Planting my own Hanging Baskets

I have a bit of a guilt secret, I love bright and colourful hanging baskets. We have always brought them pre planted from the garden centre, but this year I decided to be brave and plant my own up.

I went to our wonderful local nursery Staverton in Halland. They have a large selection of plants and have a whole area all labeled up for hanging baskets and containers.

As I have no real idea what plants to buy I headed straight for this section. I had three hanging baskets and three wall baskets that needed to be designed and planted up. As I looked around a sense of panic arose and I kind of went plant blind. I was just blankly looking at plants, picking them up and putting them down.

I needed to focus my thoughts, I realised colour combination would be best, I decided each one would have a colour theme of its own. Then I would have an an abundance of colours but at least they would match in each basket.

Yellow and white x 2 but differing plants

Reds

Oranges and whites

Pinks and purples 

Purple

So off I went choosing plants, I made sure the hanging baskets had ones that trail and a couple that are upright so I get height into the basket. It was great, now I was concentrated on what I was looking for, I could read the labels and know exactly what would work or not. I also had the help of my five month old baby in his carrier, to ask for his opinions on my plant selections. My next concern was number of plants, I got about 6-8 for the hanging baskets and between 4 and 6 for the wall baskets. Again this was a bit of a guess.

I went home with a boot full of plants and a sinking feeling that I could kill a lot of money if this did not work.

Tea made and baby in his pushchair, I took out my empty baskets and filled them half full with the compost then arranged the plants. I found this part hard, getting the soil around all the plants and keeping them in place and not to break them. But with lots of handfuls of compost I seemed to get there. I had to take my gloves of for this part and it was actually fun getting properly dirty hands.

Messy but fun

I am genuinely amazed at how well they have done and feel a sense of pride in the fact I have done this myself.

Trust me if I can do it I am sure you can give it a go. I will write soon a break down on how each one worked and what I will change next time.

Below are a few pictures and the plants I used.

Yellow and whites:

The hanging basket the flowers are Petunia Surfinia in Yellow and Snow

So pretty and a much paler yellow than the other baskets that are very bright.

The wall basket the flowers are Bacopa Guliver White and Bidens Golden Glory

This yellow and white are so happy.

The orange based hanging basket:

Lantana Camara Lucky Red Flame is the slightly taller plant, the trailing plants are Million Bells this is a Calibrachoa (mini petunia) Cracking Fire and the white ones are Calibrachoa Calita Double White

I loved all the orange and so glad I could get a basket full of them.

The pinks and purples hanging basket

Two taller Aztec Verbena in Violet, the trailing are Bacopa Topia Blutopia these are the small little soft purple flowers and Calibrachoa Calita Rose the darker pinky trailing flowers

Can not beat pinks and purples all together.

Purple wall basket 

The purple wall basket is made of one plant only Osteospermum Purple 2012 they can deal with shade which is good as this area does not get as much sun.

So pretty and does not mind shade a real winner I found here.

The red wall basket

A couple of Upright Geranium Scana Julie Purple Red then below a mix of Aztec Verbena Dark Red and Calibrachoa Calita Deep Red 

Reds big and bold much needed when the sky's are grey.