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How to plant flowers in hanging baskets


How to Plant a Hanging Flower Basket

By

Jamie McIntosh

Jamie McIntosh

Jamie McIntosh has written about gardening and special occasion flowers for the Spruce since 2011. She has more than 20 years of experience caring for flowers and plants. She was a feature writer for Organic Gardening at Suite101, where she won awards for her writing.

Learn more about The Spruce's Editorial Process

Updated on 11/29/22

Reviewed by

Debra LaGattuta

Reviewed by Debra LaGattuta

Debra LaGattuta is a gardening expert with three decades of experience in perennial and flowering plants, container gardening, and raised bed vegetable gardening. She is a Master Gardener and lead gardener in a Plant-A-Row, which is a program that offers thousands of pounds of organically-grown vegetables to local food banks. Debra is a member of The Spruce Gardening and Plant Care Review Board.

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The Spruce / Heidi Kolsky

In This Article

Project Overview

Have you ever admired a lush hanging basket bursting with blooms at your favorite nursery? A well-designed hanging basket can run between $50 and $75 (or higher), putting a major dent in your gardening budget.

However, you can duplicate the look of a professionally designed hanging basket at home for significantly less money, even while using high-quality materials and dense planting techniques.

When to Plant a Hanging Flower Basket

Outdoor hanging baskets are planted at roughly the same time as in-ground garden plants. In cold-winter regions, this means mid-spring after all danger of frost has passed. Hanging baskets can sometimes be planted a bit earlier than in-ground plants because the soil in the basket will warm up faster in the sun than ground soil does. In most regions, April or May are the best months to plant hanging baskets, but tropical climates may allow for earlier planting in March.

If a frost is threatened, simply bring your basket indoors to shelter it from cold nighttime temperatures. You can also grow flowers in a hanging basket indoors by placing them in a location that receives plenty of sunlight (be sure to check the light requirements for the specific plants you choose).

Caring for Hanging Baskets

Caring for plants in a hanging basket is largely the same as tending the same plants in the ground or in a patio pot. But rather than being filled with garden soil, hanging baskets (and patio containers) are filled with a commercial potting mix. Garden soil is too heavy and dense. Potting mixes include materials that hold water and improve aeration and drainage. Potting mix is also usually sterile, without the soil pathogens that can be found in garden soil.

There are a variety of hanging basket ideas to choose from including standard pots and containers, but one of the most versatile is a wire basket (sometimes called a "hayrack" basket) lined with a coco coir or moss liner. This setup holds quite a lot of potting soil, is fairly lightweight, and makes it easy to saturate the plants with water without waterlogging the roots.

Plants in hanging baskets can be affected by the same pests and diseases that affect in-ground plants, so you'll need to keep a vigilant eye out for those.

Hanging baskets require more frequent watering because exposure to the wind and sun from all directions will cause the potting soil to dry out quite quickly. Some plants might even require twice-daily watering during hot spells.

Tip

Moisture-retaining products sometimes marketed as "polymer crystals" or "hydrogels" can be added to potting soil if you find it difficult to stay on top of watering duties. These moisture-retaining polymers absorb as much as 600 times their weight in water, gradually releasing it into the potting mix as it dries out. These products are often used for houseplants, but they can also be an option for outdoor container plants.

Equipment / Tools

Materials

How to Plant a Hanging Flower Basket

  1. Line the Wire Basket

    You have several choices for lining a wire planting basket. Coco coir or moss liners are the most common materials, offering excellent drainage and aesthetics.

    Some retailers offer premium basket liners that increase water retention, such as the MagniMoist liner. These liners are more expensive than standard coco coir liners but might improve the performance of drought-sensitive plants like fuchsias.

    For a less expensive liner, you can create one yourself from layers of burlap that you've cut to fit.

    The Spruce / Heidi Kolsky

  2. Increase Water Retention

    Most garden centers line the bottom of the coco coir liner to prevent excess water from rushing out of the bottom of the basket during irrigation. You can place a plastic dish or a piece of a plastic garbage bag in the bottom of the liner to increase water retention.

    If you decide to line the entire piece of coco coir for maximum water retention, cut several holes in the liner to allow for drainage and air circulation.

    The Spruce / Heidi Kolsky

  3. Add Potting Soil

    The most essential step in creating a healthy hanging basket is selecting high-quality potting soil to fill it with. Garden soil is too heavy and can carry pathogens that can infect your plants.

    Choose a lightweight bagged potting soil. It should contain a mix of organic ingredients that will feed your plants, such as compost, humus, earthworm castings, leaf mold, and inorganic ingredients that enhance aeration, like perlite. Moisten the soil before you start planting and add more soil to the basket if settling occurs.

    The Spruce / Heidi Kolsky

  4. Choose a Focal Plant

    The first plant to install in the hanging basket is a focal point in the design, so choose a specimen with a long blooming time and vigorous performance. Smart choices include angelonia, salvia, or celosia, all of which will grab attention at the center of the basket. These plants have upright growth habits with spiky blooms and won’t get lost as the other plants mature.

    The Spruce / Heidi Kolsky

  5. Add Mounding and Trailing Plants

    Surround your focal plant with additional plants with mounding and trailing growth habits that have similar requirements for sunlight, moisture, and fertilizer. These plants fill in quickly, providing fullness with fewer plants. Some of the easiest plants to grow in hanging baskets include petunias, verbenas, portulaca, and million bells—all high-performing flowering varieties to tuck around the edges of your basket. If your basket will be hanging above your reach, reduce maintenance by choosing varieties that don’t require deadheading.

    The Spruce / Heidi Kolsky

  6. Plant the Side and Underside of the Basket (Optional)

    This is an optional step but one that will quickly reward you with the “blooming ball” look. For small baskets, the trailing flowers planted at the basket’s edge will drape over and cover the basket within a few weeks, but larger baskets might need a few trailing plants inserted directly into the bottom and sides of the liner for extra fullness. You can use the same trailing plants you used at the edges of the basket.

    Use a utility knife to cut several slits into the sides and underside of your liner. Grasping small transplants by the root ball, insert the root ball into the slit. Don’t worry about damaging the plant, as the root ball can take quite a bit of manhandling. Just be sure not to grasp the transplant by the stem, which can break easily.

    The Spruce / Heidi Kolsky

  7. Water Thoroughly

    Keep flowers and other plants alive in your hanging basket by providing them with a proper watering and fertilization schedule. Water new plants until you see runoff. Expect to water your hanging baskets daily—perhaps even twice a day when hot, dry conditions persist. Improper watering is the most common reason that plants in hanging baskets die.

    Fertilize your baskets twice a month to keep them looking healthy throughout the season.

    The Spruce / Heidi Kolsky

The Spruce / Heidi Kolsky

How to Garden in Raised Beds

How To Plant Hanging Baskets For Success

When you plant your own hanging baskets, you can easily add unique and amazing beauty to your porch, patio and outdoor landscape – and save hundreds of dollars in the process!

One of our favorite ways to add big color and interest all over the farm is with homemade hanging baskets. They are great for brightening up decks, patios and sitting areas, not to mention beautifying pergolas, pavilions and all kinds of outdoor structures.

But can they ever be incredibly expensive to purchase! Depending on the size of the basket, hanging baskets can range anywhere from twenty to thirty dollars – all the way up to a hundred dollars or more.

Growing your own baskets opens your world to an endless variety of color and plants. It also helps save big on your gardening budget!

But perhaps just as frustrating, many store-bought baskets outgrow their containers and soil by mid-summer. Not only can it be quite disheartening, it can make the whole process even more expensive if you have to replace them.

The Issue With Store Bought Hanging Baskets

Most store-bought containers and baskets have been growing for months indoors by the time you purchase them in early spring.

Greenhouses and growers do this to have big beautiful flowers to showcase big blooms and attract customers. The only problem is that in most cases, the basket’s roots are often already running out of space. Unfortunately, that means your basket is already on borrowed time.

The good news is you don’t have to have “hanging basket” frustration any more. By planting your own baskets in the spring and following a few simple but key tips, you can create gorgeous planters that overflow with color – and last the entire season as well.

With that in mind, here is a look at how to easily plant your own hanging baskets with big success this year!

By following just a few simple tips, you can have big success planting your own hanging baskets!
Start With Bigger Baskets

One thing we’ve learned over the years is that the size of the basket makes a huge difference when it comes to long-term success. Although smaller baskets can be less-expensive, they simply don’t allow enough growing space for plants. Especially if you want them to last all season long!

It is a simple fact, the more soil that can be used, the more your plants will thrive. In smaller baskets, by mid-summer, there is little room left for roots to expand. As a result, plants become become root-bound.

Once a plant is root bound, it is nearly impossible to give it lasting water or nutrients. As you water, it flows directly through and out the bottom. And the fertilizer you might be using? It does the exact same thing.

Without replanting a root bound basket, the foliage will become weak and brittle, and the blooms will all but disappear. And in the end, you are left with a plant that is anything but appeasing to the eye.

What Size Basket Is Best –
How To Plant Your Own Hanging Baskets

Any basket less than 14 inches in diameter simply won’t work for the long term. 10 and 12 inch pots look great when first planted, but they quickly outgrow their container.

Smaller hanging baskets don’t have enough soil to power plants all season. To have all season growing success, baskets need to be at least 14 to 16 inches in diameter.

14 inch baskets work well, but our personal favorites are the 16 inch metal wire baskets. At 16″inches in diameter, they allow plenty of room for growth. Even better, at that size, they are still not overly heavy to lift and hang.

No matter what, the real key to success is to keep with baskets that are 14 inches or bigger. It allows plants to have enough room to grow for an entire season without issue. Product Links : 14 inch wire baskets – 16 inch wire baskets

Plastic Baskets vs.
Wire Baskets – How To Plant Your Own Hanging Baskets

As for plastic containers vs. wire baskets, we are much bigger fans of the wire versions. And not just for looks.

Plastic containers actually create a couple of issues for plants. For one, the covering of plastic around the entire root ball holds in heat. And in the middle of summer, excessive heat can spell trouble for plants. In addition, the full, non-porous covering makes it harder for oxygen to reach roots.

Wire baskets that use a fibrous coco coir liner or an all-natural weave liner allow air to easily enter. They also help excess water drain away much quicker than plastic containers do. Best of all, natural liners are usually fairly inexpensive and easy to replace year after year.

Listen In To Our Podcast On Hanging Basket Care Below For Even More Basket Care Info!

Wire baskets will cost a bit more up-front, but on the upside they can last for years. Plastic baskets on the other hand rarely make it more than a single season. In fact, sometimes they don’t even make it through the first season!

Selecting The Best Soil For Hanging Baskets –
How To Plant Your Own Hanging Baskets

Once you have your basket in hand and ready to go, the next step is to fill it with great soil. If there is one thing not to skimp on, it is your potting soil mix.

Whether you make your own, or purchase ready made potting soil, look for a lightweight mix that is rich, loose and nutrient filled. Remember, container plants are stuck the entire year with the soil they are planted in, so it is important to start them off with good, rich soil.

Although there are a slew of high-quality potting mixes available, we make our own with a simple combination of topsoil, compost, perlite, worm castings and coffee grounds. See : The Perfect Homemade Potting Soil Recipe

Not only does it save big on the budget, it allows us to create a lightweight, super-charged potting soil that teems with nutrients. If you do purchase your own, don’t be afraid to add a cup or so of additional worm castings to the soil in each basket. Worm castings are amazing at helping to power annuals!

Growing great hanging baskets all starts with having lightweight, energy-filled soil.
Selecting The Best Plants –
How To Plant Your Own Hanging Baskets

When it comes to what plants work best in hanging baskets, the key to success starts with selecting varieties that produce heavy bloom sets without too much foliage. After all, flowers win out over greenery every time when it comes to the “WOW” factor!

Calibrachoa (Million Bells), Wave petunias, begonias, impatiens, lantana and verbena are all excellent annuals for planting and growing in hanging baskets. All have incredible flower sets, and all, if properly cared for, can last an entire growing season in full bloom.

But don’t think you just have to select the standards. You can also think outside of the box for great homemade baskets too. We love planting some of our homemade hanging baskets using ornamental peppers.

Their thick, dark foliage is a wonderful contrast to the hundreds of colorful pepper “blooms” that cover the plant. Ornamental peppers also are extremely drought and heat tolerant, making them great for handling the hot summer sun.

Chili-chili and Sangria ornamental peppers are two of our favorites for planting in baskets. Both have pepper blooms that cover the plant in gorgeous color!

When planting your own hanging baskets, select varieties that are known to produce big bloom sets. Petunias, pictured above, are one of the best when it comes to filling hanging baskets with big color.
How Many Plants To Plant –
How To Plant Your Own Hanging Baskets

Equally as important to what you choose to grow is how many plants you plant in each basket. There always seems to be the temptation to overfill or over-plant hanging baskets and containers. Unfortunately, it quickly leads to problems for your baskets.

The issue of over-planting is certainly understandable. After all, we want the flowers to fill the space and look incredible from the very first day.

But the issue with over-planting is that it allows no room for future growth. As plants begin to expand, they quickly become overcrowded. They compete for the same moisture and nutrients – and with little space, there is little of both to go around.

The key to success is planting for the long haul. For our 16″ baskets, we use 7 annual plants. We evenly space 5 around the edges, and then place two in the middle. For 14″ baskets, we use 5 to 6, spacing in much the same way.

It may seem a little bare for the first few weeks, but they have room to expand. Planting this way ensures your plants can make it through an entire growing season in bloom.

Fertilizing For Success –
How To Plant Your Own Hanging Baskets

Even with great soil from the start, hanging baskets will need additional nutrients to keep blooming all season long. Unfortunately, without additional help, they will fail early.

Worm castings are amazing when it comes to powering hanging baskets with slow, steady energy. We use them in the potting soil, as a slow release fertilizer, and to make a great liquid fertilizer as well.

The key to success in fertilizing hanging baskets is to use a slow and steady approach. It is important to fertilize in small regular doses. This helps to keep plants strong, without allowing them to get too big, too fast.

We use a two-prong approach for fertilizing our baskets. For starters, once a month, we use about a cup of worm castings on the surface of each basket. This acts as a slow-release fertilizer. Every time we water, the nutrients from the castings leach to the roots in the soil below.

In addition to the castings on top of the plants, we also fertilize our baskets every two weeks with a light liquid fertilizer. You can use compost tea, worm casting tea, or even a good liquid all-purpose fertilizer for this feeding.

Feed Lightly!

The key is to keep the feeding light. When using compost or worm casting tea, the energy is already tamed down perfectly for hanging baskets. For a commercial liquid fertilizer, you can often use them at 1/4 to 1/2 strength for the same effect.

By supplying a lower dose every two weeks, your plants get fed just enough to keep them strong and flowering, but no so much they overgrow. This feeding schedule also happens to work wonders on container plants too! See: How To Make Homemade Compost Tea

The Importance of Regular Watering –
How To Plant Your Own Hanging Baskets

Last but not least, how and when you water is just as vital to a plants short and long-term success as the soil, plants and fertilizing schedule you use.

Proper watering is a big part of success when it comes to maintaining healthy, vibrant hanging baskets.

It is important to realize that hanging plants dry out much faster than those in beds. Being suspended in the air, there is nothing to help insulate their moisture. Because of this, most hanging baskets need water on a daily basis. In fact some may even require morning and evening waterings.

The best time to water hanging baskets is in the early morning. It gives plants the moisture needed to make it through the heat of the day. The next best time is the early evening.

Mid day waterings unfortunately can cause issues for the plants. For starters, the sun hitting the water droplets can burn the foliage and blooms. If you do have to water mid-day, water at the base of plants and avoiding hitting the foliage as much as possible.

Here’s to planting your own hanging baskets this year, and to amazing flowering success. Happy Gardening! Jim and Mary.

As always, feel free to email us at [email protected] with comments, questions, or to simply say hello! You can sign up for our free email list in the subscribe now box in the middle of this article. Follow us on Facebook here : OWG Facebook. This article may contain affiliate links.

Flowers in hanging baskets - what and how to plant

Recently, hanging baskets with flowers or ampelous plants have become more and more popular.
They are hung on tree branches, poles, terraces and pavilions.
You can buy ready-made baskets, or you can make a flower arrangement yourself.

Basket for this type of fit consists of a frame with large cells, inside which we insert an insert.
The liner can be pressed peat, felt or coir. The layer of the liner should be about one and a half, two centimeters.
You can also use wet sphagnum, well, or at worst, black film.
Sometimes they also use plastic containers with holes or lattice inserts for planting flowers, which are hung like baskets.

What to put in the hanging basket?

For baskets, it is necessary to choose plants that can grow well in such a small space, surrounded by neighbors. Also, plants should have abundant foliage so that there are no voids.

Along the edges and along the walls, you can plant, for example, ampelous petunias, hybrid verbena, diasia, angelonia, short climbing varieties of sweet peas, etc.

And in the center of the basket, dwarf varieties of beautiful annuals will look great: marigolds, pelargoniums, begonias, balsams, etc.

What soil do you need?

The soil should be light, nutritious, well permeable, but also water-retaining. It should be prepared from three parts of high-moor peat, four parts of sand and one part of humus. You can try to buy soil in a special garden center. If you are not able to provide constant watering and top dressing, then you should also add a hydrogel and a slow-acting fertilizer.
From fertilizers, it is better to use those that contain not only mineral substances, but also organic ones, in order to increase the resistance of plants to adverse conditions. We can recommend ready-made nutrient soil with such names as "Living Earth", "Flower" and organo-mineral fertilizer "Rainbow".

Step-by-step plan for planting plants in the basket

1. Cover the inside of the basket with black polyethylene.
2. Then install some container. It will hold water.

3. Pour the prepared moist soil mix up to the middle of the basket. We seal.
4. Make several holes above the soil in the walls of the liner.

5. Pass the seedlings of ampelous plants through the holes made, while the roots should be placed on the surface of the soil, and the rest of the plant should be on the outside of the basket.
6. Add soil to the basket, leaving 1-2 cm short of soil to the top of the liner. We compact again. We plant the rest of the seedlings. Upright plants should grow in the center, and ampelous plants on the sides.

Plant care

Hanging baskets are watered 1-2 times a day, depending on the weather and its location.
For lush flowering plants need weekly top dressing with complex fertilizers under the root. Tip: you need to work carefully so that the solution does not fall on the leaves. Foliar top dressing is very useful, by spraying the leaves with a solution of complex fertilizers with micronutrient fertilizers, while carefully reading the concentration indicated on the package.

During the summer, we remove dried leaves and inflorescences, pinch out strongly grown shoots, then a basket of flowers will be a beautiful addition to the plot all season.

The article uses step by step photos from the magazine Gardener

How to grow flowers in hanging pots

January 14, 2023

Contents of the article:

Flowers in hanging pots are one of the simplest and yet spectacular solutions in landscape design. A veranda, a garden arch, a gazebo, a tree in the garden - a planter can literally transform the site and the yard.

But before you buy flower seeds suitable for growing in pots, it is worth learning more about this type of decoration and its intricacies.


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Which flowers to plant in hanging pots is determined not only by your own preferences, but also by the requirements for the plants themselves. And they are quite strict:

● Flowering should be long, ideally throughout the warm season. Otherwise, you will have to periodically throw out the already faded annual from the pot and plant a new one, or, in the case of perennials, have several pots in stock with younger specimens that will replace each other “on duty”.
A compromise is to plant a plant with decorative foliage that will compensate for the cessation of flowering, or a crop that does not bloom at all.

● Unpretentiousness. The volume of soil in the pot is limited, and nutrient reserves are quickly depleted. Therefore, you need to make a choice: plant an unpretentious plant that is able to maintain decorativeness in conditionally unfavorable conditions, or a more demanding one, but do not forget to regularly pamper it with top dressing. Flowers in hanging pots on the street, which grow under awnings - on the veranda, in the gazebo, etc., require special attention. In addition to having limited soil resources, they do not have access to natural rainfall, so it is important to choose either drought-resistant plants or carefully control watering.

●Features of lighting. Depending on where you plan to plant flowers in hanging planters, you need to take into account their preferences for lighting conditions. So, if ivy or fuchsia do not lose their decorative effect in a light shade, then for begonia or hydrangea you need a well-lit place, but preferably not in direct sunlight, and a pot of verbena or nasturtium can be hung in a constantly lit and even "scorching" place.

So, if you are used to dealing only with flower beds, in which the flowering of one plant is replaced by the flowering of another, or with indoor "long-livers" that retain their decorative effect all year round, slightly change the approach when choosing flowers for flower pots. And what exactly to choose - our rating of top flowers will tell you, which are most often chosen to decorate the garden.

The best flowering plants for hanging planters in the garden

If this is a new experience for you, and you still do not know what to plant in a hanging planter outside, you can choose from the most popular annuals and perennials.

Petunia


This is the undisputed leader of the hit parade of flowers for planters. Unpretentious to lighting conditions, it tolerates moderately dry periods well, and its flowering continues from May until the very frost. Due to the variety of varieties and shades, you can create very colorful compositions from undersized, tall, ampelous plants.

Petunia breeds, including by self-sowing, so keep it in a pot with a faded plant until spring (you can even in the garden or yard), and then plant the new generation in pots with nutrient soil.

Nasturtium

Depending on the variety, nasturtium can be grown as a vine or as an ampelous culture, which expands its decorative possibilities. Flowering is plentiful and long, and if you wish, you can take the pots to the apartment with the onset of cold weather and admire the nasturtium throughout the winter.

Nasturtium effectively repels a number of pests, so gardeners can use a pot with it to decorate a greenhouse or place a planter next to plants that are especially vulnerable to pests.

Lobelia

A plant unique in its decorative effect, which allows you to create the most unusual flower arrangements. Small flowers densely cover thin long stems, and look great both in solo compositions and in combination with other potted plants.

Growing lobelia as an annual will have to be done by seedlings (in temperate climates), but in the southern regions, reproduction can occur by self-sowing.


Alyssum

Ampel varieties of alyssum form an almost perfect ball in a flowerpot, densely strewn with small fragrant flowers. This plant will be an excellent choice for any planting, but looks best next to "contrasting" partners, which stand out with leaves of bright color or original shape.

Keep in mind that alyssum attracts bees and wasps, so it is better not to place planters near windows and doors that remain open during the day.

Begonia

One of the most capricious plants that are demanding on lighting conditions, do not tolerate drafts and suffer from a change of location. But if you provide begonias with proper care, they will thank you with luxurious and delicate flowers.

Consider in advance the location of the planter so that it does not interfere (keep in mind that begonia can form a bush up to 80 cm in diameter, depending on the variety and care). This will allow in the future not to remove the pot to another place, and avoid one of the most stressful factors for begonias.


Coleus

It is difficult to call coleus flowering beautiful - the plant throws out nondescript panicles that are not of particular decorative value. But on the other hand, coleus leaves more than compensate for this shortcoming. A huge variety of leaf colors allows you to create truly explosive color compositions that never go unnoticed.

In addition, this is not the most typical plant for pots, so it looks very original in hanging containers.

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Fitting and Care Features


How to plant flowers in a hanging basket or pot depends on their decorative effect and the duration of flowering.

Learn more