How to Successfully Replant Last Year’s Hanging Flower Baskets
One of my favorite parts of spring is the opportunity to finally bring color back to the garden, and once the tulips start to bloom, I know it’s time to freshen up my hanging flower baskets. Every year, people line up at the local market to buy these annual-colored hanging baskets, and they don’t come cheap. Because they are full of annual flowers, no matter how much you care for them, they will not survive into winter. Many people throw these baskets away at this point, but they can be reused. Here’s how to get beautiful flowers in hanging baskets year after year.
It’s important to know that if you’ve ever tried to get a second year out of these baskets, the odds were stacked against you. First, all the fertilizer in the soil that was used last year is now used up, and the soil itself is compacted. Second, you won’t be able to achieve the same full baskets unless you start now, like the basket manufacturers do. Thirdly, you need to know what flowers to plant to get a really vibrant and vibrant look. Here are all the techniques I learned to use.
Grow early, starting from seed rather than seed.
No matter how early I started putting the baskets together each year, they still looked just “good” by spring. In the meantime, my nursery and grocery store had some great overflow baskets available. My friend Cynthia, who owns a greenhouse on 42nd Street in Utah and grows baskets, explained to me that nurseries do not grow these flowers from seeds. They use plugs, which are usually cuttings from existing plants. For example, if you have a petunia, you can simply take cuttings from it, dip them in rooting powder, stick them into the soil, and voila: set the plants free. Because they grow from a plant rather than a seed, they take almost no time to take root and develop their own flowers. Once I learned this trick, the last thing I do each fall is gather the trimmings and root them for my spring baskets. It’s not too late to do this now if you can find pansies, petunias, calibrachoas or other annuals you typically see in baskets. Buy a six pack and start propagating.
Some annuals grow quickly from seed and do well in baskets, such as nasturtiums, so now is the time to start them from seed. Other flowers that grow fast enough to produce seeds are marigolds and sweet alyssum. These seeds can be planted directly into baskets or you can start with seeds in seed trays right away.
Refresh the soil
The soil in the pot compacts easily and by the end of the season it will have used up all the slow-release fertilizer it contains. So the first step is to take a basket, empty the soil and break it by hand. Once everything is fluffy again, add a slow-release fertilizer such as Osmacote to the soil and mix well. Now put the soil back into the basket. You will find that plants can root themselves, are easier to plant, and will bloom over time with the help of fertilizer.
Pack them in
Baskets typically pack a lot of flowers into a very small space, and a nursery usually chooses a color theme and flower pattern that looks good together. Hanging plants surround the outside of the basket and taller plants surround the middle. Once they start growing, they can become quite large and bloom. So the first step is to choose flowers. For hanging flowers, choose nasturtiums in red, orange and yellow. Petunias, especially double petunias, will continue to cascade blooms all summer long in any shade under the sun. Calibrachoa cascades like a petunia, with a small flower that looks more like a spray of flowers. Lobelia comes in all shades of purple and blue and, like sweet alyssum, comes in tiny splashes of colorful flowers. Fuchsia is a draping plant that blooms in shades of pink and red all summer long.
For a centerpiece, consider marigolds in red, orange and yellow, or geraniums, which grow right in colors ranging from fuchsia to red. Of course, you can place any annual flower in the center, as long as it is low and compact, so you can use daisies, as well as rootstock or even compact snapdragons, all of which come in a rainbow of colors.
You don’t just have to grow the flower either; There are many herbaceous plants that will add green tones to your basket, including periwinkle and creeping jenny.
Add some light to the plants and incubate them until spring.
Your basket shouldn’t go outside until the nighttime temperature is consistently above 50 degrees, so until then, your basket should live inside, under lights. Make sure the basket remains damp but not flooded. When spring finally arrives, be sure to harden off your plants rather than just putting them outside.
By simply refreshing the soil and propagating your own plants, you can save a huge amount on these hanging baskets, which range in price from $30 to over $100 each.