I use the word “basket” to designate any container holding living plants that can be suspended from a support.
For example, it could be a purchased or homemade wire basket filled with pendulous tuberous begonias, achimenes, or English ivy, to be hung from the roof of a porch.
It might be a bucket of blue-flowered browaltia, a slatted wooden box planted with sedums, or a pail of cascading fuchsias.
Suspend hanging baskets from terrace or patio standards, porch ceilings, awning frames, wooden or metal tripods, and overhanging eaves. Or from tree branches.
Hang them from brackets on walls, fences, posts, or ornamental grillwork. Hang them from wire hooks in greenhouses, lath houses, and sun porches.
Suspend small baskets such as raffia-wound jugs, cans, or pots from screw eyes or brackets anywhere. Paint a birdcage to harmonize with interior decor or patio furnishings and plant it with greenery or flowers to match or contrast the color scheme.
When you plan to decorate with any hanging basket, remember that strong support will be needed when it is filled with moist soil and plants.
Use screw eyes, eyebolts, clothesline hooks, brackets, or pulley arrangements to hold the baskets. The specific kind of hardware is a matter of personal preference and the location of the hanging basket.
To Forestall Water Damage
When a basket is to be used where water draining from it would harm floors, woodwork, and furnishings, attach an aluminum plate or plastic pot saucer at the bottom to catch the excess.
If you use a clay pot as a basket, a cork may be placed in the drainage hole at a watering time until there is no likelihood of water draining.
Line your wire or open-spaced wooden baskets with green sheet moss (available from florists and at local garden centers). A 2” inch layer of unshredded sphagnum moss also makes a good liner. Moisten the moss and press it firmly against the sides of the container.
A layer of aluminum foil or sheet plastic will keep soil from sifting through the moss. Also, it helps the planting retain moisture. Punch holes in the foil or plastic near the bottom of the basket to facilitate drainage.
Use moisture-retentive planting soil with at least one-third or more peat moss. I use equal parts garden soil, sand, and peat moss. I have had good results, also, by using unshredded sphagnum moss without any other ingredient.
Moisten the soil or moss before adding it to the basket, and keep this about an inch below the top to leave plenty of space for watering.
Setting Basket Plants Directly
Basket plants may be set directly into the soil of the basket, or they may be left potted and plunged into the soil. Plants set directly into the soil dry out slower than those left in clay pots. It is easier to develop a planting design when you do not have to reckon with solid pots.
However, some gardeners find it cuts down planting time to insert clay pots into the planting medium. Then, if the basket needs refurbishing, it is easy to remove individual pots and insert new material.
Design a pleasing, season-long basket by choosing plants carefully and planting fewer in the basket. Such plantings will be more graceful and enjoy better health than thickly planted baskets.
Insert Some In Sides
When plants are needed around the basket sides, remove plants from their pots, and make small openings in the moss. Insert the plants, inclining them slightly upward.
Work slowly and carefully when moving foliage and stems around wires or slats. Slip small pads of moistened moss between the plants and any wire pots that would touch them.
Check baskets daily to see that the soil is moist. During hot weather, baskets growing in sunny places may need twice-a-day watering.
Those in shaded or wind-sheltered areas such as porches or lath houses may need watering only every other day.
If drippings are no problem, or cold water does not harm tender leaves, use the garden hose to moisten baskets. Otherwise, remove each basket and submerge it in a bucket of water.
Leave it until the soil is thoroughly moistened. Then drain the basket until dripping ceases and return to its elevation.
Fertilize hanging gardens about a month after planting. Follow with biweekly feedings. Nip off seed pods that may form. Prune or pinch back plants to make them sturdier and give the hanging garden a more pleasing contour.
Outdoors in the summer and indoors in a sun-drenched winter window, petunias make showy baskets, especially the new Cascade series.
The key to having them continue blooming is to shear off several inches of growth periodically. For example, cut them back several inches in late July or early August, and they will produce a large floral display all through autumn.
Episcias Will Cover Basket
The size of the container and location determine the kind and size of plants that will do well in it. For example, one basket-type angelwing begonia such as ‘Helen W. King’ will put on a magnificent show of flowers in a 4″ inch pot placed inside a 5″ or 6″ inch hanger.
Larger baskets may be planted with several plants of the same variety. Episcias start well this way, and they can be encouraged to cover the basket by hair-pinning the stolons to the soil or into the sphagnum moss, where they will take root.
A mixture of plants can be effective, but in one container, only those like the same or similar growing conditions.
Dry-growing peperomias, for example, will rot in a basket kept moist enough for ivy; shade-loving ferns will blister in the sun, which ‘pleases sedums.
A general planting rule for mixed baskets is to place an upright accent plant in the center, edge the basket with vines, then place low-growing flowering and foliage plants between the vines and the accent plant.
For Sun Or Shade
For a sunny site outdoors in the summer, center a large basket with Aloe serrulate, add dwarf geraniums, and edge with variegated Wawa major.
For a shady nook, use a fern in the center, upright tuberous begonias for color, and Hahn’s English ivy to cascade over the edge.
When you plant hanging baskets, don’t stop when you find common philodendrons, grape-ivies, or pathos to put in them.
Search for other possibilities in lists of vines and climbers in catalogs and at your local nurseries and garden centers.
44659 by Elvin Mcdonald