How to Design Your Own Hanging Basket
If you love the look of hanging baskets but have never tried to design one yourself, now is the time! It’s not too tricky, especially if you follow the classic thriller, filler, and spiller design method. Hanging baskets are a quick and colourful way to add flowers to your Powell River porch or patio!
Thriller, Filler, Spiller: What Does That Even Mean?!
The thriller, filler, spiller design method is pretty simple to follow. A thriller is a taller feature plant, a spiller is a mid-level plant that fills in space around the bottom of the feature plant, and a spiller is an accent plant that trails down over the edge of a basket or container. Your thriller can be in the center of a hanging basket, surrounded by thrillers and spillers, or it can be at the back, with the thrillers in the middle, and spillers at the front.
With Proven Winners annuals, you can guarantee that your hanging basket will look amazing, as long as you take care of it. Did you know that Mother Nature is a Proven Winners Certified Garden Center? That means our staff have received extra training and education on the high-quality Proven Winners plants we carry. It also means we have access to a library of resources and professional advice, so we can support our customers even better with gardening and growing questions.
Keep Your Hanging Baskets Looking Great
Hanging baskets require slightly different care than different types of containers or plants that are in the ground. Hanging baskets are usually fairly shallow and lightweight so that, when they’re full of plants and soil, they’re not too heavy to hang up. This also means that once your baskets are full of plants, there’s not much soil in there to retain water or nutrients for your plants.
Generally, hanging baskets are stuffed a little fuller than other containers, to give that full-to-bursting effect of a giant ball of flowers. We advise 3-5 plants for a 10” basket, and 7-9 for a 14” basket. That’s a lot of roots competing for the same space, water, and nutrients. Hanging baskets also get more wind exposure because they’re higher off the ground. So they tend to dry out a little faster than other types of containers.
To keep your baskets looking their best, you’ll want to check if they need water every day. In the hottest days of summer, they may even need to be watered twice a day. Fertilizer is your friend if you want to keep the flowers in hanging baskets blooming profusely all season. Fertilize once a week with flowering-plant-specific fertilizer for the best blooms.
One last guideline when you’re getting ready to design your hanging baskets is to remember to check the tags for the plants you’re considering. Make sure to buy plants that like the same conditions. A full shade lover and a full sun lover will not go over well in the same hanging basket, so make sure you’re choosing plants that like part-shade to full shade for a shady spot, and combine sun-loving plants for full sun locations.
