Garden Advice

The Best Plants for Hanging Baskets

Fantastic Team
Published: Jul 13/2020
Last update: Oct 01/2024
3min read
Views: 305

Image source: Klever_ok / Shutterstock.com

Hanging baskets are a beautiful, interesting way to spruce up your front door, backyard or living room. They can bring a fun, colourful look or make for an elegant green accent in any space. But creating them is not as easy as it might seem. You need to carefully choose and arrange your plants, pay attention to where you will place the basket, and provide proper care.

But what are the best plants for hanging baskets? How do you choose them? Does the season matter? Worry not! The experts at Fantastic Services have the answers to all your questions!

Table of Contents:

How to choose your plants
Summer hanging baskets
Winter hanging baskets

So, if you:

Want to put up hanging baskets around your home;
Are wondering what plants to choose for your baskets;
Want to know which plants are best for each season,

Then keep reading, because this post is just for you!

How to choose the best plants for hanging baskets

When selecting the plants for your hanging baskets, decide on a look that you want to stick to. For example, a colour scheme. Would you prefer an explosion of colour or a simple, soft palette? Or maybe you’d like an elegant display of greenery. The plants you choose will depend on the vision you have in mind.

The best arrangement is usually a combination of trailing and upright plants, with the trailing varieties planted at the edges of the basket to add volume.

Pay attention to where you would like to place the basket. Is it in full sun, partial sun, or shade? Not all flowers thrive in the same conditions, so you’ll need to select your combination carefully.

Last but not least, make sure you choose plants that are appropriate for the season. For example, select spring or summer-flowering plants for the warmer months and replace them with winter-flowering types when autumn comes around.

So, without further ado, let’s dive right into what the ideal plants for hanging baskets are.

The best plants for summer hanging baskets

There is a vast array of plants you can choose for your summer hanging basket. Here we have listed our favourites, chosen due to their blooming time, variety and suitability.

Begonia
Begonias are easily recognisable by their thick stems and large hanging blossoms. They are pretty easy to grow and will bloom all summer long. Just make sure you provide them with enough shade to grow comfortably.
Petunia
Petunias are a very popular bedding plant, commonly used for hanging baskets. While they are generally tender perennials, some modern varieties are grown as hardy annuals. They come in beautiful single colour and two-tone varieties, and vary from white to dark purple. Keep in mind that some kinds require trimming and deadheading.
Calibrachoa
This miniature version of the petunia is also a tender perennial. A trailing variety is great for the edge of the basket, where it can flow down and add volume to the arrangement. Calibrachoa grows fast and blossoms for a long time. This flower is tolerant to rain, too, which means placing it outside won’t be an issue. It has fine stems, pale green leaves, and small flowers that come in pink, red, yellow, orange or white. Grow calibrachoa either in the sun or shade, but handle them carefully while they are young, as they can be very delicate.
Fuchsia
This plant can bring an exotic look to your front door or garden, with its trailing varieties – Purple Rain and White King, for example – make for an impressive display. Fuchsias are quite tough and semi-hardy, so keep them in a frost-free place and put them out again once spring comes around. This flower is usually grown in cooler climates, but it does well in semi-shade or full sun, too.
Bacopa
Often used as a filler plant, this easy to grow variety can trail over an impressive 45cm and is pretty tough. It has small green leaves and small white, pink or blue flowers, with blue being the most popular kind. Its length makes it perfect for the edge of the basket. Just make sure you place it in a spot that provides a lot of shade in the afternoon.
Lobelia
When grown in the sun, lobelia will bloom all summer long. It produces many small flowers with intense colours, varying between violet, blue, pink and white. To ensure the best results, feed and water it regularly.
Verbena
Verbena is easy to grow and is wind and weather-resistant, making it one of the best plants for hanging baskets placed outside. It won’t grow and spill out over the edge too much, so planting it in the centre is a good option. It produces small flowers that come in a wide range of colours. Ensure it gets lots of sun and plant it in well-draining soil to keep it healthy.
Geranium
Geraniums are pretty tough, as well as drought-tolerant, making them an easy plant to take care of. The trailing variety can make for an impressive sight when placed in hanging baskets. Just place it in a sunny spot and deadhead the plant regularly. Geraniums come in a variety of colours, but red is the most popular one.

Plants for winter hanging baskets

Once the warmer months have passed, you can replace the plants with winter-flowering varieties. Here are some of our favourites:

Winter pansies
This type of pansy is long-flowering, blossoming from October into early spring. It comes in beautiful two-tone varieties and you can get trailing types for an even more impressive effect. For the greatest impact, plant many of them and plant them close together. Winter pansies need deadheading to keep flowering.
Trailing ivy
A great trailing plant to add volume, trailing ivy is easy to establish from cuttings and is perfect for the edges of the basket. Its beautiful two-toned leaves make for a nice display of greenery when combined with other flowering plants. Keep in mind, this plant is slow-growing, so you can plant it in the summer and add it to your basket in autumn or winter once it has grown. Trailing ivy is a hardy shrub, so keep it in a frost-free place for next year’s hanging basket display.
Primrose
Primroses are winter-hardy and non-trailing, so they won’t grow too tall. This makes them perfect in combination with trailing plants or planted in the sides of the basket. They come in a variety of colours, so you can pick the one that suits your colour scheme the best.
Cyclamen
These perennials have ivy-shaped leaves and their flowers come in a bright pink, red and white colour. Grow them in partial shade and make sure you choose a hardy variety to last the winter.

Need help taking care of your garden and plants?

Sometimes you need a pair of experienced hands to help take care of your garden. If this is the case, why not choose Fantastic Services? The expert gardeners we work with are reliable and are sure to leave your garden looking better than ever! From planting to hedge trimming, to lawn mowing, we do it all!

So what are you waiting for? Use our simple online booking form and choose a time and date that suit you best!

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Takeaways

Choose a colour scheme for your hanging baskets before you choose your flowers.
A combination of trailing and upright plants will make for an impressive display.
The best plants for hanging baskets will depend on the season.
For summer baskets, choose begonias, fuchsias, petunias, calibrachoa, geraniums, bacopa, lobelia or verbena.
For winter hanging baskets, choose winter pansies, cyclamen, primroses or trailing ivy.

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Did you find this article helpful? What plants did you choose for your hanging basket? Let us know in the comments!