CAROLINA SEASONS NURSERY
  • Home
  • Our Plants
    • Fruits & Nuts
    • Annuals, Perennials & Roses >
      • Annuals
      • Herbs
      • Perennials
      • Cool Weather Vegetables
      • Hot Season Vegetables
      • Hot Season Vegetables
      • Roses
      • Grasses
      • Vines
    • Trees & Shrubs >
      • Small and Medium Trees
      • Shade/Large Trees
      • Deciduous and Flowering Shrubs
      • Evergreen Shrubs
    • Planting Suggestions
  • Mulch
  • About Us
    • Our Background
    • Contact Us
    • Employment Opportunities
  • Community Support
  • Wholesale Customers
  • Blog

How to Keep Hanging Baskets Looking Great in Summer

6/22/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture

​Hanging baskets are a beautiful addition to any porch, patio, or garden. The densely-packed blossoms are vibrant and cheerful, adding a pop of color to your outdoor spaces. They also help feed our pollinators, like bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. But after a month or two, they can start to look a little worse for wear.

Keeping your hanging baskets beautiful all summer long is pretty simple, but it does require some regular maintenance. Hanging baskets need lots of water, regular fertilizer, and believe it or not, pruning. A few snips here and there every couple of weeks will keep them looking fresh and full.

Picture

Watering Your Hanging Baskets

Hanging baskets are stuffed with plants, which means there is not much soil in the pot. They are also often high up in the air, exposed to the sun and wind, which makes them dry out quickly. Fiber baskets dry out even quicker than plastic ones.
​
Your hanging baskets should be watered every day through our Greenville summers. On the hottest days of the year, you may need to water them twice a day. You can gauge this by how heavy they feel, and if the basket feels light, water it. 

Even if it rains, you’ll still need to water your hanging baskets. On a rainy day, they won’t dry out as fast, but the rain doesn’t get into the pot very easily. The massive amounts of foliage and flowers in a hanging basket means most of the rain runs off without it ever reaching the soil.

A watering wand on your hose is probably the easiest way to water hanging baskets. If the basket is really light, give it a little bit at a time until it feels quite heavy, and water is running out of the drainage holes. Another way to water hanging baskets is to take them down and set them in a full pail of water, or a kid’s play pool full of water. Let them soak until they feel heavy again. 

Picture

​Fertilizing Your Hanging Baskets

Hanging baskets are just as hungry as they are thirsty. Since there is very little soil in your baskets, your plants will use up all the soil nutrients very quickly. Profusely blooming plants need lots of nutrients to keep producing all those beautiful flowers, so fertilizing is vital for keeping your hanging baskets looking their best all summer. Most liquid soluble fertilizers will work just fine; think the blue stuff. 

Fertilize your hanging baskets every other week. Make sure to mix the fertilizer according to the package directions. Apply fertilizer when the soil in the pots is damp; otherwise, it could burn the roots. 

A couple months after you take your hanging basket home, it could start running low on micronutrients. These are elements needed by plants in very small portions. Too much or too little can cause a variety of leaf discolorations or poor growth. Portulaca needs a periodic dose of trace amounts of Epsom salt in order to keep leaves from purpling. If you suspect micronutrient deficiency, look for a fertilizer with micronutrients included. Most fertilizers do not have the total package, so read the labels carefully.
​ 
Picture

Pruning Your Hanging Baskets

If your baskets have tons of blooms hanging over the sides, but they’re starting to look a little flat on top, do a little rejuvenation pruning. You can safely take off about ⅓ of each plant, so aim to prune off whatever is hanging down. Pruning will encourage the plant to bush out more and should help it fill in around the top again. You can either do a weekly rejuvenation pruning by clipping past-prime plant material, or you can do a more intensive biweekly pruning by taking off up to ⅓ of the plant’s foliage and blossoms.
​

Deadheading also encourages more blooming, so pinch or snip off spent blooms whenever you walk by. This will keep the plant looking its best and encourage the plant to flower for longer.

Hanging baskets do require a bit more maintenance than other types of planters. However, with the amount of color payoff they give your garden design, it's always worth the extra few minutes per day!
​
1 Comment

    Blog

    Carolina Seasons Nursery

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019

    Categories

    All
    Annuals
    Blog
    Edibles
    Evergreens
    Fall
    Flowering
    Guide
    Herbs
    Holidays
    Houseplants
    Hummingbirds
    Lawn
    Maintenance
    Pest Control
    Plant Care
    Planting
    Pollinators
    Seed Starting
    Shrubs
    Spring
    Trees
    Vegetables
    Winter

    RSS Feed

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Copyright © 2007-2018 Carolina Seasons Nursery, LLC.  All rights reserved.
  • Home
  • Our Plants
    • Fruits & Nuts
    • Annuals, Perennials & Roses >
      • Annuals
      • Herbs
      • Perennials
      • Cool Weather Vegetables
      • Hot Season Vegetables
      • Hot Season Vegetables
      • Roses
      • Grasses
      • Vines
    • Trees & Shrubs >
      • Small and Medium Trees
      • Shade/Large Trees
      • Deciduous and Flowering Shrubs
      • Evergreen Shrubs
    • Planting Suggestions
  • Mulch
  • About Us
    • Our Background
    • Contact Us
    • Employment Opportunities
  • Community Support
  • Wholesale Customers
  • Blog