How to create perfect baskets
My five-element approach will guarantee summer stunners
If you’ve got a greenhouse or sheltered spot in your garden, you can plant up hanging baskets now ready for a summer display. By composing them this month and growing them on they’ll be fulsome come late May when you’re ready to hang them.
There are no rules when it comes to creating basket displays, but over the years I’ve adopted an approach that works well. I try to have five key elements or plant types in every basket. First is the ‘star plant’ in the centre. This should be strongly structural and highly floriferous. Fuchsias, pelargoniums and New Guinea impatiens all fit the bill. Then come ‘fuzzy fillers’. These are ideally delicate in foliage and flower with a clumping nature. Plants such as calibrachoa and euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’ do this job well as they surround the central ‘star plant’. The third component is ‘large-flowered lovelies’. These are the species that will give real floral wow for the next five months – think petunias, surfinias and large-flowered begonias. Accompanying them on the edge of the basket is element four, the ‘tumble-over plants’. These are semi-scandent species that flop over the edge of the basket but aren’t true trailing plants. Bidens and verbena are ideal. Finally, it’s ‘trailers’. These are plants for both the sides and upper edge of the basket. For elegant, wafting stems dichondra, lysimachia or asarina are perfect. Here are three recipe examples of the approach.
Rich and sumptuous
Blacks, burgundies and purples give this scheme its sultry look. Fuchsia ‘Blacky’, with its near-noir outer tepals, is a perfect ‘star plant’ and links nicely with ‘trailer’ ipomoea ‘Blackie’, thanks to its dark foliage. Add a purple calibrachoa as the ‘fuzzy filler’ and a trailing burgundy verbena to ‘tumble-over’. Finally stud the basket with clumps of Lobelia erinus ‘Red Cascade’, which in truth is a burgundy-rose colour, and you’ll have a long-flowering, sumptuous look.
Ice-cool classic
Pale really can be interesting with a white and green combination. Impatiens SunPatiens White makes the perfect ‘star plant’, surrounded by the ‘fuzzy filler’ euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’. Add to them a white bidens to do the ‘tumble-over’ task and variegated nepeta for delicate trailing stems. Finally pack some punch with a white-flowered trailing petunia/surfinia for those long-lasting, sizable blooms.
Oranges and lemons
Zing-up a dull wall with this citrusy fusion. Start with a Zinnia ‘Profusion Orange’ as ‘star plant’ and surround it with a mix of Bidens
aurea and orange verbena to cover you on the ‘fuzzy filler’ and ‘tumble-over’ fronts. Then add ‘large-flowered lovelies’ in the form of a trailing orange petunia, which will perfectly complement the ‘trailer’ Lysimachia
nummularia ‘Aurea’.