Consider potting your own plants, especially if you are ordering over the internet. You can save a lot of money in shipping costs by buying your pots locally. Unpotted and unshaped plants cost less, but you have to do more work to get them ready to display in your home. Here’s a brief guide on “How to pot the plant”. Decisions on what to do are pretty much dictated by the size and style of the plant, where you’re going to place it, and the style of your home.
1. I find the best way is to pot first into a black plastic nursery pot (just like you would do if you had a live plant), tape up the holes, mix in some weight (such as rock, stone, brick) and use an expanding foam (which can be found in home improvement stores). Then you can put the plant into the decorative container of your choice, be it ceramic, metal, wood or wicker. This keeps the plant separated from the decorative pot and a larger (the proper) size nursery pot can be used. Many people tend to choose pots that are too small to save money. Don’t do that. It’s important to fully support the plant visually in every way.
2. You can also pot directly into a decorative pot if you wish. If you are potting into a wicker basket with a plastic liner, just make sure to tape up any holes before putting in expanding foam with rock, stone or brick. This method is great because it allows you to pick up the plant and the pot as one unit which makes it easy and far less messy.
3. Cement or plaster can be used as a potting medium. Cement or plaster is for adding a lot of weight when potting the plant into a smaller pot than is normally used, plants going into windy or high traffic locations and when a palm trunk curves way out. A few products like some of the topiary styles come from the factory already potted into a small nursery pot filled with cement. These are put into the larger decorative pot, then filled with pine or cedar bark nuggets, dried moss. To add even more weight, use decorative stone.
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