Hang up a living bouquet - Special Issue: Spring-Summer 1994 Garden Guide

Sunset, Spring-Summer, 1994 by Steven R. Lorton

Pack a pot with a colorful mix of flowers

Seattle knows how to handle shade. It's a city where summers are cool and skies are often overcast, yet it's one of the most floriferous cities in the West. If you have a spot on the north or east side of your house, or under a wide eave or a covered porch where there's plenty of light but no direct sun, you've got a microclimate that's not unlike Seattle's. It's the perfect spot to hang a living bouquet like the one pictured at left.

The overflowing tub was designed and assembled by Saxe Floral & Greenhouses, of Seattle. Thousands like it embellish the city's streets in summer. The idea is to stuff an 18-inch octagonal redwood tub (fitted with a wire hanger) with a rich mix of color and texture that comes from both flowers and foliage. When plants of upright habit are combined with trailers, plants appear to fill the pots, spill over, and cascade down.

Picking a pot. Big pots will accommodate a wide assortment of plants and hold water longer than small pots will. Use a 5-gallon or 18-inch pot for the kind of dense planting shown in the diagram above.

Potting technique. There's a bit of wizardry to these pots that has proved quite successful over the years. A clay chip or potsherd goes over the drain hole, followed by a 3-inch layer of fresh potting soil. A simple aluminum pie pan is placed on top, into which is scattered a handful of controlled-release fertilizer and a teaspoon of polymer (to retain water). The pan ensures that the pot has 1/2 inch of moist, nutrient-rich soil near the bottom that the plant roots can draw from.

More potting mix fills the tub. Young plants from sixpacks and 4-inch pots are set into this mix and watered; then the tub is hung in place with a double strand of strong wire.

Plant choices. Mix and match various forms of the plants shown in the diagram to get the color and textural combinations you want. Other candidates for shade pots include coleus, creeping Jenny, creeping Charlie, and Kenilworth ivy. For a hanging pot in full sun, use geraniums, marigolds, and petunias for upright flowers and foliage. For fillers and spillers, use lobelia, creeping zinnia (Sanvitalia procumbens), and trailing petunias. For plants that plunge over and dangle down, use ivy geranium, lobelia, and Lotus berthelotii (also called parrot's beak).

Diligent care. In Seattle, the hanging pots are watered daily. (In the hottest Western climates, you may have to mist plants twice daily to create some humidity around the plants and help cool them.) Every other week from planting time in early spring through June, the pots are fed with 20-20-20 fertilizer, faded blooms are clipped off, and errant shoots are snipped back to promote flower production and keep plants bushy. After that, the pots are fed and groomed weekly.