Hanging Baskets - lessons to learn

Last week I published a post all about how well the hanging baskets went that I had planted. This week I want to look at what did not go so well and that I will change next time.

As your aware I am new to gardening and plants, so learning through my mistakes. The hanging baskets were overall a huge success and I am thrilled, but let's have a look at what lessons I have learnt.


The Red Basket:

This was made up of, a couple of Upright Geranium Scana Julie Purple Red then below a mix of Aztec Verbena Dark Red and Calibrachoa Calita Deep Red this was a total disaster. The poor basket just did not get enough light, the ivy made sure of that. The plants just died. I cut back the ivy but this was not enough. I need to cut the ivy right back or nothing will survive. This was a real shame as it should have looked lovely but I put the plants in the wrong position. They needed sunshine and for some reason best known only to me, i decided to ignore this. Lesson learnt read the labels and do not make my own rules.

It started so well

Trying to survive

Yellow and whites:

The flowers are Petunia Surfinia in Yellow and snow. These were beautiful but I did not get the mix of the plants right when I planted them. This meant we had a huge cascade of white flowers and the yellow got a little lost. Next time I will really look at how the plants are placed before I do the planting and think about how they will grow. 

Lots of white needed better planting to get mix of the white and yellow

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 adored this basket but the simple mistake was it needed better placement of plants and more of them. The tall Lantana Camara was beautiful but got lost a little in the display, I think two would have been better. The trailing plants needed more volume. I think maybe more of the orange trailing Million Bells this is a Calibrachoa (mini petunia) Cracking Fire, a couple more of these would have worked much better and would have had a bigger impact without loosing it's reserved beauty.  

Lantana Camara Lucky Red Flame looks beautiful but lost

Million Bells Calibrachoa (mini petunia) Cracking Fire needed more of these

This was a beautiful display and an excellent mixture of the trailing plants. My problem was not deadheading the Verbena they went over and for a week or so I had no flowers on top. This spoilt the display for a while and I made sure I kept on top of deadheading these.

Who did not deadhead in time?

So pretty when they came back

looks so sad

Purple wall basket - Osteospermum Purple 2012

This basket did not start out well, they were just lots of green leaves with a few flowers. I went through the Plants and made sure I deadheaded everyone and slowly the flower buds came through. Then they flowered not the mass flowers of the other baskets but these are a different type of plant. I had to keep on top of the deadheading and in the end, they looked lovely but I think it needs something extra compliment the beautiful purple flowers, maybe something trailing next time.

Not happy plant at first

Buds starting to form

Beautiful when they came into flower

I can not wait to try some more hanging baskets. I will be out to the garden centre early spring to start again and will keep you all informed.