Well-styled hanging baskets elevate the indoor and outdoor spaces of your home. Better yet, those colorful planters are not as difficult to achieve as you might think. Here are 5 tips for styling your own stunning hanging baskets to wow your neighbors.
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Choose the right hanging planter.
The basic outdoor 10” plastic hanging planters you see everywhere are great for cascading plants, but they’re not going to give you the look of a giant globe of blossoms. For that mass-of-blossoms effect, you’ll need big wire baskets. We’re not joking—the planter should be a minimum of 14” across, or bigger if you can find one. You’ll need a liner for it, which you should be able to cut 1” holes in. For maximum impact, you’ll want to add plants to the sides of the basket, not just the top in the middle.
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Use good quality soil, water and fertilize often.
Hanging baskets have a lot of plants to support with a relatively small amount of soil. To support an abundance of blooms, they’ll need to be watered and fertilized frequently. Use a high-quality soil that is designed to retain as much moisture as possible. Hanging baskets need to be watered frequently to sustain the amount of plant life in them, so test the weight of the basket every day and water when it feels light. During the summer, you may need to water every day. Depending on the plants inside the basket, you may need to fertilize as often as twice per week to keep them blooming.
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Decide where you’ll hang your planter before you buy plants.
Knowing where you’re going to hang your basket or planter is important before you start styling it. You need to know how much sun exposure the basket will get every day so you can choose appropriate plants. If it gets lots of shade, stick to shade-loving plants like Boston fern. If your planter will get full sun all day, you’ll be best with plants like dipladenia, hibiscus, and mandevilla.
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Choose a bold color scheme, but don’t forget greenery.
Baskets that feature a single type of plant in one color can be striking. However, if you’re going to embrace color, be bold. Choose at least 3 different colors of flowering plants to create a color palette. Just remember to balance your bright and vibrant colors with some texture and greenery. Add in a few different greenery plants, like ivy, silver falls, or sweet potato vine. Look for plants that act as “thrillers”, “fillers”, and “spillers” in your hanging containers. Something upright in the middle like a dwarf hibiscus, a low-growing mid-height around the center like mandevilla, and trailing spillers like ferns all around the outside edges.
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Cram your planter FULL.
Those large planters you see lining the streets have as many plants in them as the grower could possibly cram in. If you’re doing a globe-type planter with plants out the sides of the basket they should be spaced about 3-4 inches apart. If your basket is quite deep, you’ll want two rows of plants. Start from the bottom, add a shallow layer of soil, plant the lowest layer in, then add a bit of soil, and start the next layer. Once your side plants are in, then add your top layer of plants, and space them no more than 2-3 inches apart. For cascading baskets, space the outside row of plants 2-3 inches apart, add your thriller plant in the middle, then pack your filler plants around it. Fill in the gaps with good soil, and water your basket well.
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Pay attention to how the hanging basket completes the space.
No matter how beautiful your planter is, it will look awkward if it isn’t grounded by the other elements in the area. For example, a hanging planter off by itself in an empty corner will look lonely and a little strange. On the other hand, a row of hanging planters behind a patio seating area frames the space by creating a “wall” effect, which defines and enhances the space.
With these tips, you can style and maintain phenomenal hanging baskets. Shop our selection of Sky-High Hanging Baskets to brighten up your yard and home with luscious baskets full of blooms this summer.
