Hang a Touch of Color in Your Outdoor Home

While most potted plants are seen indoors, they can also be used quite nicely in our outdoor gardening. One particularly attractive and eye-catching way to use potted plants is in hanging baskets. These can be suspended from a variety of places such as lampposts, trees or porches and are a creative way to showcase some unique plants. Because of this, I’d like to touch on some of the plants well suited to hanging baskets, the different basket types, planting techniques, and the special need of plants in hanging baskets. With these things in mind, hanging baskets can become welcome additions to your landscape.

When choosing plants for a hanging basket, those with enough lateral growth or width to cause them to hang down are most desirable. In addition, you should keep in mind the plant’s need for bright sun or shade, depending on the plant’s cultural needs. Baskets can be developed for either. If you are using multiple plants, be careful to group those with like needs. Among those that will do well in more sun are the trailing petunias, verbena, vinca vine, hanging geraniums and lantana. Plants that are more shade tolerant fuchsia, browallia, hanging begonias, ferns and some varieties of impatiens. The sprengeri fern in another versatile plant that is an excellent filler and will tolerate bright sun or light shade. Furthermore, you can bring indoor hanging plants such as spider plants, pothos, and an indoor fern outside once danger of frost is past. But, be sure to gradually increase the light every 2 days as plants can sunburn. These are just a few suggestions and many more can be found at your garden center.

Basically, there are two types of baskets to choose from: open or solid. Open baskets allow water to evaporate from all surfaces and the plants in these may need to be watered as frequently as daily or twice daily on hot windy days. I prefer open baskets because they are usually subtle enough to showcase that plant and you can the sidewalls. They come in wire, plastic or woven willow and grapevine varieties. When choosing these, the openings in the weave should be no larger than 1” by 2”. Also, these open baskets need to be lined with spagham peat moss, long-fibered coconut straw, or multiple layers of treated burlap to a thickness of one half inch or more. Solid baskets, on the other hand, do not need to be lined and can usually be watered less frequently than the same size mesh-type basket.

To fill these baskets, I use either prepared potting soil or prepare my own from similar ingredients. If you choose to prepare your own basket soil use very little if any garden soil deferring to pine bark fines, peat moss, perlite and/or perlome. These materials will give the soil a lot of volume for the weight as well as aid both drainage and water-holding capacity to the light soil. If you wish, you can add water-holding compounds, but stay within the recommended rates. When planting, fill the baskets so that the soil and plant crown level will be one half inch or more below the top rim to create a water holding reservoir when watering. Remember that these will usually be hanging over your head. This not only provides convenience when watering, but also allows some room for root expansion. After planting, water to the point of run off to be sure that the entire body of soil and roots are wet. One thing to keep in mind is that the frequent watering of your open hanging baskets can wash nutrients down through the media and away. Therefore, you will need to fertilize them more often.

The only thing left to do now is hang your baskets. You can choose decorative or plain hangers depending on whether you want the emphasis on the hanging ornament or on the plants. I always prefer the plant as the feature, not the container. They can be suspended from wire or chains from a tree of from a screw eye under a porch roof, etc. If you use a hanger against a vertical wall or fence, though, you must have two attachment points to the vertical support so the hanger can’t spin and will be stable. Also, keep in mind the size of the basket and the length of the hanger’s arm. This length needs to be two or more inches longer than half the width of the basket to avoid crushing the plant against the support. Finally, anchor the container to the vertical support with a light wire or stout twine to keep the plant from being thrown about in the wind. I like to leave a little slack, though, to allow some movement in a breeze.

By keeping these things in mind, you can add a whole new dimension to your summer landscape with the uniqueness of hanging baskets.