Planting in hanging baskets

NAIROBI: Unlike ordinary pots, hanging baskets need special consideration when being planted. First, the soil mix needs to be lightweight. Second, the soil must retain moisture, because hanging baskets dry out faster than most other containers. Then of course there is the matter of keeping the soil in, in wire frame baskets.

Here are some tips to guide you in installing hanging baskets.

SOIL

One way to achieve a suitable mix is to start with some high-quality top soil and add perlite or vermiculite at the ratio of three parts soil to one part, whichever additive you choose. Perlite and vermiculite both lighten the mix. However, vermiculite also absorbs and retains water.

These additives are usually available at horticultural supply shops and selected supermarkets. Mixing in some slow release fertiliser granules is a good idea, too.

• .

  Keep Reading

• 
  Ensuring sustainability in affordable housing programme
• 
  City MPs snub Ruto as cracks emerge in UDA-ODM union
• 
  Government has set aside 12,000 acres for affordable housing, Wahome
• 
  From hostels to low deposits: What Kenyans want in the housing levy

If hangers will be displayed in full sun, consider adding water-absorbing crystals, which absorb water and turn gel-like, releasing moisture slowly as the soil dries up.

WIRE BASKET

Planting a solid hanging basket is pretty much the same as planting any small pot. However, a wire basket lined with sphagnum moss or flexible plastic requires some special attention. In the case of sphagnum moss, start by soaking the moss in water for at least ten minutes.

Support the basket on a large pot or bucket to keep it upright and begin to line it by laying sheets of dampened moss about an inch thick, along the bottom and halfway up the sides.

Loosely fill the basket with soil to just below the moss level, and then resume lining the sides with moss. Continue right up to the top until the moss covers the rim area. Use plenty of moss so you don’t have any gaps, and fill loosely with more soil until you reach the top.

SIDE PLANTS

Begin planting the sides of the hanging basket starting near the bottom. Carefully open a space between the wires and through the moss.

Loosen any tangled roots, and insert the roots through the hole and into the moist soil. Use more wads of moss to tuck the plant in securely, and gently bend the wires together above and below the plant.

Allow at least seven centimetres between plants as you stagger them evenly around the sides.

The more plants you plant on the sides, the quicker they will grow together and the less of the basket you will see later on.

TOP PLANTS

When the side plants are in place, you can begin planting the top plants. Space them evenly with the tallest in the centre, allowing at least seven centimetres between plants. Set them so that the soil level is slightly below the rim. Again, the fuller you plant the top, the quicker your basket can become a mass of colour and texture. Be careful not to plant right over the roots of side plants near the rim.

Firm the top plants in, adding more soil as needed but keeping the level below the top of the moss.

— The writer is a landscape architect.