Just hanging around.

Hanging baskets can be simple way to get yourself into gardening.

When I was growing up, my mother always had flowers growing outside along with various other decorative bushes and plants. Outdoor gardens of course are subject to the climate and if in an area with cold winter months, garden season is limited for many people. One solution to the outdoor garden downtime would be to have hanging baskets for plants indoors.

We always had hanging baskets in nearly every window of our home, I even had a plant in my room which I was taught how to care for; water, prune and transplant new plant shoots. This was a great learning experience for me. To this day, my mom has an assortment of house plants in hanging baskets in her kitchen window. Some of her plants are able to move indoors in the cold months and then back outside when it is warm again.

Hanging baskets of course are not just for indoors, as a matter of fact they are very popular for decorations outside. They can be very practical for those who have no gardening space on the ground, for example living in an apartment building. Just this weekend I drove by a nursery having a sale on hanging flower baskets and there were hundreds of them on display. These flower baskets are nice to have around as they are fairly low maintenance; keep them watered and in proper sunlight and they typically will flourish.

While preparing for this article I saw so many clever ways people had their hanging baskets displayed around their landscape.  You can have hooks mounted on your house or the ever popular Sheppard hooks that push into the ground from which to hang the baskets. People use them as an accent to their shrubbery or just to enhance the look of their flower garden. Some vegetable plants and herbs also do well in a hanging basket. Having vegetable plants suspended above ground is one way to prevent the pesky critters from eating all of your produce before you can harvest them.

From a maintenance standpoint, hanging baskets typically need little weeding if they are outdoors, some baskets may get a few stray weeds but not as many if the plants were in the ground. Watering also can be monitored more accurately as we are not watering an entire flower bed but one single vessel at a time. This also is helpful if you have a variety of plants that may require different soil composition, a basket would allow you to create the best possible environment in which your pant will thrive.

We of course can not over look the fact that a hanging flower basket can make an excellent gift. I have never gone wrong by surprising my mom with a nice hanging basket of flowers for the front of her home. We hope this is an inspiration for you to try a hanging basket or two for yourself.

See you next time.