Hanging Around
Periodically we head a large flea market east of us called Canton First Monday Trade Days. It's great! They have everything under the sun. Last spring we bough a gigantic hanging basket for the garden. The basket it'self is about 30 inches across and is open metal work, so we lined it with some old burlap. It's inaugural planting was a rather traditional begonia, asparagus fern, sweet potato vine mix. Very attractive, and very easy since it was all leftover plant material.
This year we went a little more wild and included some plants that would add a little more interest. You can see we still have the begonias and sweet potato vine, but rest of the plants aren't what we normally would use in a hanging basket.
One of the new additions was a sliver aloe we picked up on clearance at one point for our local big box store. It needed a new home.
We also added a mystery plant we picked up at our Daylily Clubs seed and plant exchange last November. Nobody choose it and it was going to be tossed out, so I grabbed a little bit. We didn't know what it was and some of us weren't that impressed with the new acquisition.
We latter figured out it was a Callisia fragrans. It is still looking great even at the end of summer and has a lot of proliferations.
The final addition was a variegated pink bromeliad. It played off the pink begonias perfectly.
This hanging basket always looks a little rough by the end of the summer. It eventually needs too much water and we aren't very good about fertilizing it. It needs new soil and new burlap next year, both are two years old. We're also not planning on adding any sweet potato vine. The Callisia fragrans ended up trailing a lot so I'm thinking of using it that way and adding something other than leftover begonias as a pop of color.
We don't have a lot of garden art or ornaments. Those things take time to build up in a garden and give it a personalized look that I love. This basket definitely if a first step in that direction (along with the bathtub and Triceratops).
Your non-traditional basket contents worked very well & how fun to include a mystery plant!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the uniqueness of the planting and we're already talking about what we'll do next year. Definitely the Callisia fragrans and probably an assortment of coleus (we take cuttings into the greenhouse each fall for the next year). We have good luck with both of these plants n this part of the garden.
DeleteMy daughter gave me a big cone similar to your pot in that it is huge and it hangs in a tree here. Asparagus fern really looks good in it. It trails and it is tough as nails. What I mean is that when you get to that point that you don't water or it gets droughty it doesn't mind. It just keeps on looking good. I love the bromeliad and the aloe. That is different. The basket looks really good.
ReplyDeleteTriceratop? Triceratop? I didn't realize your garden was large enough to keep a dinosaur fed. I must search your blog and see how you do it. Obviously I have missed something.
ReplyDeleteJeannie @ GetMeToTheCountry.Blogspot.com