Description & Purpose of a Hanging Garden

Understanding Hanging Gardens

• For home gardens, hanging gardens often include flowers that cover pergolas or arbors and provide plant interest in gazebos, along breezeways, around garages, or on patios, decks, balconies or terraces. Hanging gardens or window boxes may become the focal point of a yard, garden, patio or terrace. A hanging garden doesn't have to be exclusive to outdoor places; it can be used in small houses or apartments where there isn't sufficient space to place larger plants or have any type of real garden.

Choosing Hanging Containers

• There isn't a wide selection of containers from which to choose for hanging plants and gardens. In indoor settings, normal containers may be used, so long as plant hangers and the hooks from which they'll hang are strong enough to support the weight of a container that is filled with wet soil and plants. For outdoor use, there are plastic containers that are designed to hold a hanger, wire hanging baskets and plastic or wooden window boxes. Wire baskets must be filled with a liner to prevent the planting medium from falling out. Moist sphagnum moss is often used to cover the entire wire basket. Coconut coir fiber is sold in preformed sheets that are designed to fit wire baskets.

Proper Planting Medium

• One of the problems with any type of hanging garden is that the soil drys out too quickly. In wire containers, the greater challenge is that of keeping the soil in the container. Lining the inside of a wire container with plastic before adding the planting medium will prevent soil loss. Holes in the bottom of the plastic are necessary to allow for drainage. The addition of polymer crystals to the planting mixture may prevent rapid evaporation, making it possible to water the containers less frequently.

Choosing Hanging Plants

• As long as there is sufficient sun, the hanging garden can contain any flowering, green or vegetable plant, provided the support from which the plant hangs is strong enough to support the weight. Window boxes are ideal for cascading plants or for more compact vegetables such as lettuce, spinach or even smaller root vegetables such as radishes. Tomatoes are often grown in upside down containers, because there is no need to provide support from something like a tomato cage. Ferns, purple passion plant, wandering Jew, ivy or spider plants are excellent houseplant choices. In shady places, ferns, fuschia, caladium, begonia or impatiens work well. For full sun, choose bacopa, browalia, cuphea, lantana, scaevola or calibrachoa.