A hanging basket step-by-step guide
Admit it: most of us have a guilty pleasure, a secret passion that might seem to others cheesy at best or past its sell-by date at worst. Something that still pushes all the right buttons for us despite what the fashionistas think.
For me, it's slippers and fondue sets, candles around the bath and a whopping dose of cheap bubble bath reeking of pine forests. Forget what others think – such timeless treats for me are all the sweeter because they're tinged with nostalgia.
Outdoors you may buck the trend with a secret penchant for a quaint trellis arch or psychedelic begonias with flowers as fancy and kitsch as a ballroom dancer's frills. Or do you dabble in bonsai and to hell with low-maintenance? Such quirks are what make our gardens unique.
For me hanging baskets are in the same league – you don't see them so much nowadays but when you do, you know that there resides a passionate gardener.
Hanging baskets are hefty to hang, potentially expensive to stock and thirsty on a daily basis in summer.
They seem like dinosaurs to the contemporary gardener. But then you visit someone who knows how to do them well and you instinctively want to have a go.
Jenny Oakley has been opening her gate to visitors for 25 years. Her Taranaki garden of national significance is as fresh and exciting as always, thanks in part to her amazing hanging gardens that swing from pergolas and explode from the branches of her walnut tree like floral fireworks.
So popular are Jenny's creations that for many years she toured garden centres here and abroad giving masterclasses in constructing her hanging gardens. Check out her step-by-step instructions below.
1. Choose a basket.
The starting point is a good-quality basket, which should be as big as you can afford and lift. Larger containers retain water better and look dramatic when in full fling. Woven baskets in natural materials look good but don’t always allow you to plant the lower sides of the perimeter; you have to rely on exuberant trailers from the top to soften and cover them effectively. Moulded plastic baskets are even harder to disguise but do hold moisture better than woven baskets.
2. Prepare the base.
If you don’t have a flat-bottomed basket, rest it in a pot or bucket to stabilise and elevate it. Pull the hanging chains up and out. If you’re using a metal basket, line it with a natural permeable material. Jenny recommends pre-moulded pressed coconut fibre mats, which are widely available. Cut the mat to make three rings to form your planting tiers. Lay the fat bottom disc in the base of the basket.
3. Fit a lining.
Water conservation is essential when your lining is porous, so cover it with a circle of polythene cut from a compost sack or plastic shopping bag. This makes a reservoir for collecting excess water in the base. You could also fit a saucer or flat dish in the base. If the potting mix you’re using doesn’t contain them already, add a dessertspoonful of water-storing granules in each of the three layers of the potting mix. But don’t add too much as they can expand and cause a volcano effect as the compost swells.
4. Add fertiliser.
Baskets are heavy at the best of times so avoid heavy soil- or loam-based potting mixes. A good peat- or bark-based general-purpose mix is fine, but Jenny’s secret is to supplement this with a long-term, slow-release fertiliser. She previously used a 5-6 month formula and changed her baskets twice a year, but because baskets are watered so intensively she now recommends an 8-9 month slow-release fertiliser, which is more resistant to leaching out quickly.
5. Plant the tiers.
Fill the base of the basket up to the top of your first layer and begin planting the first tier. Lay your plants on the potting mix and gently feed the top growth out through the sides. Trying to do it the other way – feeding plants in through the sides of the basket from outside – can easily damage the sensitive roots. Jenny spaces her plants quite close together, at 8-10cm apart, for quick effect and a full finish. But she spaces out her main foliage plants among the flowers so a plant is never sitting alongside one of the same species. Having laid out the first third of the plants, insert the second ring of coconut fibre and fill it up with more potting mix. Now plant up tier two in the same way, making sure you don’t repeat the same types of plant directly above one another. Add the third and final sleeve of coconut and fill it up before planting the top. It’s usual for the top to include an upright feature plant surrounded by vigorous trailers.
6. Water and hang.
Before hanging, water the basket well – whatever the time of year. When it comes to safe hanging, firm fixtures are essential, especially for large baskets. Watering will be the most crucial decider of how successful your basket is and hand watering will always be preferable to an automatic system. Try to choose a well-lit – but not baking – spot in a sheltered corner of the garden, preferably near a tap. Leave a slight hollow in the potting mix in the top of the basket to make watering easier. Consider buying a long-handled watering lance that will attach to a hose, or even putting your baskets on chain pulleys so they can be lowered to a comfortable height for watering and preening. Jenny says don’t trust the rain to water your baskets fully – give them a drink regularly, regardless of the weather, until you see excess water dripping from the bottom of the basket. Watering once or even twice a day in the height of summer is not unusual, and if you forget and a basket dries out, get it down and soak it thoroughly in a water bath for an hour to allow it to recover.
Written by Neil Ross. First appeared on Stuff.co.nz.
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