How To Keep Hanging Baskets Blooming All Summer

Hanging baskets usually start the season looking great, then slowly fizzle once the mid-summer heat sets in. The reason has less to do with the plants themselves and more to do with a few easily overlooked details. Learn how to keep hanging baskets blooming all summer by knowing what those details are and how to handle them.

Hanging baskets usually start out the season looking great.

But come the middle of summer? Not so much.

The good news is that keeping them blooming doesn’t take anything complicated once you know what actually makes a difference.

And it actually starts before you put any of the plants in the soil.

How the basket is planted sets the stage for everything that comes after.

Once that part is done right, there are a few simple things you need to do regularly to keep the flowers coming back again and again.

So I’m sharing the simple steps I use to keep hanging baskets blooming all summer instead of fading halfway through the season.

1 | Use a large basket

The first few tips are all about planting the basket correctly. Then we’ll move on to the maintenance.

The one thing you’ll notice about most pictures of flourishing hanging baskets. They’re all planted in really big containers.

And there’s a reason for that. Smaller planters dry out way too quickly so it’s really hard to keep them watered enough for the plants to thrive.

I never use baskets smaller than 14 inches across.

And bigger than that is even better, although they can be heavy to hang. (For those really big containers, I hang them up before watering them for the first time. That way they’re a little lighter.)

2 | Pick the right plants

Choosing the right plants is the second secret to success with any gardening plan.

But because a hanging basket is so small, it is even more important to pay attention to the environment when selecting your plants. They can’t grow in a different direction to find more suitable growing conditions like they often do in the garden.

Plant annuals

If you want pots that bloom all season, you should choose annuals rather than perennials.

Perennials are great in the garden because they come back year after year. But they use energy to develop stronger root systems and foliage in order to do that. Which usually means they don’t bloom as long.

Since annuals don’t go dormant, they don’t have that problem. And can bloom consistently until the end of the season.

Light

If you plant full sun flowers but the container is in the shade (or vice versa), your flower production will be severely impacted.

Pay attention to your hanging basket’s specific location.

If it is hung from a porch, it probably gets less light than the plants that are growing around it.

And often the plants at the back of the basket get less light than the ones at the front.

Like this planter that uses petunias for the front (in the sun). And fuchsias for the back (in the shade).

Temperature

There are also some plants (like pansies) that don’t like the heat.

So if you have hot summers, they’ll look really pretty in the spring and the fall. But not so much when it starts to get warmer.

That’s why many gardeners replace cool-weather plants with warm-weather ones when summer weather sets in.

Water

You also want to make sure that all of the plants you are putting in one container have the same watering requirements.

If you put a plant that needs a lot of water with one that doesn’t, there will always be one unhappy plant in your container.

3 | Line the basket

Before I put any soil in a planting basket, I always line the bottom with plastic wrap.

This helps to prevent all of the moisture from running out when you water it. So the soil stays wet longer.

When doing this, don’t line it all the way up to the top. You do want some drainage so the roots aren’t sitting in water.

4 | Use the right soil

Regular garden soil isn’t ideal for planting hanging baskets.

First, it’s really heavy when it’s wet. So you’ll need heavy duty hooks or brackets to keep your basket from falling.

Second, it doesn’t retain moisture evenly.

Which is why potting soil mix* intended for planters is your best choice.

It usually has time-release fertilizer and wetting agents in it that give your plants the best chance to thrive.

5 | Water every day

Now we’re on to the maintenance tasks.

Even with a large basket, the plastic liner and the right soil, hanging baskets dry out really fast.

If the soil is completely dry by the time you water again, you have waited too long.

To keep hanging basket plants alive during the hot summer months, they should be watered at least once a day (and maybe twice if the temperatures are really high).

The easiest way to make sure this happens is to set up an automated watering system.

Which has the added benefit that it will keep your plants alive even when you’re on vacation.

And it takes care of watering any high hanging baskets that are hard to reach.

If you don’t get an automated watering system and your plants are hung up high, you’ll want to invest in an extension wand for your hose (like this one*) so you can reach them more easily.

If your baskets do get dried out, take them down and let them sit in a sink full of water for an hour or two. This will get the potting mix soaked with water so it will start retaining moisture again.

6 | Fertilize often

Plants that bloom all summer use a lot of nutrients from the soil to maintain their flowers.

With all the watering that hanging baskets require, those nutrients get washed out pretty quickly.

So to keep the plants blooming, I water them with a water-soluble fertilizer like Miracle-Gro once a week.

6 | Deadhead frequently

Many flowering plants will re-flower faster if you remove the old blooms.

So to keep your hanging baskets blooming, it helps to go around every day or two and pinch off the old flowers.

You can just take off the flower itself. Or if you want to promote extra bushiness, cut an inch or two off the end of the stem.

8 | Trim regularly

Even with deadheading, many flowering plants start to get a little leggy after they’ve been in containers for a while.

When this happens, trimming the plant back by about a third will encourage them to grow bushier and produce more flowers.

If you don’t want to cut the whole plant back at one time (it does take a couple of weeks for it to start blooming again), try trimming back 2 or 3 of the stems every week. This prevents the plant from getting scraggly in the first place, while allowing it to keep blooming.

Have comments or questions about how to keep hanging baskets blooming all summer? Tell us in the section below.