SEATTLE — Seattle gardening expert Ciscoe Morris wants to rescue your outdoor pots from the mid-summer blues.

"I love the living tweedle out of container gardening, but this is the time of year that just ruins containers if you don't take good care of them,” Ciscoe said. 

And one of the main ways to do that is to deadhead any flower that’s faded in your containers. If you don’t get rid of flowers that have died, they signal the plant to make seeds and quit blooming.

"So the first thing I recommend is get yourself a pair of compact shears, these babies, I could cut my fingernails with these!” said Ciscoe holding up a pair of stainless steel compact shears made by Dramm designed to get in close.

He advises when deadheading to cut all the way to the base of the stem, otherwise, he says, “It looks horrible!”

After deadheading, fertilize. There are new liquid organic fertilizers that are perfect for containers. Ciscoe is using Drammatic Organic with kelp in it.

“So it's really great because now we can get soluble organic fertilizers, they didn't use to be available — so this is 2-4-1, you want the second number higher than the first number, that's what makes flowers happen,” Ciscoe said, referring to the NPK number, or ratio of nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P), and potassium (K) in the fertilizer.

"So I always wear rubber gloves whenever I fertilize, if you have a cut on your finger you don't want fertilizer going in, you might grow too fast, your hair would get too long,” Ciscoe said after mixing fertilizer into water per the container's instructions.

Between deadheading, and fertilizing every two weeks with organic, water-soluble fertilizer, Ciscoe says your outdoor containers will keep looking fresh into fall. As long as you don’t forget to water them!

“This baby will remain a total work of art for the rest of summer!” he said.

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