How to Plant a Hanging Basket, Pt 1: Sun loving

Hello, y’all! A few nights ago, my ward Relief Society put together a class on planting hanging baskets. We have a very talented, and knowledgeable, sister in our ward (Hi, Melissa!) who has been working with soil and plants for over a decade. She graciously agreed to teach us what she could in an hour. She planted three baskets – one for the sun, one for the shade, and one full of herbs. Today, we’ll look at the sun basket. (The class was held in Julie’s gorgeous home, and we were so grateful! Thanks, Julie!)


Our line up. She chose some gorgeous, and tall, vining geraniums for the center of her pot. Around that were some fluffy greenery and trailing petunias.

Behold! The pot!


You start by filling it about 4/5 of the way with dirt. (Melissa prefers Miracle Grow Potting Mix, since it has all sorts of fertilizers already in there.)


Make sure that your pot has a hole, or a few, in the bottom. This makes sure that your plants’ roots do NOT end up sitting in a puddle of water. Water puddles + roots = sad plants. If you find a pot that you simply MUST have that doesn’t have holes, you can carefully drill holes in the bottom. If the pot is too delicate for that, you can add a layer of gravel to the bottom of the pot.


When planting your flowers, go ahead and pinch off any dead blooms. This will encourage new flowers to grow. (On a geranium, you pinch off the blooms at the bottom of their stalk, back where it meets a leafing branch.)


Next, add your petunias (or other medium-height flower). Just dig a little hold and pop your petunias in.


Last, she added these fluffy green guys. (Sorry, I cannot for the life of me remember what these guys were. But they’re fluffy. And green. Help?) She had a brilliant little trick – she planted them sideways. The roots are nearly horizontal so that the greenery will trail over the side of the pot.


Then she took more dirt and piled it on top to cover the roots, at the end. This also fills in any holes around the plants. You want the dirt all the way up to the top of the pot now, so go ahead and fill it up.

When the dirt is all in, go ahead and give your pot a few good taps to get everything settled in.

After the pot was finished, Melissa mixed some of this Quick Start fertilizer with water, and gave the plant a good drink. (We jokingly called this Hormone Replacement Therapy. It encourages the plants to put out new growth.)

(Also, a cool tip? If you are gone for a weekend, and come back to find your potted plants all droopy and sad, you can feed them some of this and they will perk right up. Be careful, though, and make sure you water with CLEAN, fertilizer-free water afterwards to wash off the leaves. If the fertilizer-laced water is left on the leaves, the sun will produce big brown spots on the leaves.)


And the finished product!!
Stay tuned for our other baskets!