How to create a container garden for wildlife
Introduce more wildlife features into a small space using pots and containers
Sow your own mini wildflower meadow in a windowbox, line a pot with plastic to make a potted pond or use walls to create vertical herb displays.
Make a hanging basket
Cath Hare
- Line the container or basket with an old woolly jumper cut to size, or choose a solid basket.
- Fill with peat-free compost.
- Start planting! Put in a tall, central plant followed by smaller plants around it, and trailing plants through the sides. Here are some ideas:
Cool blues: aubrieta, lobelia, wild pansy, nepeta
Hot reds: marigolds, fuchsia
Neutral whites: sweet alyssum, erigeron, ox-eye daisy
Tall central plant: knapweed, scabious, lavender, snapdragon, pot marigold
Herb smellies/eatables: verbena, tomatoes, chives, thyme, rosemary, parsley, sage, strawberry, dwarf lavender
Trailers: ivy, nasturtium, honeysuckle, sweet Pea, lobelia ’pendula’ - Continue building up plants and compost until about 5 cm from the top.
- Feed once a week and water frequently in summer.
Make a meadow pot
Long hoverfly on cornflower by James Adler
- If needed, make drainage holes in your container, drill 0.5-1cm diameter holes into the bottom of the pot about 15cm apart.
- Cover with rocks.
- Half fill with peat-free compost.
- Start planting! How about:
Cool blues: cornflower, wild pansy
Hot reds: poppy, corncockle, pheasant’s eye
Soft yellows: corn marigold, corn buttercup - Continue building up plants and compost until about 5cm from the top.
- Feed once a week and water frequently in summer.
- Sow each year.
How to make a pond in a pot
Edda Dupree - Shutterstock
- Find a suitable leak-free container, such as an old sink with the plughole plugged.
- Put a layer of gravel in the bottom and build up the edges with rocks and stones so that animals can get in and out.
- Run water in very gently, preferably over plastic to avoid stirring the substrate. Use rain water if possible. Let tap water stand for a few days.
- Plant-up after a few days when the water has cleared.
- Maintain the water levels.
What to plant in your pond in a pot:
Submerged oxygenators: Hornwort, Spiked Water-milfoil
Submerged floaters: Potamogetons, Water Starwort, Frogbit
Emergent plants (on a shelf): Water Forget-Me-Not, Gypsywort, Flowering Rush, Arrowhead, Water Crowfoot
Cool blues: Wood Forget-Me-Not, Bluebell, Burgle
Red hots: Hedge Woundwort, Red Campion, Foxglove, Herb Robert
Neutral whites: Primrose, Lesser Celandline
Yellows and greens: Archangel, Ivy, Wood Avens, Ferns, Hellebores, Wood, Sage, Lords-and-ladies, Spurge
