Thank you to those of you who have shared photos, comments, and asked questions! I love connecting with you.
Some of you have been asking about container planting so I thought I would focus on that with this blogpost today.
I love hanging baskets and to have a deck full of flowers! Living in an older home where the entertaining space feels small, having a big deck to entertain on has been wonderful. It is our outdoor living room in the summer and I love seeing the flowers through my kitchen window. Hummingbirds regularly visit and as things grow, the deck transforms into an oasis.
Before we built our deck, I used to buy about 10-14 pre-made hanging baskets as a band fund-raiser for the school where I worked. Each basket cost about $20 and would arrive just before Mother's Day. I was busy working and the cost didn't seem that much because I was helping the band program and I didn't really know any better!
Then I learned you could make them cheaper; that really spoke the thrifty part of me. Given how expensive everything is becoming, a hanging basket that used to cost $20 is now closer to $30 or more. By reusing the hanging baskets that I could (or purchasing them as replacements for about $2.50 a pot), purchasing my starters (I use about 6 per basket), and my soil, I could make a hanging basket for between $12-16 It's even cheaper when I grow my own starters with seeds that I harvested and saved from the year before. On top of all that, I find a huge amount of joy in creating it myself and watching it grow.
So once we built our deck, I started to make my own baskets. I started with 4 hanging baskets that hung at the front of the house and 4 that hung off the four big posts of our deck. The following year, I added 4 standing planters underneath those hanging baskets. In all of their glory, they look like a pillar of flowers. The vanilla fragrance of the heliotrope is strong and the wave petunias are a favourite for the hummingbirds.
For the last few summers, I have babysat a friend's deck containers while she travels (thanks Kaylie!) which added even more flowers, and for the last two years, I have also grown my hot peppers on the deck to keep them away from the dog who might think they are a tasty treat. To say the deck is teeming with plants is an understatement.
Every year, I build the planters with some of the same flowers and then always try to change them up with some different varieties.
In my hanging baskets and planters, I always have:
wave petunias-I have tried a lot of different ones and always find the hot pink ones the most prolific for some reason
heliotrope-comes in dark purple, purple and white mixed, and light purple colour and smells like vanilla
a taller, bushy non-trailing plant such as: geranium (in my hanging baskets), dahlia (the small, bushy kind), zinnia (small), gerbera, salvia
Then I add in others that catch my eye. I try to mix up the colours so that it is more of a rainbow of colours to compliment the purples of the heliotrope and the pinks of the petunias
calibrachoa or superbells (smaller petunia-like plants, often striped)
potato vine
osteospermum
ipomoea
bacopa
snapdragons
When buying or growing annuals for your baskets or containers, consider location. My deck gets a lot of sun from morning until about 2 or 3 pm. It remains very bright after that. too so I choose plants that are good for full sun. Some shade plants might do well under the covered part of my deck but I tend to stick to full sun or part sun plants. Did you know that many shade plants can actually grow in the sun but tend to thrive in the shade?
Here are some great shade plants for containers:
lobelia
fushia
coleus
begonia
impatiens
bacopa
vinca
ferns
hostas
Here's how I put my hanging baskets and containers together:
Start with cleaning out your containers if you are like me and don't like to do it in the wet, cold Fall. When I am done with my planters, I am DONE. Because I leave them until spring, this is what they look like. Some people disinfect their pots and planters to ensure that there are no molds or diseases. I just make sure that they are well sprayed out and have no residual soil or plant matter in them.
Once you have cleaned out your pots/containers, let the planting begin!
Start with your container. I like the 12" round containers for my hanging baskets. I find the 10" pots a little to small and the plants tend to get root-bound very quickly and then they don't last as long. The 12" pots seem to be able to hold and grow about 6 plants well and they can flower will into the fall. I believe it was late October/early November that I finally took them down because they were almost done and starting to look a little sorry.
Last year, I discovered these drip pans and I love them. Fair warning, they are twice as expensive as buying the hanging basket (about $4 each) but they are great to help with water retention (especially if you hand-water your plants). They do help to keep the drying out down. The only negative of these drip pans is the little clips that hook onto the pot. They tend to break off over time (they did not winter well). I recommend removing them carefully at the end of the season and storing them indoors so that you can reuse them the following year. I didn't do this and had to rebuy them. I am now using the old ones as drip trays for my deck planters that don't hang.
For my non-hanging basket pots, if they are narrow, they need to be deep and if they are shallow, they need to be wide to accommodate the roots of the plants. Again, you want them to be able to get bigger without choking each other out because of a lack of room.
Whether you are making hanging baskets or standing planters, you need to ensure that your pot has good drainage. The worst thing that can happen to your plants is that they get water-logged and literally drown.
To help with this, I place a seedling pot over the drainage holes. This allows the water to drain and prevents the holes from getting clogged by dirt.
Next, I put in good-quality potting soil. My preferred brand for containers and hanging baskets is to use Miracle-Gro Moisture control soil. This large bag will fill about 8 hanging baskets so it goes a long way. It cost $15.99 at Canadian Tire (about $2/basket).
If you want to use other potting soil but want to increase the water retention of that soil, you can add some coconut coir to your soil as an amendment. One year, I got some of those moisture beads that you soak in water and can use in flower arrangements from the dollar store and added them to my soil. They worked great to help keep the roots moist, especially during hot summer days.
Next, I add slow-release fertilizer. This fertilizer lasts for 4 months which means I don't have to fertilize for most of the summer. The slow-release fertilizer goes a long way. I paid $12 for the fertilizer. I used it on 4 hanging baskets and 7 standing planters and still had some left over meaning it cost less than $1 a planter to fertilize it.
I sprinkle a couple of tablespoons per pot and mix it in.
Then I add in my plants. Because my hanging baskets on my deck are up against a post, I always hold my hanging basket up to ensure that I know where the back of the pot is. I always put my non-trailing, taller plant at the back of the basket. Then I add in my trailing plants around the edges. I lay my plants on their side to encourage them to grow over the edges.
While it looks sparse now, as it grows and trails down the pot, you won't see the hanging basket or the drip pan.
For my deck planters, I follow essentially the same formula. Taller, bushier, non-trailing plants in the back and trailing plants along the sides and front.
One of these pots is tall but narrow and can accommodate 6 plants because the roots have lots of room to grow down. The other pot is a shallow but wide pot and has 7 plants in it. I have put a drip pan under it to help contain some of the water that the plants will need once the weather warms up and the roots grow down.
My tall planters have an insert so the planter itself only goes down about 12" with a drain hole at the bottom. This allows enough room for the roots to grow down and the water to drain out. My metal planters are quite old (at least 6 years old and are not the greatest looking) so I purchased these plastic wicker planters that I insert my metal containers into.
Once you have the plants in the containers, water well to ensure that the roots are settled into the soil. Because our temperatures are still cool and the plants are small, you will only need to water once every 3-5 days. Once the weather gets warmer and the plants are bigger, you may need to water once a day on hot days and on cooler days every two days.
Before COVID, we used to go away camping or to the States. We didn't have a watering system on timers for our deck and hand-watered as needed. Whenever we left, we still needed to find a way to keep the hanging baskets watered if we couldn't find someone to do it. Our solution: buy a kiddy pool (large enough to put all of your baskets and planters in (a larger pool about 4-5 feet across or two smaller ones work). I purchased mine from Superstore for about $10. I fill it half full and put the plants into it under the covered portion of our deck where they have a bit of protection and won't dry out as quickly. This way they can keep for about a week before they need more water.
I am so looking forward to spending time on my deck this summer. The flowers I planted this weekend will bring me immense joy all summer long and into the fall too.
If you are creating your own hanging baskets and containers this season, please share your photos and what you planted. I am always on the lookout for different plants and ideas for creating baskets.
Happy gardening!
The Joyful Gardener
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