The best flowers for hanging baskets
If you’re looking for a way to get early colour in your garden, hanging baskets are a great option. The baskets warm up faster than soil does and you can also place them over hot pavers or near a warm brick wall to help move things along. If you really want to cheat completely you could even plant flowers that are already in bloom.
Four great hanging baskets tips:
1. Keep your basket moist: if your basket dries out too often the potting mix ends up repelling the water instead of soaking it in.
2. Retain moisture with mulch: use pebbles or coconut fibre to keep as much moisture in as possible
3. Keep the plants in the basket well fed with a slow release fertilizer. As there isn’t a huge amount of soil in a basket you should feed little and often.
4. Soak the basket in a bucket of water at least monthly.
Plants to avoid using in hanging baskets
There’s no point choosing plants that are nearing the end of their season, such as primulas in spring, or petunias in autumn. It’s a good idea to get advice from your garden centre when you are choosing your plants.
Plants that will work well in a hanging basket
Start with some basics such as the many varieties of petunias, geraniums or succulents. Really though, any hardy plant that might look dull on its own will look good once they’ve started growing over the side of the basket. Keep your plants flowering by preventing them from going to seed. Just trim off any sad looking flowers at least once a week.
Some other good options are lobelias, verbena, nasturtiums, brachycome daisies, violas and non-climbing sweet peas. These will give you flowers for a long time and should flower out over the side of the basket.
If you want to extend the life of the flowers even more, hang your basket in full sun from late winter to early spring. Then as the days get warmer, move the basket to a cooler position so that the flowers don’t burn.
If you’re interested in a non-flowering option, the lovely silver-leafed dichondra is a great option. It needs full sun but it very hardy and only needs an occasional trim to encourage new growth.
Related links:
How to create a garden for the senses
Top tips for attracting birds to the garden
3 easy homemade bug repellents