Upgrading your patio for summer 2025? Martha Stewart's container gardening secret will fill your outdoors with color (and it's so simple)

Martha guides us through container gardening, from the right soil to strategic placement that will encourage optimal growth

Martha Stewart
(Image credit: Vivien Killilea via Getty Images)

Container plants are fantastic for decorating a patio or front porch. Easy to care for and repot, there are endless possibilities with these potted wonders, and they only require a few key rules to follow.

Martha Stewart, naturally, has some ideas on container gardening for beginners. In a video on her YouTube channel, the gardening expert guides us through some tricks alongside her design director.

'[She] asked me to help her beautify the terrace with some potted plants,' Martha states in the clip.

Shop container gardening essentials

One of the first questions you might have is how much soil you need for a large pot.

'One of the secrets that I used is to use either peanuts or recycle some bubble wrap and fill them halfway so it doesn't add any weight to the pot,' Martha explains.

'Use landscape cloth. Put it down like this. This keeps the soil in place, and it doesn't drip down into the bubble wrap. Fill almost three-quarters of the pot, tuck down the excess of the landscape cloth, and you are ready to start planting.'

Martha uses an organic soil mix, and as of this past year, the best soil for container gardening is the Miracle-Gro Raised Bed Soil (available at Walmart).

When it's time to get a plant out of a pot, Martha has a specific, simple method: 'Loosen around the bottom of the pot and then turn it upside down. The whole thing comes out.'

Finally, when it comes to plant placement within soil, her producer explains that she picked up a method that is easy to remember thanks to some nicknames.

'I learned from you having the thriller, which is the tall plant in the middle, and then the filler, which is the medium-sized plant, and the spiller, which is the cascading plant, so they should spill over the side.'

After everything is planted, Martha says you can water gently and enjoy your beautiful assortment of container plants.

They are cost-effective and instantly beautify any outdoor area of the home, making them no-brainers.


Hannah Ziegler
News Editor

Hannah is Homes & Gardens’ News Editor, with a focus on celebrity style and entertainment content. She got her start in media as a digital editorial assistant at ELLE Canada, and has since written about lifestyle and culture for publications such as Nylon and i-D.

Her love of film is rivaled only by one with a great soundtrack, and she hopes to someday decorate a Nancy Meyers-worthy kitchen.

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