I happened to be driving on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills the other day and saw some hanging baskets that took my breath away. The baskets were packed with dark pink silk flowers, royal blue lobelia, lemon yellow million bells, and light pink bacopa. I recalled once seeing a few similarly opulent hanging baskets equally spaced along a beam under the roof that extended over a neighbor’s front porch. That was an entrance not to be forgotten.
Making hanging baskets is the easy part. The challenge is in keeping them looking good. We live in an environment with low relative humidity all year long. A hanging basket dries out on all sides, as well as from below. Ideally, a misting system would be installed that would moisten the plants several times a day.
There are three materials commonly used as liners for hanging wire baskets.
The most popular choice today is coconut coir. The advantage of this material is that it comes with the basket so there is no work involved in the construction of the liner, which is ready-made. This, however, is the most expensive liner choice and it is still a challenge to keep the coir moist. Make sure to soak it in a bucket or tub of water before filling with soil.
A second popular liner material is green sphagnum moss. You simply line your basket with moss after it is thoroughly soaked. Moss, too, however, dries out in a hurry.
A third option is landscape fabric, which is less porous than coir or moss, but you will have to cut it to size. Another option is burlap, easily obtained at no cost from your local coffee shop since coffee beans are kept in burlap bags. Another free option is plastic. You cut off the bottoms of plastic grocery bags and use them to line your baskets. This solves the problem of water evaporation from the sides of your basket, while still allowing water to drain through.
For the sake of aesthetics, you can still use coir or moss between the plastic and the frame of the basket. For that matter, you can just use solid plastic containers for hanging baskets . The problem with plastic is the deprivation of oxygen to the roots since there is no air circulating into the sides of the basket. It’s like growing plants in plastic pots as opposed to grow bags; you need to water more when fabric bags are used, but plants will grow more luxuriously in them and will be healthier than those in plastic pots.
Getting back to those Beverly Hills hanging baskets, let’s take a closer look at the plants involved. Silk flower (Clarkia amoena) is an annual California native wildflower that blooms in every shade of pink. I had never seen it growing in a hanging basket before, since it has an upright growth habit. Yet its powerful pink presence would be significant enough that it would not need to trail as long as it was surrounded by other annuals that did just that. Yet here it had been planted both in the center and along the edges of the baskets and was obligingly growing over the sides as well. Clarkia is named after explorer William Clark who, together with Merriwether Lewis, reached the Pacific Northwest, where Clarkia is also indigenous. Its common name of farewell to spring is not strictly indicative of the time of year it blooms, but when warm weather — which comes earlier here than in more northern latitudes — arrives.
Moving on to million bells (Calibrachoa), we see flowers that resemble miniature petunias. This makes sense since million bells and petunias are both solanaceous species, meaning they are members of the family that includes potatoes and tomatoes, even sharing their South American neotropical habitat. Almost 200 years ago, Calibrachoa — named for Mexican botanist Cal y Braco — was introduced to European greenhouses from South America along with the petunia. However, because of its small flowers, Calibrachoa was long neglected by plant breeders in favor of the petunia with its larger blooms. Although it can handle full sun, Calibrachoa, like petunia, is suitable for partial sun exposures as well and may even prefer them in sizzling hot summer climates.
However, Calibrachoa enjoys an advantage over petunia. It produces few seeds and subsequently blooms virtually non-stop with no need for deadheading or removal of faded flowers to stimulate more flowering. Plants with flowers that go to seed will stop blooming because the energy required for seed production is great and so the plant has no resources left over to make more flowers. Hybrid tea roses are the classic case as continual new waves of flowers depend on conscientious removal of spent blooms.
Bacopa (Sutera cordata) flowers virtually non-stop. In midwinter, I have seen it blooming gloriously overhanging an east-facing wall like bright white kitchen curtains. Inland, it does best in partial or half-day sun, even if closer to the coast it will grow fine in all-day sun exposures. You can use bacopa as a ground cover in small entry planters or as a border around the perimeter of any size planter bed. It thrives in half to full-day sun but will need more water as sun exposure increases. Should it get leggy, gently cut it back, a procedure you can perform several times in its lifespan of three to five years. Bacopa is available in white, mauve, lavender, blue, purple, and pink. Note: This plant is often confused with water hyssop or so-called true bacopa (Bacopa monnieri), a closely related species that is suited for growing on the edge of a pond.
Coming around to lobelia, its flowers are a royal blue seldom seen in the botanical world. Blue is the least encountered of all flower colors, and true blue is rarer still. Most blue flowers fall into the baby blue, mauve blue or lavender blue category. The Lobelia genus — which includes over 400 species — is named after Matthias de l’Obel, who lived 400 years ago. He was a physician to the kings of England and the Netherlands, and a botanist, too. In those days, physicians were familiar with the medicinal properties of plants and were typically master gardeners as well. Physicians were constantly experimenting with plants brought back by seafaring explorers from their circumnavigations of the globe. When these explorers stopped at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, they harvested the seeds of royal blue Lobelia (Lobelia erinus), which is indigenous to that locale and contains pain-killing chemicals.
Lobelia seeds sprout easily, as long as the soil is to their liking. Since the seeds are minuscule, they should barely be pressed into the earth, which must be absolutely soft and fast draining, for germination to occur. Better yet, leave them on the soil surface and cover with compost that is kept moist. White lobelia, while less frequently encountered than the blues and lavenders, is occasionally seen. I recently saw it artfully situated among pink hydrangeas.
California native of the week: California goldenrod (Solidago velutina ssp. Californica) is a rhizomatous perennial that will spread in any type of soil. It can withstand drought, but will bloom more heavily when it receives an occasional deep soak. Flowering time is at summer’s end so plant it now in order for it to acclimate before inflorescences, up to five feet tall, emerge and cover themselves with gold. This is a humdinger of a pollinator plant, attracting not only humming bees and butterflies, but a host of other insects, too. It’s available at the Theodore Payne Foundation nursery (theodorepayne.org) in Sun Valley and Tree of Life nursery (californianativeplants.com) in San Juan Capistrano.. Southern goldenrod (Solidago confines) has shorter flower stalks but a much heavier floral output, with as many as 300 daisy-like flowers clustered together at the end of single stalk.
Do you have a combination of plants in a hanging basket that you would like to recommend? If so, send your success story to [email protected]. Your questions and comments, as well as gardening predicaments and problem solutions are always welcome.
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