The only way is up
Hanging baskets are a timeless summer favourite in many gardens and now is the time to start thinking about what to plant
HANGING basket time is almost here again, so head to your local nursery or garden centre over the next week and see if there’s anything to take your fancy.
Instead of ready-made baskets, why not try planting your own – it’s cheaper and more creative.
For instance, you could go for an eye-level cottage garden with a colour-themed flower mixture.
You might plump for blues, with star-shaped Isotoma axillaris and fan-shaped scaevola, combined with delicate brachyscome daisies. Contrasting shapes and sizes always work well together in the garden.
If pastel pinks are more your style then try an argyranthemum with shaggy double pink rosettes alongside pink diascia and the floral globular blobs of trailing verbena.
For a tropical effect, go for orange trailing begonias paired with small golden-yellow bidens daisies, with golden creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’) trailing down one side, for foliage that looks like a shower of gold coins.
Some people prefer to populate an entire basket with the same type of plant to create a huge ball of bloom. Petunias are brilliant if used this way.
There is no need for your colours to be exactly the same though. Variation in shades will give the scheme depth and help make each plant stand out.
If you like really different plants try Acalypha pendula, the trailing version of the chenille plant. It has flowers like fingers cut from red velvet gloves dangling down from the foliage.
Then there are trailing antirrhinums, with the familiar snapdragon flowers, but on semiprostrate plants that are perfect for hanging baskets.
Cuphea ‘Tiny Mice’ is very jolly with its red and blue blooms – it’s perfect for tucking into gaps between large flamboyant flowers such as begonias.
But one of the most spectacular novelties is lotus, with flowers that resemble orange and red flames flickering among the softer bluegreen conifer-like foliage.
Making up hanging baskets is easy but you get out of them only what you put in. Always use new potting compost and mix in a dose of water-retaining gel crystals. If you are using a hanging basket that looks like a mixing bowl with chains, fill it to within a couple of inches of the rim with potting compost and pack the top with plants (five round the edge and one in the middle). But if you are using the old-fashioned wire lattice basket, a liner is vital to stop compost falling out. Garden centres sell several kinds but I find an old woollen jumper cut to shape works as well as anything. Line and fill the basket, push small plants in through holes in the side, then fill the top. If you plant baskets this week, keep them inside at night for seven days or so to avoid a late frost.
Acalypha has flowers like the fingers cut from a red velvet glove