Cleaning Your Planters

Proper cleaning and maintenance of garden planters is very important in order to ensure healthy plants. Ideally all planters, especially porous ceramic and terra cotta, should be emptied and cleaned in the fall and stored in a protected area like a shed or garage. If left outside, moisture in the garden planter's pores will freeze, weakening them and causing them to chip and flake.

Before you re-use a clay pot you've stored over the winter, it's important to give it a good cleaning by plunging it into a washtub of water and scrubbing it with a brush. If you've stored pots outdoors, put on gloves before you handle them as they might harbor spiders. And if you're buying all new clay garden pots, make sure to submerge them in water before you plant. That way, the pot won't suck water from the soil.

Although it can be inconvenient and time consuming, it's a good idea to remove all soil from pots and window boxes and replace it with fresh soil every spring, rather than just pulling out the dead plants and putting new plants in the old soil. Old soil is probably compacted, losing a lot of the necessary pore spaces for air, and may have accumulated toxic salts from last season's fertilizing and watering. Leftover soil may also contain disease-causing organisms, weed seeds or insect eggs.

Clean and scrub pots and garden planters with a firm-bristled brush and rinse with a strong spray of water from a hose. Sanitize smaller pots by brushing and rinsing out any soil and washing them in the dishwasher without detergent. Thorough cleaning reduces the spread of pests and plant diseases.