Hanging Basket Reveiw 2018

It is cold and sunny morning, so I thought I would sit down with a cup of tea and take a look back at the hanging baskets I planted up this year.

This is my third year planting my own baskets and every year I have learnt so many new lessons. The heatwave was lovely in so many ways, but the garden found it hard and anything in a pot or basket needed far more water, care and attention. Not something I am know for.

Petunia basket, I chose black and these ones that were white with an almost black/purple centre. The basket looked good but the back ones were a little lost. I am going to do this again next year but get more of the black plants as I want them to be the dominate ones. Also it is so easy to deadhead petunias and they just keep flowering. So easy to keep.

Nemesia Rhubarb and Custard surrounded with Calibrachoa Cabaret in Light pink and Lemon this was a lovely little basket and the nemesia flowered and flowered all summer. The calirachoa did well and we had lots of pretty flowers. It stayed pretty compact but looked delightful.

I also fell for Nemesia in Carmine a dark pink red Calibrachoa Cabaret and White Verbena. This looked great till we went on holiday and I forget to tell my friend we had this basket. Poor thing died with the heatwave. I will be using more verbina though this did very well and I loved the rich dark colours.

Heliotropium in purple surrounded by Lobelia Erinus in lavender and white Bacopa. Deadheading was a massive issue with this basket and proved very high maintenance. The Lobelia looked amazing to start with but then was just a mess of half dead flowers. The bacopa needed dead heading a lot though this was easy. The basket was in full sun all day and was almost impossible to keep it looking great with the heatwave.

I found these Spring Valley three in one Calibrachoa and lobelia its a mix of orange purple and white, I added diascia dark orange, I have not used any of these plants before. Well this one was not great and I will not be buying the three in one again. I had to remove one of the plants and add in extra calibrachoa as it looked so sad. But the Diasica was a great find and will be using that again

Despite the weather the baskets did very well. I fed them at least once every two weeks and they could have used more feed. The compost from Dalefoot was a brilliant find and I will be using that again. I need to buy another child's watering can as its the perfect one to water the pots with as I had to keep fighting it off my son who was not best pleased.

So we are now onto some winter baskets.... can not wait for next year, Mr MC&W has asked for more petunias sure I can can do that