How to Plant a Summer Hanging Basket - The Pizza Method!

[Music] you [Music] hello is the beginning of May and I'm here to show you how to make a really simple hanging basket that should grow in and look beautiful all summer I've been doing this for about 20 years the first thing you need to think about is your container so size really matters when it comes to hanging baskets simply because they retain the moisture it gives more room for the plant roots to grow and it just makes it easier maintenance in the long run so I call this the pizza method and the first thing is the size of your pizza was really important so this is your 12 inch pizza it's ideal for your winter hanging baskets where you don't need to water so much but really a bit small for the summer this is your 16 inch pizza your extra-large it's fantastic if you can go this big it's great you put in a lot more plants so it just cost more and you put in a lot more compost but then you really get something that really lasts really well but most people have this 14 inch basket and I think it works beautifully it's absolutely beautiful for the summer so now it's the next stage of the pizza process it's the dome and I just use a multi-purpose compost you can use a turbine basket compost but I've just always used multi-purpose and it's always worked really well for me you're gonna feel about three-quarters full and then you're going to perch the special secret ingredients in and this is what makes your basket lasts really well through in summer so I've got some granules you can get these anywhere they're just normal slow-release granules and I think they're fantastic because every time you water the granules just slowly dissolve and disintegrate and release fertilizer slowly into the compost and then this is water retaining gel so the water retaining gel will help your basket retain its moisture even if you might forget one day to water it absorbs the water and then releases it slowly so into their compost when it's needed however if you put it all at the top if you're not careful it bubbles up when it swells up and swells and looks disgusting like slugs coming over the top so that's why I do it at this point and mix it all in I think it's like making pastry but I was rubbish at cooking so don't take my word for it so there you go and then you top up again we multi-purpose [Music] this is the fun bit this is the plants but you have to think of the parents like pizza toppings and you have to think how you're gonna space them in your basket so what I usually start with is the central piece there's loads of things as long as it's upright because you want to think that the basket has this kind of overall effect of a dome rather than having all trailing or all upright so I would go for something like an austere sperm or a geranium or a fuchsia in the middle and there are different price options so you've got a really beautiful austere spell in here we've got a zonal geranium here or if you're making several you can buy a six pack and this works out a lot cheapo you can put each one of those geraniums in the center and it works out just as cheaply but ultimately when your baskets all grown in it looks just as beautiful as anything else but today I'm going to use a zone or just so you get the effect of what your geranium is going to look like there you are now I'm going to do the trailing plants with a 14 inch basket I believe you need four trailing plants it's your choice how many you use how well you think it's going to fill your basket I just find that four works really nicely in in this shape so I always like to put a trade in geranium simply because trade geranium is very tolerant if I forget to water the geranium does really well anyway [Music] when I'm planting geranium I'm positioning so it's growing outwards straightaway it just works better the other thing I like to put in is a fuchsia I love to use fuchsias and geraniums because they keep lasting and flowering to later on in the summer so when everything else is looking not as good the fuchsias and the geraniums are still looking at the best don't worry if the future is not flowering is after all early May so it will take a while before the finishes do flower in fact sometimes people buy things that are flowering early now and that's because they've been forced a little bit whereas if you really want longevity of your basket you're better to have things that's still to flower it doesn't look brilliant now but it will do so the next stage is putting the ones that look pretty they give a little bit of variation with dainty and delicate and I like to use biddings which is a lovely yellow flower another favorite of mine is back upper you have back up a snowflake which is a white one and then you have a beautiful move and a purpley color and pink one [Music] as you can see I placed them evenly around the basket just as if you're placing pepperoni on a pizza now it's time for the cheese you're going to use upright plants in each space between the trailing so you probably want to use two or three petunias and then you might want to add something else personally I love verbena one of my all-time favorites would I say that just about everything else and I also do like to have a little bit of a kick of color and you wouldn't normally think of hurting marigolds in hanging about it but I often do I like to think of it as for luck but I just like it it is something about the colors and that's another thing I want to talk to you about is lots of people like to have a color scheme when it comes to hanging baskets often it works better if you don't worry about the colors it's just a riot of color it just looks so bright and cheerful so don't get too fixated about how which color you want to use just go with it just find lots of things you like put them all together and that is the beauty of summer bedding so now I'm going to play on two petunias opposite one another these ones are quite big you don't need big plants especially now in early May often the smaller ones are better because they grow in all together and merge really nicely now I'm going to use the verbena [Music] you could use begonias you could use Bizzy Lizzie's like I say you can use even use marigolds anything that you like that you think looks pretty there's upright that fills that space lots of people ask me about Lavinia I love Lavinia it's absolutely beautiful but beware it is the first of the boning plants to finish and go over and it's also the most unforgiving if you forget to water so I use it sparingly in baskets if you really like it I would maybe only use three lots of lobelia in one basket and most and I just put it close to the edge so that it can trail over but sometimes to give a haze effect you can put it in the middle too don't judge your basket or yourself at this stage it will take a couple of weeks to look pretty if it was here at the nursery I would be watering it and hanging it up and in a couple of weeks I would expect it to look really good early May sometimes there are still Frost's if there are Frost's it will kill your plants so make sure on those cold nights you bring your basket in and then the most important job to do every single day is water water and water so you need to water either in early morning or in the evening and that way the moisture can really be absorbed when the the way there isn't too hot and make sure you really water the base of the plants don't water over the top watering over the top just spores the flowers water right down inside here to make sure that the compost gets truly wet don't let it dry out and the last thing is you might need to deadhead especially things like the petunias when there's a flower that's gone over what you want to do is you want to nip the stem right down to the bottom so the next flowers can keep coming and that way your basket should last all summer I hope you enjoy doing your basket as much as I do [Music] you

Channel: Ruth Goudy - The Flower Writer

Views: 55,817

Keywords: Summer Hanging Basket, Hanging basket, The Pizza Method, Simple method for making hanging baskets, Gardening, How to plant a summer hanging basket

Id: JU_0TZ6WXv4

Length: 10min 19sec (619 seconds)

Published: Sun May 31 2020