Home Garden Companion

Ilona's Garden Journal




Plants in Pots

Flowering Hanging Planters

by

Flowering Hanging Planters Bring Unexpected Beauty To Your Home

All the info you need to make your own: the pots, the plants, the tips. Hanging planters are so easy to put together, and the baskets here are just stunning.

Brighten Up Your Spring and Summer Porch with Hanging Pots of Flowers

hanging planter for porch
photo: Ilona’s Garden

 

There is something so inviting about a porch with pots of hanging flowers. Artistic hanging baskets with well-chosen plants spilling over the sides spell out summertime evenings full of flower fragrance and firefly sightings.

PORCHES SHINE WITH FLOWERING HANGING BASKETS

Containers overflowing with petunias or bright geraniums are just the right touch for a hospitable entry, and hanging planters take advantage of vertical spaces. Just one hanging planter can add a spot of color right at eye level. I like a row of three across the front porch, facing the street.

However you line them up, hanging planters are a wonderful way to add a little green and a lot of curb appeal to your home.

YOU’LL FIND IN THIS ARTICLE:

  • How to make a hanging container of flowers
  • Tips on keeping your hanging planters looking good
  • List of flowers that make great displays
  • Frugal tips and diy videos to make your own and save money
  • Examples of gorgeous hanging planters to choose from

Front Yard Container Design Tips

Adorn the front entry or the patio

The front entry is one of the classic areas for hanging baskets of foliage or flowers. Matching containers give cohesion to the look of several hanging planters.  It is more attractive than a jumble of different styles.

They can all be hung at the same height or given varied heights, but similar containers with similar plantings will provide repetition that pleases the eye. Such repetition gives a sense of order.

Don’t let your array of  hanging planters look hodge-podge:

Put similar planters together to give the display more continuity, for the best effect. If not exactly matching, try to have something that unifies them: color, shape, or size.

14-inch Hanging Planters – Art designs to make your porch the talk of the town

 

blue Toland hanging planterToland Home Garden Dragonfly 14-Inch 2-Gallon Decorative Insulated Hanging Art Planter Basket 202029
Toland Home Garden Dragonfly 14-Inch 2-Gallon Decorative Insulated Hanging Art Planter Basket 202029

Dragonfly Art Hanging Planter- holds 2 gallons of soil and has a collapsible design which makes winter storage a breeze.

These planters by Toland are gorgeous, but won’t upstage your flowering plants.

The patterns and colors harmonize with many plant combos and are a feature in themselves as the plants start to fill out. The designs highlighted here are but two of an array of lovely hanging planters that can match the décor of your home. I especially like the Moroccan design above, but any of the choices would be delightful to plant up with favorite container combinations.

Essential Hanging Planter Tips For Planting A Beautiful Pot

  • Don’t overfill your container, three to five plants for most hanging planters should be enough.
  • Some believe that containers need to be a complicated affair, but the simplest recipe of just a few harmonious plants often gives the best effect.
  • Repeating several containers of the same plants multiplies the effect for an even bigger visual impact. Just make sure the plants stay healthy with the proper light, moisture, and feeding conditions met throughout their growing season.
  • Moisture retaining soil and potting methods help.
  • Trimming (a midseason “haircut”) the lanky growth, keeping old blooms dead headed will keep your hanging planters looking amazing all season, too.
water your containers
Watering your containers is the most important thing you can do for healthy, beautiful blooms.

Keep The Plants Moist

Water Properly
#1 Tip: This is the biggest challenge for hanging baskets and planters: don’t let the plants dry out. Air is surrounding the basket, and watering a hanging planter might be awkward. Use special tools and be sure to water each day in dry weather conditions, such as heat and dry winds.

Frugal Ideas

There are so many recipes for combining plants in your planters, that it is a snap to create spectacular looking hanging planters for your porch. No need to buy expensive “pre-planted” combos.

It is more economical to pot up our own, and if care is taken for using good soil and amendments, the plants will quickly establish and provide a very nice show.

Try purchasing a ready made pot of a single type of flower, divide it up into plantings for several pots. Put those, along with additional accent plants,  into those you are making in your own, better looking, hanging planters.

I like the inexpensive pots of the new petunias or geraniums for this last idea, because they are easy to grow, respond well to this type of division, and the new trendy colors are more available in pots.

DIY Savings

Water ProperlyIf you put together your own, you save money, get a customized look, and can reuse the beautiful pots for coming years.
If you put together your own, you save money, get a customized look, and can reuse the beautiful pots for coming years.

Artful Toland Hanging Planters

 

green Toland planterToland Home Garden 202022 14-Inch Spring Blooms Hanging Art Planter

Water drips through the bottom drainage, utilize this to water a planter pot in line with the draining water. The colorful fabric of these collapsible planters will give an artful look to your porch scene. Made of nylon Fabric with a waterproof liner, sturdy metal chains and hook.

I featured these planters on the page because they are so strikingly attractive, and I’ve never seen anything quite like them. The colorful designs remind me of Craftsman style decorative home accessories: artistic touches in even the most practical things.

How To Make A Hanging Planter

Product List For Completing Your Creation

Everything for a blooming show

Gather together just a few supplies to make your blooming planters healthy and ready for a full season of pretty flowers and foliage.

It simplifies making baskets if you have something of an assembly line, making as many of your baskets together at one time. Filling the pots with soil and then watering can get a bit messy at times, and a one-time assembly makes cleanup easier.

5 Things You Need To Make Superb Hanging Baskets

  1. The great looking container
  2. Light soil or compost (don’t use heavy garden soil) Like Miracle-Gro Potting Mix, which is economical.
  3. Added time-release fertilizer “FoxFarm American Pride Time Release Fertilizer” is a good one.
  4. Moisture additive: anything similar to “The Dirty Gardener Water Retention Granules”. Miracle Gro also has a special moisture retentive formula.
  5. Your plants, usually trailing types, but a center plant with height to it is nice, too.

DIY Planter From Wood

Best Potting Soil, IMO

Of anything I use, this is my favorite soil mix for hanging planters. With the winds my porch planters can quickly dry out. That is why something with “moisture beads” makes such a difference.
Miracle-Gro Moisture Control Potting Mix, 8-Quart (currently ships to select Northeastern & Midwestern states)
Miracle-Gro Moisture Control Potting Mix, 8-Quart (currently ships to select Northeastern & Midwestern states)

I use this soil to make sure my plants have adequate moisture. It has moisture retentive ingredients.

 

Place Similar Plants Together
#2 Tip: Strong growers should not be planted with more delicate, slow growers. Sun loving or shade loving, but not both in one pot.

Make A Mixed Summer Hanging Container

List of Flowers for Great Displays

Which plants would look good with your new hanging planters?


Angelonia

Diacia

Bacopa

Calibrachoa

Petunia

Nasturtium

Verbena

Scaevola

Lobelia

Creeping Jenny


Fuchsia

Vinca

Sweet Potato Vine

Thunbergia

Pelargonium

Lantana

Begonia

‘Diamond Frost’ Euphorbia

Thyme

Oregano


Container Recipes

Pleasing Flower Combinations

Following a recipe can take to guesswork out of putting together planters with the right combination of growing requirements, pleasing forms and colors. Sometimes it sparks a look that you may not have otherwise thought of. If you like this idea, I have a large number of recipes on these pages:

 Or you might like this example as a start for making your own: 

Ingredients For Perfectly Purple

  • double petunias
  • vinca
  • purple angelonia

Instructions

  1. Place soil inside your pot, about halfway to top.
  2. Arrange Angelonia center to side, place Vinca spilling over two sides, and three petunias around the edge of the planter.
  3. Fill with remaining soil to top, tamp down and make sure planter is watered well.
  4. Hang in a sunny location.

Simple, But Stellar

White Lattice Look Hanging Planter – In Sturdy Resin

DMC Products 14-Inch Resin Wicker Hanging Basket with Chain Hanger, White
DMC Products 14-Inch Resin Wicker Hanging Basket with Chain Hanger, White

White lattice is the classic look for porches: porch furnishings, trellises, baskets. Now someone has made hanging planters out of a tough resin in a look that just says summer, lemonade, and porch rockers.

Don’t Forget Tropical Foliage Plants

use houseplants

Source: C. Dani, Buy at Allposters

More and more, I see innovative flower pot designs that include typical tropical houseplants along with the usual annuals. By themselves for a shady place, or as part of a stylish combination of color and foliage, they make great hanging plants for summer porch decor.

Assorted Hanging Planters, Ceramic or Woven – Filled With Colorful Blooms

hanging containers of petunias

Farm Stand in Red
Source: Allposters

Make A Cone Style Display

Tips For Terrific Hanging Planters

HOW TO PUT TOGETHER A GORGEOUS PLANTER

  1. Use mainly trailing plants that can spill over the sides.
  2. Center the pot with a mounded plant that gives a little height
  3. Plants can be all of one type ( like petunias) or mix a few plants that like the same conditions (light and moisture)
  4. Choose large size planters for biggest impact. At least 14 inch diameter is best.
  5. Line the inside of moss baskets with a plastic liner, create a reservoir for water for better results.
  6. Water regularly
  7. When newly planted, allow basket plants to settle in before exposing to elements. Try larger plants to stand up to weather conditions earlier than very small new plants.

Toland Home Garden Damask 14-Inch 2-Gallon Decorative Insulated Hanging Art Planter Basket 202006
Toland Home Garden Damask 14-Inch 2-Gallon Decorative Insulated Hanging Art Planter Basket 202006

If you love Damask patterns this is the Toland planter for you.

Make Your Own: Upcycle Bottles

Water Properly
Watering: Hanging planters need attention to watering; using moisture retentive soil or soil products helps keep your plants healthy and looking great.

Watering System – Ease the workload of watering the plants

Harness the energy of the sun with this solar powered (three rechargeable AA batteries needed) automatic watering system.

Watering every 3 hours, it irrigates your plants for you.

Flower House SOL-K12 Solar RainMaker Automatic Watering System
Flower House SOL-K12 Solar RainMaker Automatic Watering System

Patio watering system for when you have lots of plants and want to automate the chore of watering containers.

Find More Hanging Planter Ideas

via Pinterest Source: Curbly.com
via Pinterest
Source: Curbly.com

Inventive idea, using common gutters to create a wall of hanging plants.

From Beginner To Advanced Hanging

Jelly Planters

jelly containers
Source: Angus and Celeste

Planter Tutorials

Whether you want to create your own hanging planters or just pot up some plantings in containers you have bought, these tutorials take you through the process. Expert advice for free.

Garden Art- I Mean, Really.

by

Succulent Garden Art Exhibit
Succulent pictures
Make Your Own View

This isn’t a new idea- I’ve seen it showcased at garden shows in the past, but I think it is an example of exceptionally well done succulent planting. An idea taken to a level of an artist playing with their medium and exploring its qualities in a way that makes the observer take notice, and peer closer.

Another photo view shows that this gardener didn’t limit interest to just a few frames, but a whole wall and floor containers created an artistic impact that shows what passion for something can accomplish.

Succulent pictures
An Entire Gallery

There is a lesson, here.

When we really love something, and we take time to develop our love and highlight it with our talent … something wonderful happens.

I think this is what happens in the best gardens. The dynamic of someone who truly loves flowers and plants, especially certain expressions of them, such as a species or a style of displaying them creates something extraordinary. Too often we are caught up in Madison Avenue style thinking, led to believe that gardening is like a fashion or fad. But it isn’t. It is more like art. With the same love and focus that makes anything beautiful; the same craft and attention to details. Just as couture is not simply a piece of clothing, a garden is not merely throwing the requisite plantings together.

Hope you enjoyed the show.

All photos by “FaroutFlora”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ // ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© 2012 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Summer Containers in Bloom

by

Took pictures of some of my containers, I especially liked the shady one with salmon impatiens, caladium, ivy and the strawberry begonia.

As of today I had to cut back the sunny combination of blue salvia, yellow petunias, African daisies, and million bells. I always enjoy the container flowers. They are presently my annual gardens, adding bright color which I move around according to my whims. If only the rest of life were so easily constructed;)


Just A Note-05-09

by

It had rained and then the sun came out. Joanne had noted my garden is mainly shrubs and flowers, which it is, and I wrote back that I was only just getting back into vegetable gardening the past few years after a decade hiatus of fervent food gardening. I still have only a third of the old garden back in production. Anyway, the conversation goaded me (inspired me actually) off my backside and out into the garden to inspect things… and one thing led to another and I planted out the rest of the broccoli and some of the pepper plants.

I was spacing out the broccoli, seems like I always have to harvest it at once.

I had planted old, old lettuce seed (don’t want to tell you how old!), but saw it came up nicely. I shall have tiny butterhead Tom Thumbs in my June garden this year. At least that is when I perceive they will be ready. Lettuce seed is viable for a VERY long time, so take a chance on your old seed.

Tomato plants are looking good. Brandywine is the main variety I have for this year.

Planted some of my containers, and need to go purchase some nicotiana to stick in with the polka dot plant and white caladium for a semi-shade area. I’m keeping my pots simpler this year. Put together lemon symphony osteospermum, yellow petunia, dreamsicle (yes, creamy orange) calibrachoa, and some Victoria salvia in a couple other containers that get full sun.

Well, that is it- gotta go

Container Gardening All Year

by

Can your containers go from summer into fall without too much trouble?

You might want to swap out annuals that look too tired for some flowering kale or a small pot of chrysanthemums. Tuck in some gourds or a mini pumpkin like heirloom gardener did.

Here is an idea for an autumn season container with a link to the summer and winter containers for a front porch. How creative!

For the container by my front door, I’ve just replaced the summer display of elephant ears with kale, American bittersweet vine, bronze carex, and a miniature gourd. This arrangement will last until the winter containers in December.

Memories of June

by

A few pictures before I go on a short July Fourth hiatus.

My overgrown pond area. I let feverfew bloom unhindered and the iris made it through the winter and bloomed beautifully- it surprised me. The waterlilies need division, you can’t really see the water.

These pictures show my present attraction to purple cream and gold combinations. The purple leaf tree is Prairie fire crabapple with the Coreopsis verticillata coming into bloom; that is ‘Goldflame‘ spirea in the foreground.

I tried Salpiglossis in the containers, and Schizanthus, which presently isn’t doing so well due to overwet conditions from the rains. They were happier when the pots got to dry out a little. “Grandma Garden” hues in these pots. Everything bright and cheerful as a colorful patched quilt.