Weekly Garden Tip

July 16, 2006

By Gene Joyner, Extension Agent
Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension Service

If you have a landscape with a lot of trees or a beautiful screened enclosure, a lot of times you may wish to display hanging plants of various types. There are many dozens of types of tropical foliage plants as well as other things that are well suited for use as hanging basket type plants.

When you go to visit garden centers you usually can see an array of hanging baskets already ready to go home with you or if you like to prepare them yourself you can find a wide variety of decorative hanging baskets in various styles and colors and buy a bag of potting soil or potting media and take the selected plants home, pot them up and then hang them from your favorite tree or in a screened enclosure.

Many of the type plants that are best displayed as hanging types are vines because of their natural cascading nature. Good examples would be many types of philodendron and ivy. You can also use flowering plants in hanging baskets and many people use popular bedding plants to advantage of they don’t have outside growing areas to display them.

If you’re into specialty plants like orchids, bromeliads, or ferns, these too make excellent container specimens and the nice thing with container plants if we have storms or severe weather they can be taken down and put in more sheltered locations temporarily and put back out after the danger has disappeared. This is especially true with cold sensitive plants that on nights when frosts or freezes come in the winter can be put indoors for a night or two and they suffer no damage where outside plants that can’t be moved might get badly injured or even killed.

Most hanging basket type plants should be fertilized anywhere from once a month to once every 2 to 4 months depending on the type of fertilizer products used. Watering varies with the types of plants selected so make sure that you get valuable tips on the care of the plants you select for hanging baskets.
Remember if you buy already prepared hanging baskets often times each nursery uses different types of soil mixes so even plants in the same size containers purchased at different nurseries may dry out at varying rates and require different watering schedules.

If you have pest or disease problems with hanging plants, generally these are minor in nature and they are easily controlled. Don’t be guilty though of overwatering since many times root rot can develop that can kill plants used in hanging baskets.

If you have questions about hanging plant care, contact the Palm Beach County Extension office for free advice. Dial 233-1750 in the north and central county area or 276-1260 in the south county area.