DIY Guides

A beautiful flower filled patio is an essential part of most homes. But plants in pots, tubs and hanging baskets rely on you completely to provide all their needs in terms of water, nutrients and care. Here are some hints and tips to make your job much easier and to guarantee you a patio display to be proud of.

1. Perk up plants in existing pots

Apply a slow release plant food early in spring. They provide vital nutrients so that your established plants will soon be growing strongly and overflowing with flowers. Miracle-Gro Controlled Release Plant Food Tablets are ideal as they go on feeding the whole summer through!

2. Plant up fresh pots of bedding plants

For a real sizzling display, plant up tubs full of flowering plants. Empty your pots of last year’s compost and scrub out the inside. Line absorbent terracotta pots with sheets of plastic to reduce water loss through the porous sides. Now fill your containers with fresh potting compost that is rich in nutrients. For best results we recommend Miracle-Gro All Purpose Compost. This contains many more nutrients and special wetting agents to absorb more water. As a planting idea pick your favourite bush fuchsia for a centre piece and surround the edges with trailing ivy-leaved geraniums or petunias.

3. Plant up hanging baskets

Hanging baskets need regular watering to thrive and depend on you completely for their care. To make your job as easy as possible, there is Miracle-Gro Moisture Control Compost. It contains enough nutrients to feed your hanging basket plants for the rest of the season and is specially improved so that it holds twice as much water as ordinary multi-purpose composts.

Line the basket with either moss or a special liner and then add a layer of compost. Make holes through the side of the basket and position the roots of some trailing plants onto the compost layer. Wrapping the roots in a cone of newspaper will help to protect the delicate root system while it’s pushed through the holes. Add another layer of compost and add more trailing plants around the edge of the basket. Plant the centre of the basket with an upright plant to give height and stature. Water the basket thoroughly and protect from frost until the middle of May.

4. Use a water retaining gel

If you prefer to plant up in your favourite compost you can still add some water retaining crystals to ordinary growing compost so that it absorbs more water and releases it to plant roots whenever required. Miracle-Gro Moisture Control Gel can be quickly mixed into ordinary composts before you plant up this year’s bedding plants, or dug into the compost of permanently planted shrubs and trees growing in pots around the patio. The gel crystals absorb four hundred times their own weight in water thereby reducing how many times the compost needs to be watered and the effort of watering. The benefit that plants receive is that they have a reservoir of water to draw on, whenever the roots need it.

5. Watch out for greenfly and blackfly

Aphids come in all manner of colours and are most often seen on new stems and especially on the underside of leaves. The BugClear Gun! will see off these sap-sucking pests quickly and easily.

6. Feed as easy as water

Miracle-Gro have introduced a new watering and feeding system this year called Liquafeed. Just connect to your hosepipe and you can either water or feed your patio and garden in minutes. There’s no mixing and no measuring. Simply screw a bottle of Miracle-Gro Liquafeed Plant Food into the sprayer and away you go.

Always read the label. Use pesticides safely. BugClear Gun! contains bifentrin. Levington, Miracle-Gro and BugClear Gun! are trade marks of The Scotts Company or its affiliates.

Featured Products

	Miracle Gro Controlled Release Plant Food Tablets	£ 2.99
	Miracle Gro 56L All Purpose Compost	£ 4.49
	Miracle Gro Moisture Control Compost 56L	£ 5.99
	MiracleGro Moisture-Control Gel	£ 4.99
	Bug Clear 800ml Gun	£ 3.49
	Miracle Gro Liquafeed	£ 9.99