Hanging Baskets

Hanging baskets are one of the best ways to bring immediate color to areas of your home and garden, where growing plants in the conventional way may be difficult.

They can be positioned by the entrance door, to add a welcoming note for visitors, or to bring color to shadier areas. It's just a matter of providing a suitable bracket from which to hang the basket. Do remember that even a small basket, when filled with potting compost and well watered, weighs a great deal. So make sure your bracket is firmly fixed to the wall . Special anchor bolts, rather than simply a screw and a plastic wall plug are the order of the day.

As with all planting, you should consider the conditions of the area where the basket is intended to hang, before choosing your plants. So, if your basket is intended to brighten up a shady area, you should consider using a fuchsia as the centerpiece for height and surrounding it with shade tolerant plants such as impatiens, otherwise known as "Busy Lizzy". This plant originates on the floor of tropical rain forests. From this, you can understand the conditions it likes best: warmth, plenty of moisture and not over-bright conditions. For planting in the sides of the basket, trailing lobelia is ideal, as it tolerates both sunshine and shade.

If you are planting for an area that gets a lot of sun, you should use a geranium for your height giving central plant and under plant with petunias. When established these will tend to spill over the sides of the basket, although you should also plant the sides of the basket with contrasting lobelia.

No plants give of their best in windy conditions and by hanging up there in mid air, hanging baskets are at more risk of windy conditions than plants at ground level. Although hanging baskets can tolerate a certain amount of wind without detriment, do avoid areas that are prone to wind. For example, sometimes two buildings together tend to take on the conditions of a wind tunnel and amplify the windy conditions.

Trailing lobelia, in particular, does not like wind and, if you find the tips of this plant turning brown, too much wind is probably the cause.

In order to get the maximum flowers from your baskets you should make sure they never dry out and have an adequate supply of high potash fertilizer. You can give them this by either mixing a slow release fertilizer in the compost, along with some moisture retaining crystals, or you can give them a liquid feed of a high potash fertilizer as recommended by the maker's instructions.

You should water the baskets as often as once a day in very sunny or windy conditions. You might find baskets in shadier, sheltered areas can go a bit longer between watering, although the fuchsia/ impatiens shade basket will appreciate being sprayed with a fine mist of water on hot days — provided the sun is not shining directly on them.

Dead head your plants regularly, to encourage more flowers, and you will be rewarded with a very long season of continuous color.

Tags: Hanging Baskets

Creating a private garden space is a lot of fun to do, but it also provides you with years of enjoyment after the fact too. Sometimes called garden rooms, or outdoor rooms, a private garden space is made to be private. A sanctuary you can retreat to anytime you'd like, to enjoy nature, smell the beautiful flowers growing, and simply destress from the everyday hustle and bustle of life.

When planning your private garden, the general goal is usually to create a quiet place to retreat from the world. This garden doesn't have to be fully private, but it does have a much more calming effect when it's at least semi-private. So consider the location of your garden before starting to create it. If you must place the garden near busy or noisy areas such as close to the street, there are tactics you can use in your planning and design which will help dampen the noise and distractions. If possible though, you'll get the best results from a private garden space by creating it away from everyday noise and activity.

Private garden spaces usually tend to be on the small side, and many people turn small backyard patios or gazebos into their private garden space. The garden can be as large as you'd like though, depending on your own personal preferences and budget restrictions.

One of the first things you'll need to plan for is what kind of barrier you'll use for your garden. One of the reasons a private garden space is often referred to as a garden room, is because many people like to create living walls for their garden area. And these walls make the space seem more like an outdoor room because the garden space is more enclosed. If you prefer not to have your garden enclosed too much though, you can simply create an entranceway to your private garden space using an arbor or arch.

Living walls can be made by simply putting up inexpensive materials such as a chain link fence or wooden trellis, and using fast growing flower vines. Flower vines can easily be trained to grow up and over fences, trellis materials and arches too, and as these vines mature they create a thick living wall which separates your garden area from the rest of the world. These vines also tend to sheild the area from everyday noise and activity, plus they help to make the garden space cooler than the rest of the yard area may be as well.

An alternative way to create your private garden space quickly, is to simply buy flower pots and containers in a variety of sizes, then buy plants which have already started to grow. Arrange your flower boxes, pots and containers around the perimeter of the garden space, then plant the new flowers into them. If you choose flower pots and containers which have varying sizes and heights, you'll be able to strategically place them in locations which will block out everyday activities from your main line of sight. This type of private garden space won't always block out much noise though, so it's best located in a more secluded area of the yard.

Tags: Private Garden