Thistle nailed it. I was going to say soak them. I learned to soak mine for a bit. I've got a couple cheap plastic tubs that are about 6" high that I set them into to soak for a bit. I usually do it when I go out to tend to other things around the yard or the house. Bring them down, soak them, do a chore like unload the dishwasher, or move laundry over, and then back up they go, repeat as necessary and that's how I go about it till its all done. I use
Bloom Booster 1-2x a week when I soak them too. Usually I do 1x a week till after the 4th of July then its 2x a week since by then the plants are pouring over the pots. The bloom booster is at full strength too. The rest of the time its just straight water. I just drape the plant around so the leaves don't get wet, water from the edge so I don't create a bare spot, and whatever runs out goes right into the tub for the soil to reabsorb. I let them soak for a bit and back up they go. I've learned that when I take them out and they feel REALLY heavy they are good to go since the water has saturated the soil.
I don't soak them every day (I work 24hr shifts so its just not going to happen) but its maybe an hour a day to do all of them and that was when I was soaking 8, 12" baskets that lined our front porch. Mind you I had other chores I was doing in between those but really it only took about that long for all those plants. This year we've got 2. One that hangs and another sits inside a pot designed to go over the railing on our front porch. I took the hanging basket and removed the white plastic piece that makes the hook and slide the whole pot inside the outer pot that is on the railing. Both were Mothers Day gifts for my wife. I've always had them in the white plastic pots from the nursery and they do fine with that method. I don't pay extra for the sphagnum moss or coconut woven liners since the plants spill over and you don't see the pot anyway. I d
This year both pots have Million Bells
Calibrachoa hybrid but I've done it with pots of trailing petunias too and had excellent results. The bees and especially the hummingbirds love them. Plus no deadheading. Don't get me wrong I LOVE petunias but when one has 8, 12" baskets of petunias going and trailing down and spends hours deadheading it does trigger one to pause wonder exactly what they were thinking when they bought that many.
I learned the soaking thing because when I first got them at our old house for my wife for Mothers Day. Dang things started drying up despite multiple waterings. Water would dribble out the bottom so I thought they were good and soaked. Wrong. They still were fading on me. So as a desperate Hail Mary attempt to save them I let them soak for a few hours in a bucket. Figured they'll live or they'll just keep dying and that's it. Well they came roaring back. Couple weeks they start looking weak again so I soaked them again. And again they came roaring back. Then the light bulb went off. The following year I soaked them preemptively ahead of time and they were a cascade of blooms from spring till frost.
That's when I learned how to keep them going strong. I started adding the bloom booster since I figured they had to be packed in and desperate for nutrients the same year I did the preemptive soaking. I know the bloom booster its not the most PC thing to use here but it works so I'm not going to lie about it. Eventually I'd like to go to compost tea and as soon they find more hours in a day Ill gladly fire up a batch.
I'm very curious to see how the diaper works. Please keep us posted V.
