Hang them high
Baskets can be beauties
IF you want your garden to turn heads you can’t beat hanging baskets packed with lively summer blooms.
They can be suspended from wall brackets and pergola rafters, hung in branches or attached to freestanding posts dotted around the garden.
It’s easy to make a memorable display if you plant them up with a single species. Make them up now and plants will have time to knit together.
For instant colour, use spring favourites such as ranunculus accolade, polyanthus and pansies, with tails of ivy spilling over the rim.
For sophisticated good looks, choose different colourways of the same plant. In a formal setting and in shady spots, use busy Lizzies to create a neat globe of solid colour. If you prefer a more flamboyant display, go for trailing petunias like Tumbelina, Million Bells, Easy Wave and Surfinia.
Add sunshine with a scheme using the yellow blooms of calibrachoa and matching yellow eyes of marguerites. Contrast with deep-purple blooms of petunia and cherry pie- scented heliotropium. The display will bring cheer to gloomy areas of the garden.
Trend
Be on trend with deep- pointed cone-shaped rattan baskets, which look less municipal than the traditional wire moss- lined versions. Modern bedding varieties to use are trailing nemesia, bacopa, diascia, felicia, Scaevola Blue Wonder, Lysimachia Goldilocks and Verbena Temari.
Living walls are all the rage and it’s easy to create the look if you use flower pouches – slim, vertical grow bags, fixed to walls and fences and filled with plants. These versatile containers can be used for growing shade-loving ferns, herbs, strawberries and salads as well as bedding plants.
First thing in the morning and in the evening, check if hanging baskets need watering. Plants need feeding every ten to 14 days but avoid fertilisers rich in nitrogen, as they will go on to produce more leaves than flowers.
Routine deadheading will prevent plants running to seed. It also stops spent flowers lying on and rotting the other blooms. And make sure vigorous trailing plants don’t get straggly by pruning them occasionally.