Tips For Beautiful Hanging Baskets

Summer is finally here and all risk of frost is well and truly over even in the coldest reaches of the UK. Many are turning their thoughts to beautifying their gardens so they can enjoy floral displays throughout the summer months ahead. Hanging baskets can be a great way to make the most of the smallest gardens and can really brighten up the external appearance of your house, bringing colour to different heights and elevating the garden into three dimensions. While the best baskets are often those belonging to gardeners who have really planned ahead and planted up their baskets in April or earlier to allow them to become fully established, we cannot all be so organised. Many people will be turning to the garden centres and plant nurseries this month to find bedding plants to fill their baskets. Here are a few tips to help you create beautiful baskets that will create a good display for the next few months:

Choose the Right Growing Medium

Before you plant up your baskets, make sure you have chosen (or created) a good quality compost. Growing plants in this way makes them very reliant on you to meet their nutritional and water requirements, so it is important that you give them as good a start as possible. The better quality the compost, the better it will be able to feed your plants and retain water for their use. Still, no matter how good your growing medium, it will usually be necessary to feed your plants with a good organic feed later in the summer to keep displays looking their best.

Choose the Right Number and Type of Plants

When choosing plants for your baskets it is of course important to consider how the displays will look. It is also important, however, to consider how large the plants will grow and how fast, how well they will do in the situation you will be placing them in and what their requirements will be throughout the season. In order to avoid over-planting, follow the rough rule of thumb that a basket can contain roughly the same number of plants as the number of inches in its diameter. Unless, that is, you choose fast and strongly growing plants such as, for example, geraniums (pelargoniums) or fuchsias.

Hang Baskets At The Right Height

Some novice or inexperienced gardeners make the mistake of hanging baskets out of reach or in locations where they are difficult to examine and to get to. In order to have good looking baskets throughout the season it is important not to neglect them as the summer wears on. If baskets are easily seen and can be dealt with without hassle then you are more likely to tend them effectively.

Water Well and Water Often

You cannot underestimate the importance of a good watering regime to beautiful hanging baskets. Baskets will have to be watered well and regularly and you should always pay particular attention to water needs during particularly hot and dry periods. Where possible, always use rainwater you have harvested from your roof rather than tap water to water your garden.

Deadhead and Trim To Encourage More Blooms

If you keep up to your basket over the summer then you can really prolong the display. Remove spend flower heads and trim back straggly sections to make stronger plants that will give better blooms for longer.