Create Stunning Hanging Flower Baskets

Each Spring and Summer, in towns across America, stunning hanging flower baskets are often seen lining the main streets. Often resembling large balls of color and texture, these hanging flower baskets are a joy to behold. While some "green thumbs" are able to recreate this beauty for their own homes, others are left to either spend a fortune on pre-made made baskets or to do without.

By making your own hanging flower basket, you will generally save around 75% when compared with pre-made flower baskets. With that kind of savings, you can afford to make more than one hanging flower basket and create a stunning outdoor floral display in your own yard.

Here are a few tips for creating stunning hanging flower baskets.

Container

There are a variety of hanging baskets available for use. There are basically 2 main categories: wire baskets and solid baskets.

Wire baskets will need to be lined with some kind of medium such as coconut fiber, a mat of ground cover like blue star creeper or sphagnum moss. When using wire baskets you can take advantage of the gaps in the basket by adding plants from the bottom to the top at all angels.

The solid baskets are generally made from plastic and sometimes heavy duty paper fiber board. They are lightweight and come in many colors and styles. Plastic hanging flower baskets will retain water better than their wire counterparts.

Water and Fertilizer

Your hanging flower basket will need to be watered at least once a day. On particularly hot days, you will probably need to water twice. If you are using a basket lined with coconut fiber or sphagnum moss, you will loose moisture more rapidly than if you have a plastic container with solid sides.

You will probably notice that when you water your plant, excess water drains out the bottom of the container. This excess water flow is essentially washing away nutrients from the soil. For this reason, it's very important to fertilize your hanging flower baskets once a month. You can start at planting by adding some slow release fertilizer granules. Then, once a month, use a liquid fertilizer mixed in with your water.

Soil

Start with a high quality soil, rich in nutrients in your hanging flower basket for the best results. You can purchase a soil mixed especially for hanging flower baskets, or you can mix your own using a combination of soilless planting mix, compost, time release fertilizer and a water holding soil amendment.

Plants and Planting

When choosing plants for your hanging basket, group plants with the same growing requirements in one basket. For example, make sure all the plants are sun loving, or shade loving, but don't mix the two. Also, choose a good combination of trailing vines, bushy plants and plants that will have a little height to them. This will give you more of that "ball" effect.

Here are a few combinations for hanging baskets:

· Red geranium with white alyssum or bacopa and trailing sapphire blue lobelia

· Trailing nasturtiums, sage, and parsley make a nifty herb basket

· Yellow petunias, blue lobelia, and lemon thyme

· Petunias, dusty miller, asparagus fern, and creeping charlie

If you want to go for a truly stunning hanging flower basket, try this combination, which is the same one used by the city of Edmonds, Washington in their Spring and Summer hanging baskets. This is for a medium sized basket:

· Geranium - Indian Dunes

· Geranium - Ringo Scarlet Star

· Ivy Geranium - Tornado Carmine

· Begonia - Illumination White

· Begonia - Panorama Yellow

· Calibrachoa - Crackling Fire

· Strobilanthes - Persian Shield

· Linum - Grandiflorum 'Blue Dress'

· Lysmachia aurem - Golden Creeping Jenny

· Lobelia - Crystal Palace

Finally, if you still aren't sure what you want to include in your hanging flower basket, consult your local nursery. They can guide you to select a good combination of trailing, bushy and tall plants and flowers.

When it comes time to assemble your hanging flower basket, if you've chosen a wire basket and would like to plant flowers out the sides as well as out of the top, start at the bottom and work your way up the basket.

First, add a bit of your soil mixture to the bottom of the basket. Cut a hole in the coconut mat or make an opening in the sphagnum moss. Insert your plant through the outside, gently pulling the roots through from the inside of the basket. Add your plants for the first layer, and then add some more soil mixture inside the basket to cover up the roots of your plants. Repeat the procedure until you're ready to fill the top of the basket.

In the top of the basket, arrange your plants so the trailing vines are toward the edges of the basket and the taller plants are in the center of the basket. After you've finished filling your basket with plants and soil, water it thoroughly.

Maintenance

Every 2 or 3 days take a few minutes to deadhead your hanging flower basket to get rid dead flower blooms. Pinch back leaves and leggy runners. This will help your basket to grow more compactly and achieve the stunning "ball of color" look.