flowerpotful

English

Etymology

From flowerpot +‎ -ful.

Noun

flowerpotful (plural flowerpotsful)

1. As much as a flowerpot will hold.
   • 1851 May 16, “Miscellaneous”, in The Royal Cornwall Gazette, Falmouth Packet, and General Advertiser, number 2499, Truro, page 7:

     Every one has heard of the language of flowers, in which lack-a-daisical young ladies might talk sweet stuff by the flowerpot-ful for hours together;

   • 1866, Cuthbert Bede [pen name; Edward Bradley], “At the Pavilion”, in Mattins and Mutton’s; or, The Beauty of Brighton. A Love Story., volume II, London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, pages 88–89:

     “Why, lawks, Mrs. Jones!” said a woman of the lower type of lodging-house keeper, as she stood on the gravel walk and spoke to a middle-aged female on the lawn, whose clothes were as gaily coloured as a parrot’s, and who wore a Gampian bonnet trimmed with a flowerpotful of cabbage roses and a plume of ostrich feathers;

   • 1866 December 1, Public Opinion: A Comprehensive Summary of the Press Throughout the World on All Important Current Topics, volume X, number 271, London:

     The Prince of Monaco has offered his “Principality” to the Pope as a residence. It is very polite, yet it conveys no great amount of flattery to his Holiness to have this flowerpotful of land placed at his disposal.

   • 1884 December 21, “Offered in the Bud”, in Sunday Express, Buffalo, N.Y., page 8:

     When you go to your florist for a flower-potful of his best plant soil don’t think he is defrauding you if he offers a rough-looking article, and ask for some that is finer.

   • 1918 April 19, “Allotment Gardens”, in Newcastle Daily Journal and Courant, 208th year, number 22,740, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, page 5:

     The quantity to apply is about a tree-inch flower-potful per square yard, or about a half-stone per square pole.

   • 1918 November 30, R. Shaw, “Monopoly to Follow the Knock-Out of Despotism”, in Middleton Guardian, number 2,405, page 2:

     Another person owns a flower-potful of earth on his window-sill—but he has to pay rent for the space it occupies.

   • 1927 July 26, “‘The Harem,’ Gay Vajda Farce, Opens Engagement at the Lurie: Isobel Elsom Is Starred in New Play”, in San Francisco Examiner, volume CXXVII, number 26, San Francisco, Calif., page 15:

     It begins with a flowerpot-ful of water sousing a pretty lady below on the curb, and the young wife has her brought up at once to be dried out and warmed inside with hot tea.

   • 1931 March 9, “Gardener’s Notes”, in Wausau Daily Record-Herald, volume XXIV, number 83, Wausau, Wis., page nine:

     Old lawns should be renovated in early spring by covering them with a one-inch layer of equal parts good loam and pulverized peatmoss to which is added a six-inch flower-potful of both bone flour and ground sheep manure.

   • 1931 July 28, “To-day in the Garden”, in The Midland Daily Telegraph, volume LXXXII, number 12,530, Coventry, page 2:

     Before commencing to layer, take the precaution of lightly forking the soil round the parent plant, mixing in a medium flower-potful of loam, sand, and leaf-mould to stimulate the plants.

   • 1957 March 17, Lillie L. Madsen, “Home and Garden”, in The Oregon Statesman, 106th year, number 355, Salem, Ore., section “Questions & Answers”, page 18:

     To this add a three-inch flower-potful of finely ground limestone.

   • 1983, Geri Harrington, “A Gardener’s Guide and Glossary”, in Cash Crops for the Thrifty Gardener, Perigee Books, published 1984, →ISBN, entry “Potting Soil”, pages 187–188:

     These ready-made mixtures are a boon to the city gardener because they are handy and easy to store. They are, however, more expensive to buy premixed than it you mixed your own. This can be done by combining a bushel of peat moss, a bushel of vermiculite, one 3-inch flowerpotful of lime, and two 3-inch flowerpotsful of rock phosphate and mixing thoroughly.

   • 1988, Geoff Hamilton, The First Time Garden, →ISBN, page 113:

     Mix about a 3½-inch (9 cm) flowerpotful of blood, fish and bone fertiliser with a barrow-load of compost.