How To Plant Geraniums In Pots
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Do you love the beauty and fragrance of flowers but don’t have a large garden? Don’t worry – with a few easy steps, you can learn how to grow geraniums in a pot outdoors! Geraniums are among the most colorful flowering plants that add striking drama to your outdoor environment.
Not only can they bring color and life to any space year-round, but their fragrant blooms will fill your outdoor air with wonderful aromas too. Today I am sharing how we planted geraniums in planter bowls mounted to our driveway columns creating a beautiful focal point as you enter our driveway.
You may be asking yourself, what can I plant in full sun that is easy to grow and that won’t die. Geraniums are one of the best flowers to plant in full sun and require little maintenance. You do need to water them frequently (we water 1x a day sometimes 2x a day during really hot weather) but any plant that is located in full sun, will need daily water.
Our driveway lacked character and we wanted to dress it up a bit with flowers. It gets full sun so anything we planted, needed to be a sun lover! The picture below shows our house without the driveway columns and geranium planters.
How To Plant Geraniums In Pots
Missed our driveway project? Last Fall we spent a weekend building outdoor stone columns at the entrance of our driveway and yesterday, we topped the outdoor columns off with gorgeous bowl planters that Jim found on Amazon. You know you have a keeper when your boyfriend buys you bowl planters for your home ;).
The image above features our newly constructed driveway columns with a granite top.
The size of the granite top piece is 30″ x 30″ so we opted for the 24″ diameter planter.
Side note: if you are curious how our lawn looks so green, be sure to click through my dad’s post, lawn dethatching tips and tricks.
Jim offered to help me so we set up a makeshift planting zone with 2 garbage barrels and a piece of wood.
Once we planted the pots, we transported them to the columns via the car. They were heavy!
Best Soil For Geraniums In Pots
The best soil for geraniums in pots is a mix that’s well-draining yet nutrient-rich to prevent water from getting stuck around those delicate roots, which can lead to trouble.
Opting for an organic potting mix is a great choice—it’s specifically designed to hold just the right amount of moisture and nutrients.
If you have more time, creating your own mix with peat moss, perlite, and compost can give your geraniums a personal touch of care, ensuring they bloom beautifully.
My grandmother always had her own compost pile and often made her own potting mix. It always amazed me at how beautiful her flowers were!
What to plant with geraniums
- 2 hanging geraniums
- 8 white bacopa plants
- ivy
- 2 spikes
Step 1: Remove plastic containers
I removed the geraniums for the plastic hanging planters and put one plant in each bowl planter and added 4 Bacopa plants around it.
I created a small hole in the center of the geranium and planted 1 spike plant to add height to the bowl.
In a couple weeks, the Bacopa plants will be cascading over the bowl planter.
Gardening Tip: add a handful of small rocks on the bottom of your planter for drainage and cover with potting soil. Make sure your drainage holes at the bottom of the planter are adequate in size.
Hardy Geraniums Love Full Sun! They are so easy to maintain and require minimal deadheading
Step 2: Arrange plants in container
I removed the geraniums and bacopa from the plastic pots and gently added them to the bowl planters.
I filled in around the edges with potting soil and topped with black mulch to keep the moisture in the pot.
The pots will be in the direct sun all day long so I am hoping that the mulch will help keep the soil moist.
Purchase hanging baskets if you want a jump start on flower growth. They are a little more expensive than purchasing solo plants but they will fill your container quicker and help give you a lush full look.
I couldn’t find my gardening gloves so I sacrificed a pair of winter gloves. 🤷♀️
Our outdoor columns are in full sun all day long so I think the geraniums will do great!
How to deadhead geraniums
Deadheading geraniums is a little more involved than just pulling off the flowers.
Using a pair of shears, you will need to cut or snap the stem just below the joint where the new growth starts.
Geraniums can quickly become tall and leggy if you do not cut them back once the flowers start to die.
There are several types of geraniums and articles on google about how to care for geraniums if you are looking for further details on specific types of care for each region.
White Bacopa is one of my go-to plants when making planters. You can see my potted hydrangeas and white Bacopa around our pool here.
Our outdoor columns now look complete and each season, I will add different annuals to the bowl planters. I think the red geraniums in the bowl planters are going to look great during the holidays filled with fresh greens and a tiny Christmas tree in the middle.
Here are the columns during Christmas with wreaths. You can see the full DIY tutorial and process of how we made these columns in a weekend here.
What do you think? Do you think planting red geraniums in bowl planters was a good idea to dress up our driveway entrance columns? The only draw back of now having flowers this far from the house is ensuring they stay watered.
My mom said, “who is going to water these everyday?”
Meet Jessica
What started as a hobby, Jessica’s blog now has millions of people visit yearly and while many of the projects and posts look and sound perfect, life hasn’t always been easy. Read Jessica’s story and how overcoming death, divorce and dementia was one of her biggest life lessons to date.
Those bowl planters are the perfect thing for those columns!! They look gorgeous with the red geraniums!
HAHA I bet I know who will be watering those flowers at the end of the driveway…..your dad!!
haha , my mom took over that duty 😉
Oh my gosh.
We have the very same potting table…..two upside down plastic trash cans and a wooden plank. And I thought I was being so clever. Ha.
hahahah!
Jessica,
Looks beautiful. Try using those glass watering bulbs to cut down on the watering. I use them at my cottage to keep my planters watered between visits. Plus they look decorative too!
I ordered them b/c you told me too!! haha!!!! They are very cool and pretty 🙂
They are beautiful! I use a product called Soil Moist which turns to gel to hold and disperse water slowly. Miracle Grow also now sells a potting soil with this type of granules in at already too I’ve found it to be helpful when I don’t want to water as often or here in Florida where pots can dry out during a day!.
Oh I didn’t know that about the type of soil! I will check that out 🙂 I did end up ordering some plant pals on Amazon (a recommendation from another reader) and they are pretty cool!