How to Create Flower Planter on a Budget

A few weeks ago, my BFF, best flower friend, Amanda from She's a Mad Gardener, reached out to me asking me if I would like to collaborate with her under the topic, contain this garden challenge. So it's about creating a video, sharing my tips, tricks, ideas on how to create beautiful flower planters. And of course I say yes, because I love her. I love collaborating with her. And also because this year, I would like to create more beautiful planters, because if I keep going to have flowers in my garden, I will keep cutting them. But flowers in a planter, no, I cannot cut that. So I kind of trick myself. However, creating planters can be so expensive, and I don't wanna break my bank. And you know, these days, cost of living is vernacular. And cost for luxury things like plants, like flowers, or hobbies, are even more vernacular. So I got a little creative this year, and I would like to share that with you, how I create planters without breaking my bank, but also beautiful, and beautiful, and beautiful. I used to spend a lot of money buying potting mix for my summer planters, but not anymore after I have figured this out. This is the old potting mix from last year. So I'm gonna take it out. There's a lot of plant roots here from last year. So trying to get to the bottom. Try to get the roots out as much as possible. Till it. Our goal is to have the soil fluffy. If you can feel any spot that is compact, till it, or take that spot out. Like this. And now we have fluffy soil. And I have seven more planters to do. Oh my goodness. I take some of the old potting mix out from my planters, because we need to make more room to add nutrient to our planters. Because the summer flowers last year already take a lot of nutrient from this old potting mix. And then I just, you know, dump this old potting mix in my raised bed, raised garden, or flower border, because they are good mold, and there are still some nutrient in this old mix. It's just not as rich as last year. And our summer flowers like petunia, all kinds of annual summer flowers, they really need a lot of nutrient. So I am going to backfill my planters with my secret ingredient, okay? And the first ingredient is my homemade compost. It's from clipping, cuttings from my garden, from the garden scrap, from my food leftover, from any kind of organic matters that is safe. Okay, I just dump in my compost pile in the back and let them degrade. And I use them when they are ready. It should take about one year or two years, unless you keep flipping it, you know, your compost is going to degrade faster. But I don't do that because I have a lot of compost. And the second ingredient is high quality compost. I use mushroom compost that I order from my local nursery. And I have been using them for two or three years or four years, so I totally trust them that these are safe and they are high quality because I use them before. If you don't have the access to mushroom compost, you can get manure, but again, make sure that it's safe and it's high quality. And the third ingredient is the old seedling mix, okay? That I use this thorough potting mix to grow my seedling. And maybe half of the time my seedling don't germinate. So I save this, you know, like new potting mix, you know, aside and whenever this time of the year come, I use it for my planters. And the fourth ingredient is like brand new, thorough potting mix. I am going to use this to top dress everything because they are clean, they don't have weed seeds. They will hold a lot of nutrients in our planters. And the last two ingredients, actually I call them seasoning. This one, organic granulated flower fertilizer. This is my most favorite brand because it works best for me, okay? It will add more nutrient to the ingredient in my potting mix, in my compost, you know, to make your flower bloom faster and more prolific. And this one can be a little controversial. This is synthetic slow-release fertilizer, okay? It is not good for your soil, for your garden, for your flower borders, but I have to add to my planter because again, summer flowers, they are so demanding. This is going to retain the nutrient. I mean, it will slowly release the nutrient to your planters over the summer. And I am backfill with my homemade compost first, just like that. Now, mushroom compost, maybe two spoon. Now, granulated organic fertilizer, synthetic fertilizer, just a little bit. Now, mix it together. If you cannot mix it together, that means you did not till your soil well. And you have to believe me on this one. Your soil should not be compact at all, okay? You should be able to mix everything by hand like this. And I have seven more planters to do, oh my goodness. You see the root here is bad, it's from my compost. You don't want this in your planter because it can make your soil compact pretty fast. Just throw it away. Now, compost. The reason why I soak my planter with water before planting anything is because water will help glue everything together, especially the fertilizer. And also, I mean, my compost is pretty dry. I want it to be completely moist before I plant anything. And also, after we hydrate the medium, everything will sink. Maybe it can sink like five inches. So I don't want to plant petunia here and petunia sink with the soil. I want the petunia to be on the planter, not in the planter. You can see the bubble coming up. That means I did not till this planter well enough. I'm gonna do it now. And guess what? I am going to do this to all of my planters because drainage is so important. I don't want my planter to have poor drainage. Okay. To be safe, I am going to do something else in the garden and I will come back to see if the water drain. If not, I don't know. It's time to transplant our petunia. It didn't take two days for the water to drain, but it took me two days to get back to this project after being distracted like big time. So now, our soil, you know, sink a little bit, not a little bit, like probably three inches. And now I'm gonna fill, not fill, I'm gonna just top dress it with a little bit of the organic high quality mushroom compost, like that. Just a little bit. And now I am going to top everything with fresh and clean potting mix. Okay. This brand new potting mix will help add nutrients, help retain water, and also will suppress the weed seeds that is in my homemade compost. Zinnia has fibrous root and they don't mind to be separate. I mean, if you don't, you know, cross with them. Let's put it there. I'm gonna leave the middle open because I want to plant something like spiky later, maybe like basil or savoyard. Hi! Look at this. I really like this approach because my petunia don't get root ball at all. If I planted a pot, they would have got root ball already. And they are super easy to, you know, separate. And also, putting them all in the same tray, so much easier to transport, to not transport, to like maintain, you know? You just water the tray and that's it. Another round of soaking, but gently this time. I know the planter seem pretty full, right? But believe me, it will sink again. For these two planters, because I don't have soil in it, I use my garden soil mixed with my homemade compost. And then I'm going to just fill it in. I have no recipe to tell you the proportion between garden soil, mushroom compost, homemade compost, and potting mix and fertilizer. I just play it by ear. For example, these two planters, they didn't do well last year, so I just redo the whole thing. And I found out that I put too many, I mean too much garden soil in these planters. So this time I am going to, you know, add a little bit more potting mix. But here's what I keep in mind. If I want to save money, I am going to use more garden soil. And if I want to make sure that that planters have enough nutrient and my flowers going to bloom so beautifully in summer, I would use more potting mix. And if you wanna, if you have to fill big planters, you can do like me, you know, fill the bottom with garden soil a little bit, and then add up more compost, more nutrient, and then potting mix on the top. If you're not sure what to do, you can just use everything equally, okay? And then top everything with potting mix, because potting mix is like the best thing that you can give to your flowers and your planters. If you have a lot of money, and if you're not broke, like I mean, I'm not broke, you can use potting mix for the whole planters. And one more thing, if you have small planters, maybe like this size, you know, you wanna make sure that you give your flowers enough nutrient. So you're probably going to use like, the whole planter should be potting mix, or maybe reuse potting mix with new potting mix, okay? So this way your flowers in small planters have enough nutrient. By the way, these two planters cost me almost nothing. I just use my homemade pot, I mean, homemade compost, reuse potting mix. I just have to spend a little bit of money using the new potting mix on the top and some fertilizer. The petunia here, I grow them from seed, which cost me only $5 per packet. And I have a lot more left here to use in other planters too. And canna lilies that I buried here, they are from last year, from these two planters too. You know, so yeah, I just probably like $2 or maybe $3 to do this planter this year. If I have to do this from scratch, buy new plants and new potting mix, it would cost me easily $20 per planters. Besides canna lilies, there are other plants that you can grow from combs, from rhizome, from tubers, and it will save you a lot of money instead of buying live plants like this begonia combs. I get it from a big box store and it cost me $10. If I buy live plant of one, two, three, four, four begonias here, it can cost me like $20 or maybe more than that because I know that one pot is about $6, I mean, in New Jersey. I also have caladium here that I got from Essie and I have one, one, two, three, four, four varieties. And there are about two bulbs per variety and cost me $20. And these are specialty color, beautiful forest caladiums. If I go to a garden center and buy like specialty caladiums, it can cost me $10. I remember I did that last year. I just could not resist. I have to buy, you know, like one this little pot like this cost me $10 per plant. So last winter, you know, I decided I'm going to buy from online and grow it from bulbs instead of buying live plants. And of course I saved this from last year. I'm not sure they survive, but doesn't hurt to try, right? Gonna use the leftover potting mix that I have left from soil blocking the other day. Pre-sprout them in the tray. And then after they sprout, I will transplant them to the planter outside. The reason why I pre-sprout them inside because this guy need heat to sprout and grow fast. If I put them outside now, it's still, you know, a little chilly. The temperature is not warm yet. So I want to make sure that they grow fast enough. I'm supposed to get two bulbs, but this one is like twin, like double. This one also double too. So this can be like four plants. This one, they give me three. This variety, they give me four. Oh, so generous. Essie is good and affordable, but I would be very, very careful when you buy anything from Essie, especially seeds. Go to the shop that seem reliable, like get a lot of reveals. Cover it. I'm gonna put them on heat mat because my basement is pretty cold. They need warmer soil to sprout. I dug up this perogonium from my planters outside from last year. I pot them up in little pot like this and put them under my go light. And they went dormant a little bit. And now when the temperature in the basement get a little warmer to around 70 degree Fahrenheit, then they started blooming. And now it's time to like officially wake them up by giving them more soil. I'm gonna clean them up a little bit. I'm gonna cut this off. Taking out all the dead leaves. Take out the flowers too because it take the energy from the plants. Gonna use the soil that I have left. You see, they don't have a lot of roots at all. That's mean if you overwinter them in your house, don't overwater it because they don't need to grow in winter time. But now when the temperature get warmer, they're gonna grow fast, giving them more soil. So whenever they're ready to grow roots, they have the nutrient to absorb. When watering petunia, you want to give them a lot of water. You don't have to water them every day, okay? Especially when it's not hot yet, but you just have to give them a lot of water and then let them drink a lot of water and then take a break from water and then water it again. For example, this planter, I will give them the whole gallon, more than gallon, whole watering can, okay? And then I will come back to water them maybe like in after three years, I mean three days or four days. And sometimes if accessible, I would soak them with watering holes like this. And I will not do that, okay? Because that can hurt the flowers. Just soak the soil and bubble like this is a good sign. That's mean the soil is taking the water. Petunia have a very special place in my heart because it is the first flowers that I grew when I started gardening. Because of these flowers, I learned so much how to take care of plants, inspire me to learn about other flowers. And look at me today, look at my garden today. It's just unbelievable. All start from these flowers. I love it so much. I even named the deer next door after these flowers. Actually, there's two of them. One is Pio, stand for Peony. My most favorite perennial flowers. And the other one is P2, stand for Petunia. Anyway, so I created about 12 planters so far. So that saved me about $200. So I hope this video inspire you and also helpful for you guys who are broke like me. I'm just kidding. For you guys who don't want to spend a lot of money on creating planters to garden, you know? And remember, this is a collaboration video. Amanda and Beth, who joined this content, this garden challenge, also have other tips, tricks, and helpful ideas, you know, how to create planters like this. And if you're interested to learn more, check out this playlist, okay? And we together, I, Beth, Amanda, and you guys will make this world the most beautiful planters in the universe, okay? All right, thank you so much for watching. Bye-bye.