Plant Patch
Hanging Baskets
Feeding and Watering
In July hanging baskets should be looking in their prime, full to the brim with plants and flowers. You should be feeding them weekly with a fertilizer high in potash the element that promotes flowering without encouraging masses of leaf growth. Tomatoes require the same balanced feed so tomato fertilizer is ideal for hanging baskets. Remember to water baskets daily even when it rains, the foliage is often so dense that it keeps out all but the hardest showers. Should your basket dry out at some time the easiest way to rewet is to plunge it in a bucket of water for half an hour.
Dead Heading To Prolong Flowering
Some plants will invariably grow to large or one sided the answer here is to cut them back. Remember to deadhead plants, as setting seed will severely limit the performance of the plant. If you have neglected to dead head forgotten to water and just beginning to wonder why you bothered. Take action. Cut back all straggly plants dead head the others and then use a feed high in nitrogen for a couple of weeks this will kick start the plants and then return to the high potash feed and your basket might last until September.
Choosing the Right Plants
It is worth making a mental note of which plants worked in your basket and which did not. A common mistake is to use too vigorous a plant in too small a basket. That charming little basket plant you bought in the spring has now swamped every thing and upset your imagined design. We have all done it at some time. Some plants need the sun to sparkle, put them in the shade and they sulk. The planting needs to suit the situation where the basket is going to hang. Baskets decorate lampposts, the seaside, sunny walls and hang under shop awnings with no sun. One formula will not suit all. I shall experiment with a basket planted entirely in ferns for shady places. They are hardy, like the shade, do not set seed and require little attention and can look cool and calm. Watch this spot.
Plant Patch 04 July 2006