Your complete guide to container gardening in Arizona

Spring is almost here! Whether you rent or own, container gardening is a great way to grow your favorite greenery even in the desert scene. 

What is container gardening? 

Simply put, container gardening is growing a garden within planters, pots, and whatever you can fill with dirt. It is a great way to have a mobile garden—we see you, renters—or a garden that at least doesn’t suffer from the soil alkalinity all too common in the desert. Ground gardeners in Arizona have to constantly check soil pH and utilize tools such as yearly manure, compost, fertilizer, and other additives to create dirt conducive for prolific growth. Every single year. Sometimes every season, even! Container gardening allows you to merely buy healthy soil from the store, put it in the container, and fertilize it when necessary, using far less than the other styles of gardening. Container gardening is mobile, conducive to growth, and in many ways, simpler than other gardening methods. 

What do you need? 

Pots for days:

To begin your container garden, you will first need a bounty of containers.

Terra cotta pots are good at staying cool, but suffer from water evaporation, so use these only if you are willing to water multiple times a day during the higher temperatures. Plastic containers can leach plastic chemicals into the soil, but are an inexpensive option and hold water well, even in the peak summer heat. Metal containers can get hot, quickly, if not kept in the shade, but pose little to no threat to soil health. Wood and cloth planters are both safe for soil and on the lower side of price, but evaporate water quickly, more quickly than even terra cotta pots. Ceramic planters, although the priciest, don’t pose any threat to soil, stay consistent in temperature, and hold water well. Ceramic is often the best container to use in desert gardening, though all are possible and viable options.

Pro tip: If the cost of planters is an issue, you can drill holes in the bottoms of buckets, bowls, garbage cans, food cans, and more. There is no right or wrong when starting out. 

An outdoor container garden on a fence. (Lina Simonian/Unsplash)

Dirt flirt: 

Next, you will need good soil. Pop into a local nursery, a hardware store, or a discount department store and head to the garden section. This section will have a plethora of soil choices, ranging from inexpensive to expensive.

Having tried them all, I tend to go for mid-price, off-brand options for my aesthetic plants—think flowers, ferns, and succulents—and higher priced organic soils for my edibles—think herbs, vegetables, and fruits.

Do you have to go organic? Absolutely not! It is simply a lifestyle choice that can benefit the environment and lessen the risk of toxins entering your system, since non-organic soils could contain pesticides and other unnatural additives meant to increase soil fertility and offer bug deterrence. No matter the soil you purchase, throwing in a bag of composted steer manure to mix into the soil will prove prolific in your growing journey, though you can still be successful without it.

Pro tip: if you are using a larger planter box or a fairly deep pot, layering in the sheet mulching style can be both cost effective and beneficial for growth. Start with a layer of torn up cardboard (preferably plain without ink), a layer of rocks or broken terracotta pots, a layer of wood chips or leaves or dead branches, a layer of compost or manure, and then dirt. Covering with mulch can help trap moisture. This saves money on bought dirt and the layers actually break down over time, providing vital nutrients to the soil for well over a year.

Luscious greens:

Finally, you will need to buy your seeds, bulbs, and starts, depending on how in-depth you want to get with growing. For beginners, buying starts is highly recommended. They are already at a good enough growth stage to help you learn tips and tricks on the best growing strategies for your zone. Buying from a local nursery will ensure that the seedlings are adapted to your climate, though many get lucky with department starts, too. The best option for seedlings/starts, though, is buying starts at a local farmers market where the seller is likely a local who grew these seedlings with direct hardiness for your exact conditions.

Bulbs are very dependent on timing but can yield beautiful flowers and luscious green plants, such as my favorite, canna lilies—the leaves are divine and make for beautiful additions to any garden. All you need is water and patience for bulbs to magically sprout.

Bulbs like these are dependent on timing but can yield beautiful flowers and luscious green plants. (Anna Jakutajc-Wojtalik/Unsplash)

Seeds are tricky. Even some experienced gardeners steer clear of these when possible, as they require specific start times for germination, tricky daily weather introduction for hardiness, and a whole lot of luck. Sometimes seeds want to just grow outdoors, and that’s a huge win. Sometimes the seeds don’t want to germinate at all, resulting in feelings of disappointment. Either way, seeds can be a great way to grow hard-to-find plants or your favorite fruits or veggies that you managed to extract seeds from, or simply to keep the cost much lower. They are just tricky.

Pro tip:  If you wish to try your hand at seeds, try making a little greenhouse. This can be made from an old 2-liter bottle cut in half, holes poked in, and fitted over a pot. Gallon milk containers do the same, as does a tightly-wrapped piece of cling wrap. You can also go old school and germinate a seed in a damp paper towel that is kept moist in a ziplock baggie. If germination proves futile, I sometimes practice “chaos gardening” where I take a handful of seeds of mixed varieties and throw them into a planter. Some will grow, and the many different sprouts help keep soil both healthy and damp. Be sure to keep the soil damp while seeds are trying to sprout.

An example of homemade, mini greenhouses. (Pockafwye/CC BY-NC 2.0)

What to plant:

What is easiest to grow is dependent upon your hardiness zone, which takes into account humidity, seasons, frost, and much more. In general, though, Arizona can grow most plants, given the right amount of shade in the summer, that is!

I’ve had luck with leafy greens such as chard, collards, and romaine; herbs such as thyme, mint, rosemary, and oregano; flowers such as roses, anemones, jasmine, and hibiscus; veggies such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and okra; fruit such as strawberries, cantaloupe, and meyer lemons. There are even avid container gardeners who grow banana trees!

Hopefully this list proves an important point: Arizona is an ideal climate for many different plants, given the right water, shade, and soil conditions. Grow whatever your zone says is ok, and if you’re up for a challenge, try to grow whatever you want! 

Say when:

As a general rule, spring and fall are wonderful gardening seasons in Arizona, but this is again dependent on the zone. Phoenix and the Valley can produce and remain vibrant throughout the year, since the risk of frost—temperatures that fall below 45° F—is low. This is wildly different an hour east, north, south, and west of the capital city, as snow and heat conditions vary.

Regardless of where you are, February and March are excellent times to begin germinating and starting seedlings indoors, as late March is planting time pretty much everywhere in the US—just be sure there is not more snow on the radar, cough cough Flagstaff, cough cough. Fall—again, if there isn’t snow—is the ideal time to plant garlic, leafy greens, and many fern and iris bulbs to see greens peaking through early spring. One of the benefits of container gardening is that the plants can be brought indoors to continue thriving and producing even in frostier conditions. All you need is waterproof flooring and a plant lamp, which can be found online or at a store with a gardening section. 

Pro tip: If you cannot bring your plants inside during cold fronts and don’t mind watching the weather report, purchase some frost protection fabric for your plants. The fabric can be cut to size and then secured on plants for up to three days to protect against frost and snow. They really work, too; it snows a few days every year in my small town, and the frost cloth allowed my chards, collards, celery, and beets to continue growing strong. 

Ready, set, g(r)o(w)!

Once you have your pots filled with soil and your favorite plants rooted in, don’t be afraid to move the potted plants around based on sun needs. Some plants will show signs of despair when in full sun or shade—this looks like brown, crispy, or drooping leaves—and will thrive when moved to the opposite location—this looks like green growth, blossoms, and increased size. Plants are finicky but have only so many variations in needs, making gardening an easy-to-figure-out science experiment based on soil, sun, and water. Be sure to water regularly in the fall and winter, daily in the spring, sometimes twice a day in high summer heat, and try to refrain from watering when the sun is high in the sky, as water droplets act like a magnifying glass, annihilating plant health. Finding the right watering routine is important. Not only will the right water routine help those plants prove prolific, the right routine will also have you experiencing a peace that only gardeners know.

Happy growing! 

This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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