Hanging baskets are a wonderful way to add instant colour and impact to your garden, and with so many plants to choose from, creating your own design has never been so interesting!

They’re easier to make up and maintain than you may think, and if you follow our guide to creating and caring for your own beautiful baskets, you’ll have fabulous colour to enjoy all summer long.

1. Your Basket Design

From a design perspective, there are two types of hanging basket.

The first is where all of the plants blend together to make a ball – these are particularly effective and have lots of impact if you use a single type and colour of plant.

The second is demonstrated in our guide, with a centre-piece plant and surrounding plants. With this design, we’d recommend you think in odd numbers (particularly ones, threes and fives) to create a nicely balanced basket – we’ve chosen one centre-piece plant and two different plants (three of each) for the edge of our basket.

2. Your Basket ‘Ingredients’

For your basket, you’ll need the following ‘ingredients’:

• Your basket
• A basket liner (if required) of coir or polythene with drainage holes
• Suitable compost
• Water-retaining crystals
• Food tablets
• And of course your lovely plants!

3. Creating Your Basket

First place your liner in your basket and add in some good quality compost. Scatter in some water-retaining crystals before filling your basket with compost – leaving a gap of 1.5”/6cm to the top of your liner – then firm it down with your hands.

Make a hole in the centre of your compost for your centre-piece plant, then remove the plant from its pot and tease out the roots before placing it in the hole and firming it in with your hands.

Next you’ll need to add in the plants you have chosen for the edges, planting at equal points around your centre plant and firm them in. Then add your final three plants in the spaces which remain, again firming gently round each one.

Then it’s time to add your continuous release food tablets, making sure to follow the recommended amount on the packaging, before carefully filling any remaining gaps with compost. Don’t overfill it though as you need to make sure you have enough space to water!

4. And finally…!

All that’s left is to give it a thorough water and then it’s ready to hang – congratulations, you’ve just made your first beautiful hanging basket. Keep it watered and deadhead regularly to promote flowering, and enjoy your summer of colour!

Need help or inspiration?

Not sure which plants to use? Just ask our friendly staff for expert advice!

Fancy a hanging basket with a difference? Why not create an edible one with trailing tomatoes and herbs.

Don’t have time to put your own baskets together? Just let us know and we’ll make them up for you!

We stock a huge range of baskets, plants and all the supplies you’ll need to create your own designs, so visit us today to choose your ingredients for your own beautiful baskets!

Hanging Basket Update – June

At the end of May, just a few weeks later, you can see that Gill’s basket is making good progress…

Hanging Basket Update – July

Now Gill’s basket is looking even better…