Create Your Own Mother’s Day Plant Gifts

In readiness for Mother’s Day most garden centres have a good selection of attractive containers filled with colourful spring flowering plants. On request, the better centres will plant up a container for customers with plants of their choice. But to really show mother how much she is loved create your own Mother’s Day plant gifts by buying the ingredients including the container, compost and plants then make your own present.

Containers for Mother’s Day Plant Gifts

The range of containers available includes reconstituted stone troughs, wooden barrels, window boxes, Ali Baba jars, terracotta pots and chimney pots.

• Size is important in as much as small containers hold insufficient compost to support plants for long and dry out very quickly.
• Any container must have sufficient drainage holes, because waterlogged compost equals quick death to plants.
• It’s a good idea to place some crocks (broken bits of clay pot) over the drainage holes to stop them blocking. A few chunks of polystyrene will do the same job.

Compost for Plant Containers

A compost which contains 50% John Innes No 2 and 50% multi-purpose (loamless) retains moisture and supplies nutrients for longer than multi-purpose alone, yet it is lighter than pure John Innes. Branded composts for container use with slow release fertilizers and water retaining granules give good results.

Plants and Bulbs for Mother’s Day Containers

There is a vast range of bulbs, spring bedding plants and perennials to choose from:-

• Pot grown bulbs such as hyacinths, tulips and crocus are available every spring. They can be transferred to a trough to which can be added a few hybrid primroses (Primula ‘Wanda’) thereby producing an eye catching, fragrant display throughout March and April.
• The smiling, cheeky, impish faces of pansies are a real tonic each spring. Combine them with grape hyacinths (Muscari) and double daisies (Bellis perennis) in a wooden window box or sturdy wicker basket for a scintillating spring display.
• Pansies mix well with trailing foliage in troughs or window boxes. Many varieties of English ivy (Hedera helix) including the cultivars ‘Glacier’ with its grey-green leaves variegated with silver-grey and cream as well as ‘Luzii’ with mid-green heavily speckled and spotted yellow-cream foliage make excellent trailing foils to the exuberant ‘Ultima’ and ‘Universal’ series of pansies which flower profusely in all but the coldest of weather.
• Ivies like primulas, have the advantage of being perennials which, with proper watering, drainage and feeding, should live for years.
• Primulas come in a wide variety of colours from the pure white of Primula vulgaris ‘Alba Plena’ to the purple of the drumstick primula (Primula denticulata).
• The lungwort (Pulmonaria) is another perennial suitable for pot culture. Pulmonaria officinalis ‘Sissinghurst White’ has pure white flowers opening from pale pink buds, the white spotted leaves are an added attraction.

Attractive Containers and Quality Plants Create a Gift of Lasting Pleasure

So spend some time and effort choosing both plants and containers to give mother a very personal gift on this traditional occasion which is well worth celebrating.