How to Plant Window Box Containers and Hanging Wire Moss Baskets

You can create hanging flower baskets using sphagnum peat moss.

Gardening with containers, pots, baskets or window boxes can be done regardless of your living space, be it an apartment, cottage or condo. You can plant window box containers or hanging wire moss baskets.

Things You'll Need

• Containers, pots, baskets or window boxes
• Potting soil
• Plants
• Foam peanuts or small rocks, bits of broken clay pots
• Garbage bags or aluminum pie pan
• Sphagnum moss

Instructions

Window Box Containers

1. Clean your pots and containers if you used them last year. Scrub out remaining residue. Line the bottom of your pot or window box, covering the drain holes with foam peanuts, small rocks or bits of broken clay pots.

2. Add potting soil mix nearly to the top of the container. If the mix needs aerating, add vermiculite.

3. Place the plants at the top of the container. The number of plants you will need depends on the size of your window box or pot. For an average size window box, about 34 inches long, if you are planting geraniums for a sunny exposure, you will want three to five plants for the back of your window box.

4. Remove any yellow or dead leaves from the plants at the bottom. For the front of the box, choose three to five plants of vinca or ivy with different leaf shapes and colors for definition. Place ivy plants in the corners of the box and at least one in the middle. Place hybrid petunias in between the ivies.

5. Water and fertilize every three weeks or so. Flowering plants enjoy fertilizer, especially geraniums.

Hanging Baskets

1. Soak sphagnum moss in a large tub or bucket. Let it sit until it is saturated.

2. Place thick pieces of soaked moss in the bottom of your basket. Gradually build up the sides of the basket, pressing moss on the inside. Pat it gently down, smoothing over any holes.

3. Add about 2 inches of potting soil in the bottom of the basket. Poke holes in the aluminum pie plate or cut a square of plastic from a garbage bag and cut a few holes in it for drainage. Line the bottom of the basket with the plate or plastic.

4. Fill the basket with potting mix to about an inch from the top and add your plants. Include fuschia and tuberous begonias. Single impatiens make good fillers, along with trailing ivies. An 18-inch basket requires about three larger plants, three filler plants, one million bell trailer for sunny exposure and three to five ivy selections.

5. Water your wire hanging basket thoroughly after planting and let sit flat for a couple of days to settle, then hang it up. Fertilize it regularly.

Tips & Warnings

• Devise your own color scheme, using your favorite colors or chair fabric as a focal point.

• Sphagnum moss is available in bags from a garden nursery. Wear rubber gloves while working with the moss.

References

• University of Illinois Extension: Making Hanging Baskets
• Alabama Cooperative Extension System: Greenhouse Production of Flowering Hanging Baskets