, decomposed organic matter. If you are planting succulents or cacti, use a mix specially formulated for them.

To reduce plant maintenance, buy potting mix containing a time-release fertilizer and moisture-retaining polymer crystals. If that type is not available, try to find separate time-release fertilizers (such as Cockadoodle Doo) and water-retaining crystals (like Soil Moist); follow the package directions for adding to a basic mix.

Choose the Plants

Make "right plant, right place" your motto. You must take into consideration the conditions of your space. Think about the following aspects before choosing the type of plant.

Sun Exposure

Will you be placing the pot or planter in a sunny spot? Don't try to grow a flower like a rose―which requires six hours of full sun―on a porch that gets only an hour early in the morning. Do your homework (read books and plant tags), ask for advice at the garden center, and determine which plants will thrive in the available sun or shade. For example, jade plants and snake plants don't need much water, but they do need lots of bright sun.

Moisture

If you are looking for a potted plant for your bathroom or a humid outdoor porch, go with a plant that craves moisture and warm temperatures, like a fern. If you don't want to have to worry about making sure your plant is hydrated, consider choosing spider plants, succulents, or cacti. Like many lower-maintenance plants, they don't need much water.

Prepare the Pots

Use one kind of plant per pot. If you choose to combine multiple types of plants, make sure they all like the same light and moisture conditions. Don't put a cactus and a pansy together in one pot and expect them to get along! Here are the steps for preparing the pots.

Step 1: Select the Location

If your containers are large, place them where they'll stay before filling them. Once they are full and watered, they may be too heavy to move.

Step 2: Line Bottom With Coffee Filter

Put a basket-type coffee filter or a shard of broken pot over the hole(s) in the bottom of the empty pot. This will prevent the potting mix from washing out but will still allow water to escape.

Step 3: Check the Moisture Content

Before pouring in the soil, check its moisture content. Read directions on the bag for wetting it properly. Generally, you need to add water a little at a time and knead the mixture with your hands. A good rule of thumb is to wet the mix until it feels like a damp sponge.

Step 4: Fill With Soil

Put in enough potting mix so the base of the plant (where the stem sprouts from the soil's surface) is about 1 inch from the top of the pot (to help visually estimate, position your plant while it's still in its nursery container). Before planting, pat down the soil lightly with your fingers to eliminate any big air pockets. Don't pack it down too hard.

Pot the Plants

It's good practice to water plants in their original containers at least an hour before transplanting. This will ease their removal and diminish transplant shock. Then, follow these steps to pot the plants.

Step 1: Remove the Plant From the Container

Support the top of the "root ball" (the semi-solid mass of soil and roots) by placing a finger on each side of the stem; then tip the pot and let the plant fall gently into your hand. Never pull a plant out by its stem. If it is stuck, tap the sides of the pot to loosen it.

If the roots are circling around and around, the plant is "root-bound." Gently tease the ends of the roots free before planting.

Step 2: Set the Plant in the Pot

Place the plant on top of the mix. If you are potting more than one plant, leave at least an inch around each root ball so you can add mix in between them. Carefully fill in with small handfuls of soil. Pat gently to eliminate air pockets. Do not pile soil on top of the plant―make sure the stem is completely above the surface. Leave an inch between the soil surface and the rim of the pot.

Step 3: Water the Container

This will settle the roots into their new home. If the soil level drops below the top of the root ball, add some additional mix to bring it back up.

Watering

If you plant in the spring and the weather is mild, you can probably get away with watering once a week. As the summer continues, plants need more water. Not only is the warm weather evaporating the moisture before the plant can use it, but plants also need more water as they grow larger. Hanging plants and small pots may need watering twice a day (the best times are morning and evening); once a day is enough for large pots. Here are some tips for watering plants:

Water your plants until the water comes out of the drainage holes. That way you know the soil is getting moisture all the way to the bottom.
Water the soil, not the leaves and flowers. Wetting the foliage can lead to fungal diseases and sometimes scorched spots on leaves.
Don't worry if plants and flowers look wilted in the hottest time of the day. As long as the top of the soil is moist, you probably don't need to water. Wilting is a self-protective mechanism to prevent too much moisture loss from the root area. Wait and see if the plants perk up after the sun goes down.
Don't let pots sit in water as this can cause root rot and death. If you are using saucers, empty them after you water them and after it rains.

Feeding

Plants growing in containers need more fertilizing than those in the ground. The more you water, the more quickly you flush the nutrients out of the soil. It's good to use a time-release fertilizer when planting, but it's the bare minimum. If you want really healthy and happy plants, feed them a liquid or water-soluble fertilizer every couple of weeks according to package directions.

Deadheading

Pinching or cutting off faded blooms, known as deadheading, is essential. It encourages a plant to keep producing more flowers.

Some plants have so many tiny flowers and stems, it would be too time-consuming to snip or pick off individual flower heads. For those types, it's best to shear the whole plant back to about one-third of its size. It will look "whacked" for about a week, but you will soon be rewarded with a flush of new buds and blooms.

Some flowering plants are "self-cleaning," meaning they don't generally require deadheading or shearing. These are usually prolific bloomers covered in smallish flowers, which just shrivel up and almost disappear on their own. Some examples are impatiens, mini petunias, diascia, and browalia. If they start to flag late in the summer, cut back the plant by one-third to rejuvenate blooming.