DEMANDING DIVAS

April 29, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

By Mary Beth Breckenridge

McClatchy Newspapers

For such sweet-looking things, hanging baskets can be demanding divas.

Restricted to small pots and hung in the drying air, their plants often require far more attention to maintain their looks than flowers planted in the ground.

But Pete Kern and Pamela Crawford believe gorgeous baskets are within anyone’s reach, if you start with smart planting.

Kern’s Florist and Greenhouse in Springfield Township, Ohio, creates the eye-catching baskets that line Akron area roadways. Crawford is a noted container gardening expert from Canton, Ga., who has written a series of books on the subject and designed planters for the garden supplier Kinsman Co.

We asked Kern and Crawford for their best tips on creating hanging baskets. Here’s what we learned:

BIGGER IS BETTER

Crawford insists she developed her planting methods by learning from her many mistakes, and one of the earliest of those was using baskets that were too small. For one thing, small baskets don’t hold enough water, she said. For another, they lack room for the roots to grow large, so the plants can’t live as long. Flowers in small baskets will peter out before the growing season ends, she said. Keep in mind, however, that a larger basket can be heavy when it’s filled with plants and well-watered soil. Whatever basket you choose, make sure it has a drainage hole.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT PLANTS

Your basket will be only as beautiful as the plants you choose. There’s much to consider — bloom color, foliage color, texture, growth habit and the plants’ mature size, among other factors. Kern and Crawford suggested starting with the most basic question: How much sun will the basket get? Plant tags tell you whether a plant prefers full sun, part sun or part shade or full shade. Narrow the field by considering only plants that meet the sun requirement of the basket’s site.

ADD ARTISTRY

Next comes the task of choosing plants that create a pleasing arrangement, and that takes a bit of artistic sense. Crawford said she starts by choosing a taller plant to go in the center of the basket and then looks for two or three more types of plants to surround that centerpiece. Plant size matters, too. Read the plant tags to determine how big each one will get.

CONSIDER SIDE PLANTING

You can give your hanging baskets a full, rounded look through side planting, which is inserting plants horizontally into holes in the basket’s sides. It’s easiest to do that with a wire basket lined with a material such as coir or sphagnum moss. Not all flowers tolerate side-planting well, however. Their roots are subjected to more water than top-planted flowers, Crawford said. In her tests, she’s had the best success with wax and dragon wing begonias, coleus, creeping Jenny, impatiens, ivy, lamium, variegated ivy, trailing torenia and scaevola.

TAKE THE EASY ROUTE

Does all that plant-choice information sound like too much effort? Then just copy the pros’ designs. Container gardening books and gardening websites offer suggestions on plant combinations for hanging baskets.

PLANT GENEROUSLY

Kern said a 10-inch-diameter basket needs at least three or four plants. Bigger baskets can hold more plants, he said. Crawford advocates using plenty. A 14-inch basket she designed holds 17 plants. Her biggest basket, at 20 inches, holds a whopping 38 plants.

PLANT PROPERLY

A good-quality soilless planting mix is best for hanging baskets, Kern and Crawford said. Soilless mixes drain better than soil, a critical feature for containers. You can buy mixes that contain slow-release fertilizer, or you can add some when you plant — a step both Crawford and Kern recommend. Water-absorbing crystals can also be added to help keep plants from drying out.