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Hanging Baskets for plants are made of different materials, and in a great variety of forms. Some are made of wire, others of clay, and ornamented with fancy moldings, etc. Very pretty baskets in rustic style are made by covering the outside of a wooden bowl with fantastic knots and roots; this makes a pleasing basket, but we know of none so desirable as the old style semi-globular wire basket, when properly filled.
Directions For Filling Hanging Baskets
To fill a wire basket, first obtain some of the green moss to be found on the lower portion of the trunks of trees in almost any shady piece of woods. This is to be used as a lining to the basket, turning the green side out, and entirely covering the inside of the wire form with the moss. Before filling the basket with soil, place a handful of charcoal or gravel in the bottom, which will hold the moisture. Fill the basket with rich, loose loam, such as will not harden by
frequent watering.
Plants that are peculiarly suitable for hanging baskets are quite numerous, and from them a selection may be made that will please the most exacting taste.
It is a mistake to crowd too many plants into a basket, if they grow they will soon become root-bound, stunted, and look sickly. If the hanging basket be of the ordinary size, one large and choice plant placed in the centre with a few graceful vines to droop over the edges, will have a better effect when established and growing, than if it were crowded with plants at the time of filling. Hanging baskets being constantly suspended, they are exposed to draughts of air from all
sides, and the soil is soon dried out, hence careful watching is necessary in order to prevent the contents from becoming too dry. If the moss appears to be dry, take the basket down and dip it once or twice in a pail of water, this is better than sprinkling from a watering-pot. In filling hanging baskets, or vases of any kind, we invariably cover the surface of the soil with the same green moss used for lining, which, while it adds materially to the pleasing appearance of
the whole, at the same time prevents the soil from drying out or becoming baked on the surface.
The following is a list of choice plants suitable for hanging-baskets. Those marked thus (+) are fine for the centre, those marked thus (*) have handsome foliage, and this mark (**) indicates that the plants have flowers in addition to handsome foliage:
** Begonia glaucophylla scandens.
+ Oxalis.
** Begonia Rex, very fine.
* Fittonia
+ Cuphea platycentra (Cigar Plant).
+ Pandanus (Screw Pine).
+ Dracæna (Young's).
+ Neirembergia.
+ Centaurea gymnocarpa.
** Geraniums, Mrs. Pollock and Happy Thought.
* Tradescantia discolor.
* Peperomias.
** Gloxinias.
* Fancy Ferns.
+ Ageratum (John Douglass, blue).
+ Achyranthes.
** Variegated Hydrangea.
* Ficus Parcelli.
** Gesnerias.
* Variegated Grasses, etc., etc.
Trailing Plants
** Fuchsia, microphylla.
Sedum (Stone Crop).
** Ivy-leaved Geraniums.
German Ivy.
Indian Strawberry Vine.
Kenilworth Ivy.
Lycopodium.
Moneywort.
** Trailing Blue Lobelia.
* Cissus discolor.
** Lysimachia (Moneywort).
** Tropæolums.
** Torrenia Asiatica.
** Mesembryanthemums (Ice Plant).
** Cobæa scandens.
** Pilogyne suavis.
+ Lygodium scandens (Climbing Fern)
Your Plants
Your Plants, Plain and Practical Directions for the treatment of Tender and Hardy Plants, 1919 |
