Gardening with George Irvine: How to choose the best hanging basket

HANGING baskets are an attractive addition to your gardens and the give an architectural feature to our gardens but we must take a close look at what we use.

Ideally, a hanging basket should be a ball of colour but not all baskets are best suited to giving the best results.

Many are made of basket material and you cannot get flowers to cascade down the side of the basket.

The best type of basket is a wire basket which is open wire mesh with an inner liner which means that one can plant through the liner and the mesh so that the basket becomes a ball of colour, made by planting through the side of the basket.

Basket come is various sizes – diameters of 14 inch, 16 and 18 inches and these can be filled with peat-free compost and then planted up with various flowers of your choice.

Some gardeners prefer to place a saucer in the base of the basket and then begin planting from the inside out.

To do this simply wrap the flowers in thick paper or thin plastic and push these through from the inside out through the liner and the mesh of the basket, filling up higher as you go.

Finish with a centre-piece plant on the top - such as a begonia or geranium and maybe a few small plants along side on the top.

Some ideal plants for down the side are Bacopa, millions bells and training fuchsias.

Other plants can be trailing petunias or trailing lobelia and ivies, and once you have your basket planted hang it on a bracket - making sure that the bracket is firmly attached to the wall.

Water the basket thoroughly and do not let it dry out.

Baskets will usually need watered at least twice per day – sometimes more often in very hot weather and do remember that a basket can take a lot of water and one gallon of water weighs 10lbs.

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