The Plants

This is the easy part! With a proper soil mix, most garden flowers will adapt to a hanging basket. Obviously, an ideal plant would be short (less than 12"-15"), a cascader (hanging down under the basket), or a climber. Mix and match freely, but keep in mind that a hanging basket is a harsh environment, especially in the hot afternoon sun, and many plants will do much better if kept in a partial sun area where they get a little protection from the afternoon heat.

Typical uprights:
Geraniums (sun)
Impatiens (shade)
Begonias (shadier)

Typical cascaders:
Vinca Vine (shadier)
Petunia (sun)
Parrots Beak (shadier)

Typical climbers:
Morning Glory (sun)
Candy Corn Vine (sun)

When planting a basket, three decent sized plants (in 4" pots) will typically fill a 10" basket nicely without crowding. Add a couple more if the plants are in four or six pack cells. To plant the basket, fill it half full with the soil-less mix, remove the plant from its pot, grab hold of the rootball so that your fingertips are at the bottom of the rootball, and nestle the plant into the mix until the top of the root ball is below the top of the basket. Repeat with the other plants and fill in around them with more soil-less mix. Tamp the mix lightly, don't pack it in tightly. When finished, water with a gentle spray, similar to that of a watering can or Dramm water breaker. Fill the basket to the rim with water, let it drain, and repeat one or two more times to ensure an even soaking.

Hanging baskets and other forms of container gardens can be very rewarding and easy when a few concepts are understood.

The very foremost consideration in planting a basket is the soil used. Please, do yourself and your plants a favor, spend the extra money and buy a good quality, soil-less potting mix. There are hundreds of varieties of potting mixes available, find the one that is made up primarily of peat moss. A good mix will contain roughly 80% peat moss (not peat), 15%-20% perlite/wood bark, and maybe 5% wetting agent.

This will give your plants' roots the proper drainage they need, the peat moss will hold moisture like a sponge, and the end product will be lightweight which will ease stress on your hardware.

Avoid the 99cent 'potting mix' at department stores and warehousers. It is way too heavy for containers, it drains poorly in wet weather, and dries into a cement block that your plants' roots can't penetrate. When shopping for potting mix, the bag should be lightweight and fluffy, very much like a pillow. If it feels thick and heavy, it will be even thicker and heavier when it gets watered in the basket. Move on to the next brand, or just come visit Malmborg's!

When planting the basket, the next main consideration is feeding. Peat moss soil mixes don't have any nutritive content. Without some kind of feeding program your plants will be scrawny, leggy, yellowing, and will have smaller, less colorful blossoms by the end of the season. The two main styles of feeding are water soluble (Miracle-Gro) and slow release (Osmocote). The slow release granule is the easier option, simply mix it into the soil when planting. The water soluble feeding style requires constant feedings through-out the season, preferably at less than half the rate described on the package, at more than twice the frequency. (This method more accurately resembles the feeding program that was probably used in the higher quality greenhouses where your plants were grown.)

One last soil consideration is a wetting agent or water retention agent (Soil Moist). A product like Soil Moist will help to keep your soil mix from drying out completely between waterings. A peat moss based potting mix will dry out very much like a sponge, shrinking away from the sides of the basket.

Maintenance

Once planted and soaked in, keep the basket moist, but not dripping wet. This is easiest done by using the two-knuckle water checker… your index finger. Don't water daily, don't water weekly, don't water on any given time schedule. Water only when the plant needs it. Insert your index finger two knuckles deep into the center of the basket. The top of the soil can be dry, but there can still be a lot of moisture inside of the basket. If the center feels moist like a damp sponge, don't water it, check it again tomorrow. But if the center feels only slightly moist, water it thoroughly, to the rim, until water runs out the bottom.

The two major causes of basket failure we see customers experience at the store are over-watering (root rot,) and rootballs separating from the basket (uneven, or not enough water.)

Over watering is the nastiest, because the roots start to rot. Typical symptoms (besides soggy soil) are yellowing leaves on the lower and inner parts the plant, and possibly wilting leaves. If you suspect this is the problem, tip the basket upside down and gently tap out the rootball. There should be a nice network of plump, white roots staring you in the face, and if you pry on the rootball the roots will resist your pressure. A plant with root rot will have a lot of brown or tan deflated looking roots, and the soil will fall apart easily. In bad cases you can smell the rot.

Depending on the degree of the rot, many times you can allow the plant to dry out and it will recover completely, but it may take a couple of weeks to regrow the lost leaves.

The other major problem is a shrunken rootball. Set a damp sponge on the windowsill for a couple of days. It shrivels into a hard little curved brick, and water bounces right off of it. The same thing happens to a hanging basket if it is neglected too long. The rootball will shrink and you can literally see a 1/4" gap between the dirt and the inside of the basket. So the poor gardener realizes they forgot to water, and quickly runs to water the basket. They water until water runs out of the bottom of the pot. What just happened? The water bounced off the dried out sponge and ran down the sides of the rootball in that gap, and spilled out the bottom. Almost NO WATER got soaked into the plant. Assuming that the plant hasn't dried completely dead, you can remedy this situation the very same way you would re-wet the sponge. Put it in a sink or tub of water and let it soak. For a dried out hanging basket, an hour of soaking will rewet the rootball and the plant can be returned to its normal position. The following day you can trim out any leaves and stems that didn't recover from the drying out.

With these few pointers in mind, the blackest of thumbs can create and maintain a beautiful hanging basket. Please though, remember to water them!

The previous is the group lecture outline on planting and maintaining hanging baskets I created and presented on behalf of Malmborg's Garden Center for the Andersen Consulting firm's education day at their Minneapolis, MN office building. There were fewer than 10 employees in the lecture and we had a great time. One person in the class volunteered by planting a hanging basket as we went over the outline as a group. It was such a close and personal group with an ongoing Q&A session of general lawn and garden care that it felt more like a round-table discussion than a lecture (to everyone's benefit and enjoyment.) The end result was that we all had a great time, the various questions they entered the room with were answered, and hopefully they learned a point or two about maintaining their hanging baskets.