‘Pot in a pot’ planting is exactly as it sounds, and involves keeping your plant in a plastic pot and then placing it inside your Italian Terrace pot rather than planting it directly. Using a plastic pot or nursery tub with drainage holes as the inner pot works well, it is a way of direct recycling and the pots are lighter to handle.
Potting up in this way makes easier work to change your display through the year – you can simply lift out your spring bulbs once they are past their best, and replace them with seasonal flowers. then late summer plantings.
Provide a solid level base for your inner pot by using another pot or small bucket upturned, or something flat and stable such as bricks, carefully placed in the base of your Italian Terrace pot. Using an inner pot means that your plants will drain well, and makes managing the roots easy too. Simply lift out the inner pot, prune the roots and replace with fresh compost and feed.
In particularly cold and wet weather, not having soil touching the inside of the terracotta pots will help to prevent green algae building up on the outside, so your pots will continue drain and look beautiful throughout the winter.
If your new pot is an oil jar, then the pot in a pot method is essential. Planting directly into the pot will mean that roots quickly fill the rounded space, and your plant will become impossible to remove.
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