Home Garden Companion

Ilona's Garden Journal




containers

Flowering Hanging Planters

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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.

Annual Flowers in My 2008 Garden

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I have mostly planted containers for this season’s show of annuals, with the old stalwart re-seeders popping up in the recently cultivated parts of my garden, mainly along the lavender hedged walkaway. I lost lots of the reseeding annuals when I mulched my perennial borders around five years ago. I think that was a huge mistake. My purpose had been to keep the weeding down and to preserve moisture, but it made more of a growth environment for the weeds and caused the ground to be hostile to annuals which like good tilth and some cultivation to to germinate. The violas also were lost for a different reason: they need exposure to light for germination and I think the mulch impeded that.

Anyway, I have had some failure to note. One is Schizanthus which I tried this year. I bought plants from a local source and they were perfectly beautiful when planted in the containers. We had a very hot spell and then lots of rain with cooler weather… then went on vacation. I tried to move all my containers into a secluded and sheltered spot, but the Schizanthus melted out. They were such beautiful colors and echoed the Salpiglossis in mutual enhancement. I would like to try them in another year, since they are recommended for growing under similar conditions as are recommended for impatiens: under shade trees with the ground kept moist. Moisture is sometimes a problem in my garden- both times of too much and not enough, alternatively, but I have a couple favored places…

Ed Hume Seeds gives this info:

SOWING: Sow indoors from February to April. Sow outdoors after all danger of frost has passed. Don’t cover seed, firm into soil with the back of your hand. Seeds need darkness to germinate, so cover flat or planting bed until germination occurs. Uncover and provide plenty of light as soon as young seedlings appear.

THINNING AND TRANSPLANTING: When Plants are 2 to 3 inches tall. thin and transplant 12 inches apart.

GERMINATION: 2 to 3 weeks, depending upon soil and weather conditions. Keep soil moderately moist during germination.

Salpiglossis , another plant which I’d often read of but can’t remember ever trying. It is rather like a petunia dressed for Mardi Gras. Really showy, yet sort of delicate at the same time. It weathered through the conditions that gave way to the Schizanthus’ demise and I am now a fan. eHow describes this plant as having rich jeweled tones, and that is exactly how its look should be attributed. Along with the poor man’s orchid (Schizanthus) it is also a cool season flower. Perhaps it was the unusually cool weather we had that preserved it- the hot wave has hit us now, and I will keep my fingers crossed that it still does well. All my containers are in need of a shot of fertilizer.

Doug’s Garden blog has a great photo of Salpiglossis, so take a look.

I tried Laurentia this year. It comes originally from Australia, and belongs to the Campanulaceae family. A good light blue, it is graceful in manner and dotted with starry blooms of sharp pointed petals. It is recommended for sun, but I have put it in a part-sun situation. So far it has stayed strong in the heat- like you would expect from an Aussie. I’ll have to observe it further to know more of how it performs in my garden. I have it in the containers, but I think it would be even better in the garden itself.

Last years purple fennel reseeded itself – I was really happy about that. It is now blooming with its softly chartreuse umbels…making the Shasta daisies underneath none too happy. Fennels are not good companions and have a tendency to dampen the growth of surrounding plants.

 Tags: Salpiglossis, Schizanthus,Laurentia