What is the best way to deal with spent compost from flowering pots?

Posts

• JennyJ Posts: 10,576

  February 2021

  I spread it on the borders and use new in the pots. For shallow rooting plants (like summer bedding) in deep pots I just change the top 6 inches or so.
  

  Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  

  2
• gjautos Posts: 429

  February 2021

  I agree with @JennyJ. Spread the used compost on the beds.

  0
• Dovefromabove Posts: 88,147

  February 2021 edited February 2021

  gjautos said:

  I agree with @JennyJ. Spread the used compost on the beds.

  I do the same ... or add it to the compost heap if short of ‘browns’. 

  
  Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
  
  
  
  
  
  

  0
• Robert West Posts: 241

  February 2021

  I sift it thinly over the lawn. It's how I get rid of any unwanted soil or compost.

  1
• B3 Posts: 27,505

  February 2021

  I throw it on the borders and let the worms deal with it. It's great for improving heavy clay.

  In London. Keen but lazy.

  0
• GemmaJF Posts: 2,286

  February 2021

  I have a plastic composter for veg scraps that is full of worms. My spent pot compost goes in there, comes back out as a rich new compost.

  0
• Inglezinho Posts: 568

  February 2021

  I like your idea Gemma, but I want quick solutions, and most of those suggested do not tell me how to refill my 300 pots.  Here is my solution. I have found a farm a few miles from here that sells chicken manure at a pound a bag. I think they are happy to get rid of the stuff. 
  I have hired a cement mixer for the day. Round and round it goes. My gardener(!) has the happy job of refilling most of the 300 pots. Will it work ? Deus que sabe.

  Everyone likes butterflies. Nobody likes caterpillars.

  0
• Butterfly66 Posts: 970

  February 2021

  I reuse mine for quite a few years. After the summer, I use it ( with nothing added) for the following years tulip pots. Then when they come out what’s left is mixed with home-made compost and some FBB and used for the summer pots and so and so on. I usually need to buy some to top up pots as it invariably loses volume or becomes ‘too thin’. Any that looks too worn out just gets thrown onto the borders.

   If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
  East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham

  0
• PurpleRose Posts: 538

  February 2021

  Mine gets thrown on the flower beds. I have heavy clay soil so it contributes to helping with the structure of the soil. It also goes in the compost bin.

  0