Soil-Saving Tip

A layer of aluminum cans in the bottom of this large pot helps save potting soil and also lessens the final weight of the potted plants.

Filling a large pot, container or window box completely with potting soil can be wasteful and make the containers too heavy. However, it's easy to reduce the weight of containers and still encourage healthy plant growth. That's because many plants are shallow-rooted and don't actually require much soil. Here, host John Cretti shows how to fill the bottom of containers with materials like packing peanuts or soft drink cans to take up the "extra" space. He also explains how this method works for shallow-rooted plants, and tells why these materials make better drainage mediums than gravel.

Materials

• soft drink cans
• container or window box
• soil
• packing peanuts

Steps

• Line the bottom of your container with empty soft drink cans.
• Place soil on top of the cans within an inch of the rim of the container.
• Add the desired plant.
• For window boxes, add packing peanuts to the bottom.
• Then, fill in around the plant with soil.

Also in this Episode

Winter Gardener : Episode TWG-123
•	A Look at Hardscaping
•	Bromeliads
•	Soil-Saving Tip