Garden

[goldensrbest]

A little bit of gravel in the bottom of the pot, or maybe some shredded paper from the paper shredder,if you have one,i agree the Styrofoam peanuts work.

[mousiegirl]

@Twins Mom   Are your pots clay?  Do your pots have a hole in the bottom?  I only use pots with drainage holes, that is a must, and good potting soil which has fertilizer in it.  

[jpie]

I use the empty plastic containers from the annuals in the bottom of a large pot.  Just invert the empty container and fill the potting soil on top.  I also place three or four broken terracotta pieces as drainage.

You can use empty plastic containers of any type (water bottles, berry containers, etc.).  I've also watched YouTube videos that use bubble wrap to "lighten the load."

[Twins Mom]

Styrofoam, landscapers fabric, etc great ideas! I have been using clay pot pieces. Yes, drainage holes a must. I worry some are a bit small.

[hayseed00]

@Twins Mom  I use broken pieces of my old clay plant pots, works very good.

[AuntG]

@Twins Mom I tried using crumpled up plastic water bottles at the bottom of my planters this year. A friend who does a lot of flower gardening made the suggestion when I complained about how heavy my planters were last year. I used less potting soil too!

[software]

These are all great suggestions.

Falls under the category of "why didn't I think of that?"

I recently bought a small olive tree, it was marked half price and looks great to me.

I plan on putting it in a bigger pot and keeping it inside for the first year.

I have the pot, it's full of soil but it needs to be "refreshed"

Using these tips & suggestions, I'm going to start from scratch.

I'll empty the pot, clean it well, fill the bottom third with my old, small plastic pots from the nursery and use a good quality soil.   I really like the new organic Miracle Gro

[NickNack]

---

@gardenman wrote:

Honestly? I use nothing these days and my plants do great. I also don't recommend the moisture retention soils. Like an earlier poster said, they don't hold up well for me. They degrade into a muddy, mucky mess. If a pot has big enough drainage holes that I'm worried about soil escaping, I'll just put a small piece of paper toweling over the hole. By the time the paper towel rots away, the plant's roots will have grabbed the soil and will keep it in place.

---

@gardenman   Drywall mesh tape is good to put over the drainage hole, too.  I use that in all of my pots indoors and outside.

[ValuSkr]

---

@NickNack wrote:

---

@gardenman wrote:

Honestly? I use nothing these days and my plants do great. I also don't recommend the moisture retention soils. Like an earlier poster said, they don't hold up well for me. They degrade into a muddy, mucky mess. If a pot has big enough drainage holes that I'm worried about soil escaping, I'll just put a small piece of paper toweling over the hole. By the time the paper towel rots away, the plant's roots will have grabbed the soil and will keep it in place.

---

@gardenman   Drywall mesh tape is good to put over the drainage hole, too.  I use that in all of my pots indoors and outside.

---

I use window screen material over the drainage holes.  You can buy it at hardware stores, usually by the yard.  Very cheap.

I used to use pot shards at the bottom of the pot, but a gardening expert on NPR didn't recommend it.  He said the shards take up valuable space that roots could otherwise use.  Whatever the case, I was happy to move on from pot shards because, for outdoor plants, they provided a nice dark and moist place for slugs to hide; they'd enter through the drainage holes..  I'd come across them when repotting.

[Twins Mom]

@ gardenman
Interesting you should mention mucky mess from moisture retention soil. That might have greatly contributed to my problem. I spent way too much time drying up soil and removing mulch pieces.
A pot I put new organic soil in appears to also retain moisture. Purchased at Home Depot.
Hardt i Tell with all our rain. Enough!