Things You'll Need:
- Baskets
- Hanging brackets or hooks
- S-hooks
- Potting soil
- Compost
- Spoon or garden spade
- Assorted flowers and plants
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Step 1
Select an assortment of flowers, greens and containers designed to hang from hooks or brackets. All potted plants need ample drainage, so be sure your containers have outflow holes.
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Step 2
Examine the location where you'll hang your baskets. Allow ample sunshine. Hanging baskets also need protection from strong winds.
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Step 3
Estimate how far apart you'll want your baskets. Install hanging hooks and give your baskets a test-hang before you fill them with flowers.
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Step 4
Provide ample space between hanging hooks so that trailing and climbing plants don't fight for each other's space. Let your hanging baskets frame, but not block, doorways and entrances.
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Step 5
Vary the height at which you'll hang your baskets. Use large S-hooks to add lengths of chain, macramé ropes and other creative extenders.
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Step 1
Line each hanging basket with sphagnum moss mixed with pea gravel to encourage drainage. Toss in a handful of compost or well-rotted manure atop the moss-gravel mix.
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Step 2
Fill your baskets about two-thirds full of a mix of two parts potting soil to one part compost. Moisten the soil.
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Step 3
Work from the inside out. Use a spoon or small spade to create a hole for your central plants, those that grow up and out, or grow erect in place, such as geraniums, ferns and begonias.
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Step 4
Place larger plants in the middle. Surround the large plants with smaller plants, or those that creep outward, such as alyssum, pansies and impatiens.
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Step 5
Plant the rim side of the hanging basket with trailing greens and plants, such as periwinkle, ivies,and spider plants. Interplant trailing greens with cascading annuals such as violas, nasturtiums and petunias. Fill the finished hanging basket with soil, tamp down to secure the plants in place, then water well, and hang.
