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How to prepare and grow Hanging baskets

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Perfect Hanging Baskets:

How to grow or plant your own perfect hanging baskets. Don’t pay through the nose for garden centre baskets.

Many gardens have at least one hanging basket, and that number is growing every seaon.Their popularity is understandable, as great baskets can really make a summer. It is simple and easy to plant your own. You can make themes for the year and colour schemes, this gives a greater result, then a mash up of colours. For example this year: I’m doing deep blue Cornflower and Big orange marigolds in my front garden bedding Display.

Keeping themes helps keep your costs down and give much greater impact factor.

Making a basket is a doddle if you have a green house its even easier. However, those cheap mini green houses are fine for bringing on a few baskets or windows boxes.

Here is what you need.

First: Make sure you can hang it. Measure the drop and width from Your bracket. For 16" you need a width from the wall of about 10 inches to avoid the baskets being trashed in the wind and a drop (distance from the top of the bracket to the top of compost) of about 12 inches)

Once you ascertain this then continue.

Choose your size.

I suggest beginning at 16 inches I'll explain why later
then line you basket and secure the lining a darning needle
and some coarse thread is fine or even zip lock cable ties (trimmed up for neatness). Get you moss, you liners and bits n pieces organised before you begin.

Then mix your compost, use a good multipurpose, or tomato
Compost, add in some per light, and some water crystals some Osmacote pellets if you have them.I find it better to pre soak the crystals. Put one dessert spoon in a bowl or bucket and add some Luke warm water warm water. With some liquid flower food, and super thrive if you have it. Let them soak for 2-3 hours or over night in a Warmish place.

Mix the gel in to your compost well in every handful you want about 10 lumps of jelly per handful. Fill you basket about 80% then begin to plant your plants. Each Surfinia uses about 2-3 litre of compost so do not use more then 3 in a 16" place in a triangle then make more triangles with other plants like lobelia geraniums and such like.

If you want a centre top plant factor this in. Once the
basket is planted fill up and firm up the plants.

Then cut cross slashes in the lower parts to facilitate planting plugs. Then around the sides insert your lobelia or NST plugs.

 

Make cross cuts in 3 places (triangle) on the bottom of basket then put in the sunshine or green house type thing for a week. Water and Feed every 3 days check each day to make sure it is moist.

Then once they have settles move to the hanging location and Secure, and then insert last plugs into the bottom cuts. Water then stand back check does it look right. Then dead head the whole thing. It will be better in the long run.

I tend to do a few over a few weeks to keep them fresh do them In pairs if you can. Check, daily for dampness do not let them dry out and do not put too much in, it does more harm then good as the plants never get to realise their true potential.

To increase the wow part, get some old pots tubs
containers even fruit boxes, line or fill them and plant up
with bedding and patio plants, remember keep to a colour
Schemes. Follow this thought your window boxes (link here) and in your bedding display and every one will be jealous.

 

Secrets of Success:

Sun or Shade – for most plants the ideal is at least a partly
sunny site, and avoid strong winds, for coastal options click Here (link_)

Watering –

Choose compost to which water retaining granules have been
added or add your own 1 dessert spoon makes up 1-1.5 litres of
Gel. A basket in full flower will typically require at least
once a day in dry weather. Maybe more in windy hot days.
feeding - fertilise your baskets regularly. Use tomatoes food
Alternatively, use a blooming agent.It is recommended to feed them about once a week, to produce baskets full of colour.How ever, make sure you dead head properly Click here to lean how (LINK)

Colour schemes – in general it’s best not to use more than
three definite colours.

A basket planted up with a single colours and type of plant
can be effective and sometimes stunning.

Foliage – foliage plants are an important asset to a basket
are often forgotten or overlooked. They help bring out the
overall structure contrast with the flowering plants to
provide colour when flowering is decreasing, and can be used to complement flower colour, Silver falls against purple
Surfinias,

Dead-heading) link) – Removal of the dead flowers or leaves
once a week will prolong the flowering period. Once a plant
has sent the chemical signal that a successful pollination n has taken place it begins to make seeds this in effect send a genetic code to the plant telling it to curl up and die. So its important you do it right. See our article on it but basically go to the back of the flower and behind the petals to the stem and cut it out there don’t pull of petals its wasting your time and killing the plant off. Do it right.

Hanging Basket ideas:

Here are hanging basket recipes to help stimulate your own
brain and get the creative synapses working, for the summer
season, BTW you can also have a winter spring or autumn basket

Just think out side the box. In Winter you can have Heathers pansy cyclamen, ivy, spring you can have viola primroses, bellis, muscari crocus tulips. I made a huge ball of hyacinth for Christmas once year total amazing basket. I used 40 bulbs in each one with Ivy and stuck in holly sticks with berries, I forced in a box in the shed as you would bulbs and hung it just before santy day.

 

You can make indoor baskets with begonia rex () link) and hanging indoor plants and some streptocarpus.

Want to annoy your cat, make basket with CATNIP (link here)

Cherry tomatoes are great in baskets. My postman kept eating
mine though, now Christmas box for him. Why not try
strawberries, great if you live in an apartment. You can make a hanging garden with herbs lettuce tomatoes strawberries, Peppers all sorts just think a bit...

On a budget no problem, buy some seeds in January when they are cheap. Most gardens centre are negotiable this time of year and are often knocking gout bargains out of date seeds are fine for years.

This is an EU rule that is pants frankly With some exceptions Cabbage and other veg do not have along shelf life maybe 3 years but modern seeds is hermetically sealed in good packets and will keep, I grew cacti and pansy’s That was form 20 year old seed packets. I had about 60% Success.

As a rule you loose about 5-10 % viability per year after they expire. Many basket plants can be grown this way. And its
More fun.

 

TOP TIP always pinch out the tips of surfinia and fuchsia to
get bushier plant and more flowers.

Grandma flump
Large sweet peas and poppy seed

Raspberry ripple red + white nemisia, white and red
Surfinais

Sunset heaven orange marigolds purple surfiina blue
surinias nST

A Day at the beach red surfina blue surina white surfina,
Lobelia. NST

A night at the Opera Jasmine NST onethera

Lilac wine, pale blue and purple surfina white bacopa.
Centre of nemias blue lagoon

Granny’s best bidens, bacopa, diasica, Clove pinks

cottage bliss, dawrf sweat peas nasturnshiums.

Fiesta, impatiens, delopsrmums, trailing geraniums NST blue
Lobelia. Dianthus pulminaris. or phlox.

Babylon, 2 baskets hug together top basket trailing
Geraniums diconda silver falls

Second basket pink surinfia lobelia yellow bidens.

Big ball.

Wire to 16" baskets together filled with liners punch in
holes and put in plugs of impatiens doubles or singles and
lobelia. To make a ball difficult to transport or move
place a tube 1" in the top basket to go half way so the water
runs through the seconds. Add in plenty of gel.

Informal Bedding:

The popular tradition of creating formal beds of neat
rows of bedding plants has been somewhat taken over by the
surge in popularity of the mixed border. for to long many garden were made up of regimented park type displays. In park this can make sense but at home you can be more relaxed and create your own style and flair. dont be afriad to experiment after all whats the worset that can happen?

Some people think that bedding plants arer not for them are now
creating wonderful informal bedding displays and are first in line for
new Plants, many of them use perenials plant such as Osteospermums or Penstemon, or Lobelia Phlox and many more new plants come along each season The benifit of using these plants is as space fillers to fill in gaps between shrubs and perennials, introducing much needed colour through
the seasons and keeping a show going on longer.

With modern propagation techniques a new garden can be filled with colour and an old one brought to life, in a short length of time, for little expense all year round. You can grow many your self from seed if you have more time and would like more refined variety.

 

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