Speaker 1: Welcome to the Simple Garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated
to keeping the art of gardening simple, fun and always rewarding.
Now Here are your hosts, Jim and Mary Competti.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome everybody to the Simple Garden Life Podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm your host Jim Competti.
Speaker 4: And I'm Mary Competti, and we.
Speaker 2: Are here today to talk about the best way to
keep your hanging baskets loaded with blooms all summer. And
we're right past Mother's Day, Mary, and everybody has their baskets.
Speaker 4: Oh, they've been beautiful.
Speaker 5: I've seen so many advertisements have local nurseries to have
hanging baskets.
Speaker 4: They're so big and beautiful at this time.
Speaker 5: And all the mothers, I'm sure we're real happy to
get them this past weekend.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And I'll tell you what the how expensive
they become these days, keeping them to last all summer
and making sure they stay blued to get your money's worth.
Speaker 3: It is more important than ever. Absolutely well, we want
to welcome everybody in.
Speaker 2: Remind anybody if you have questions, you can always email
us at the farm at ow garden dot com. And
of course you can find our Simple Garden Life podcast
on Spotify. Apple Podcasts, Good Pods, and all of the
major podcast platforms.
Speaker 3: And then of course you can always find us at ow.
Speaker 2: Garden dot com that list all of our websites and
keeps you up to date on our farm, which we
always have a lot going on. But we are here
today to talk about hanging baskets. And if there's one
thing that seems to play gardeners when it comes to baskets,
it's how can I keep them healthier blooming for longer
than more than just a month?
Speaker 4: Right? You wanted to last all summer long, just not
until June or July.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Unfortunately, by mid to late summer, a
large majority of hanging baskets really begin to fade, you
see it, to have all these blooms, you know, what
was once a bright bouquet of all this foliage and blooms,
it just turns into you know, a brown kind of an.
Speaker 3: Almost an isore.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it can be frustrating for sure, Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2: Especially when you consider, as we said, how expensive they
can be to purchaser or even plant.
Speaker 3: But here's the good news.
Speaker 2: You really can keep your hanging baskets around all year,
and you have to remember a few things that why
they are failing so quick clean the summer. First of all,
unlike annuals and anything else, you plan't marry these hanging
baskets that you go pick up on Mother's Day or in.
Speaker 3: The early spring.
Speaker 2: They're loaded with blooms in big because they're older than
anything else out there.
Speaker 5: Right, and they've also been fed a lot of nutrients
to get them to look good on Mother's Day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of these baskets are started back in
January even December allowed to grow full. So that means
a lot of that root structure has already formed in
that basket. But we're going to talk today about how
to fertilize, how to water, and then the art of
dead heading to make those baskets last longer. And we
even give you a few tips at the end on
how to make the baskets last longer if they if
they become too far overgrown, and that could happen really
as we talk about when they're getting so so old.
But let's talk first about fertilizing and how important it is,
but also not overfertilizing or fertilizing with the right combination.
Speaker 5: Right, And that's the first first point of the three
simple tricks secure hanging baskets blooming all year long.
Speaker 2: It is and for us, look, we've been at this
for sixteen years. We have the farm now we have
a lot of hanging baskets around and keeping them good
and lush is important so that they always look at
their best when people are here. I think the first
thing that people do a lot of times when it
comes to fertilizing is they make one of two big mistakes.
They either don't fertilize at all, because hey, when you
first get that basket looks beautiful, you don't think you
need to, or when they do fertilize, they give too
much or the wrong nutrients all at the same time.
So we have really found more than anything else. We
use a simple two approach method, a two problenged approach
method to fertilizing or hanging baskets, and it kind of
does two things. The first approach is a monthly approach
of a dry granular type and we'll talk about what
we use exactly, and that just gives a very low,
slow feeding to the plant to keep it healthy because
the one thing you don't want to and we'll get
into this even more later is to give your plants
too much energy to grow, which is nitrogen.
Speaker 4: Right, But what about the all purpose fertilizer.
Speaker 2: Well, the problem with that is a lot of times
those are so high up in nitrogens. We talk about
that NPK form a lot on the show. But if
you have that high nitrogen, yes, it's going to make
those flowers, excuse me, everything be green, but it's not
really going to the blooms. And a lot of times
it just forces excessive growth and you have these big
baskets for twenty days and then they just overgrow and
they can't produce a lot of blooms.
Speaker 3: So we like to use you know, for.
Speaker 2: Us, there's no substitute, right. Worm castings are the answer.
They're low, they're slow, they'll never overpower your plant, but
will they ever keep it green and strong? For that
low and slow power I mean worm castings, we use
them everywhere. Right.
Speaker 4: They're the perfect slow release fertilizer.
Speaker 2: Every time you water, the nutrients leach down and they
go through the soil and absorb into the roots and
they only feed the plant. But more important when those
worm castings are in the soil, when on the top,
they actually help them moisture and hold that moisture in
for the plant, because hanging baskets can dry out fast.
Speaker 5: Right, And so here's a big question how much do
you use and how often do you use it?
Speaker 2: So for worm castings or if you're gonna opt for
a dry grain or fertilizer. If you are going to
opt for that, get a low blend, you know, like
a two five five, even a zero five to five.
You want a little bit of nitrogen, but not a
ton to overgrow it. But for us with worm castings,
and like I said, we just we swear by them.
Speaker 3: They work so amazing.
Speaker 4: We should have a worm casting farm.
Speaker 3: We should, we should. We have enough going on.
Speaker 2: A quarter cup to a half a cup marry is
what we put on every plant. And people are like, well,
how do you do that? You know, hanging basket. We
pour it basically around the entire inside top of the soil.
And then you always say this more than anything else,
you got to scratch it in a little bit with
your either the finger or a little tool, will little handle,
get it, get it just a little bit into the
soil to help work.
Speaker 5: Right, And when those baskets are so full of leaves
and blooms, you do kind of have to spread them
apart to get it down into the soil. Just don't
throw it on top of the Yeah, and.
Speaker 3: Again once a month is the real key here.
Speaker 2: If you do it any more than that, you can
overpower the plant too.
Speaker 3: You have a little less worry with that.
Speaker 2: When you use worm castings, because there's so much less
dangerous to use than a fertilizer.
Speaker 3: But for us, I mean, we just know the.
Speaker 2: First of the month, when it rolls around, we're gonna
go out to every hanging basket or container. This works
just as well for container plants, and we're going to
put those in and we're going to scratch it around.
And then every time you're watering, which for hanging baskets
is pretty much every day, that power just slowly leaches
into the roots and it keeps the plant. Remember this
isn't for blooms. It'll help a little bit, but this
is more than anything else to keep that plant healthy
and green.
Speaker 5: Right, So, such your reminder the first of the month
to fertilize your hanging baskets.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're gonna take a very quick break, a commercial
break here, and we're gonna come back and talk about
the second approach, which is all about the blooms for fertilizer,
and that's the liquid fertilizer, which is very important. Again
what you feed and how often you feed. We'll be
right back after this. Okay, we are back talking about
how to keep those hanging baskets blooming big, not just
for a few weeks after the spring, but all through
the summer.
Speaker 3: And we talked about the low and slow of the.
Speaker 2: Worm casting, Maria, and now let's get into the liquid fertilizing,
which is really important.
Speaker 3: You know. In addition to the low and slow fertilizing of.
Speaker 2: The worm castings, we then water about every seven to
ten days with the liquid fertilizer. But again, as we said,
it matters what you're using here. You know a lot
of people and I hate to say, they'll go grab
that typical off the shelf, big power surge like a
miracle grow something like that that are really high in
nitrogen and also phosphorus. But the problem is that nitrogen
number is so big it can overgrow those plants really fast.
Speaker 5: Right, you really want to look for a liquid fertilizer
that has much less nitrogen than the dest phosphorus or potassium.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we look.
Speaker 2: You know what my favorite blend is is a two
fifteen fifteen or a two ten ten or even a
two twenty twenty something like that. We use a brand
called Farmer's Secret for ours, but there's a lot out there.
They're all good, but it has that two percent or
two nitrogen number and then that fifteen or fifteen fifteen
when it comes to phosphorus and potassium. And why is
that it so important? Because those two are so important,
especially that excuse me, the phosphors for powering blooms and
not plank earth, but ballooms.
Speaker 5: And that's what we all want. We want more blooms
on our hanging baskets, container plants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then saying that the other mistake, and I
think this is critical. I mean, if you pick up
two things today, it's this low and slow of the
worm castings. And then this we said we fertilize every
seven to ten days.
Speaker 3: A lot of fertilizers.
Speaker 2: Can tell you, you know, fertilized monthly with this full blast,
or every two weeks with a full blast.
Speaker 3: One of the most important.
Speaker 2: Things we do when we fertilize is we cut that
fertilizer in half, if not even a third of the
recommended dose.
Speaker 3: And why do we do that?
Speaker 2: It allows us to feed more often and keep the
plants supplied with a steady supply of low nutrients as
opposed to this big, powerful blast.
Speaker 3: And what's that going to do.
Speaker 2: It's gonna overgrow that plant and push it all out,
and then it's.
Speaker 3: Gonna be done. Right.
Speaker 5: It's gonna be like that absolute shock factor of you know,
I got to grow fast right now. But then towards
the end of the month, you know, it starts fading
off because it's grown too much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I can't stress enough when you put too
much power on a basket.
Speaker 2: Baskets already tend to overgrow themselves by July and August,
that just because they were so big when you bought them.
Even if you plant your own when if you power
them up too much, all that root grouse is just
going to become root bound and then no matter what
you put on your plant, it's going to struggle. So remember,
use a nice dry worm casting something like that. Are
a very low granular fertilizer once a month and then
and then every seventh days, a half dose to a
third dose of a liquid fertilizer, because that liquid fertilizer
feeds both through the leaves and through the soil and
will power blooms.
Speaker 5: And does it matter what type of flowers that you
have in your hanging baskets.
Speaker 2: No, I mean most annuals, which are people, they're gonna grow.
They're gonna all power up mostly with you know, a
higher phosphorus unless you have some exotic thing that I'm
not thinking right now, this is gonna work really, really well.
So that's number one and by far the most key
to keeping those baskets steady and going. But then we
got to talk about water in your baskets, and this
is where people make another critical mistake when a when
a plant has too much water, its roots swell up
and it can't absorb anything you give it, even if
you give it great nutrients. If it's if it's water
log it's not going to If it's too dry, those
same roots shrivel up and it's hard for them to
hydrate it quickly enough to capture nutrients. So proper watering
is a must. And I mean, let's talk about that.
What's what's the best way to water? I mean, if
you do it too infrequently, you're going to shorten the
life of your plant.
Speaker 3: If you do it too much, it's going to really stress.
We like to water every.
Speaker 4: Day, don't We mean we do every morning, and it.
Speaker 2: Depends what you're watering, where that basket's located. We have
a few of our baskets and pots in high sun,
high heat areas. Sometimes by midsummer they.
Speaker 4: Twice a day.
Speaker 2: Twice a day, absolutely. But here's what I always tell people.
I mean, we water and water and you kind of know.
It's what your baskets in it, and how does it drain.
Make sure your baskets have those drainage holds or they
can drain the excess water. But there's a couple of
ways to tell. You can use the old fashioned method,
which works really good. You can stick your finger down
a couple of inches, not at the top of the surface.
You need to stick it a couple inches down where
the roots are, where the roots are, and you need
to feel that soil. If it's slightly damp and good,
you don't need to water.
Speaker 3: That's perfect.
Speaker 2: That's a form, yeah, and that's where people make a mistake.
But if it's dry to the touch or your finger
comes up dry, You're good. I personally I love for people.
I mean, it's so inexpensive, But a soil water meter
is what ten or fifteen dollars or so many on
the market to long probes. You put it down there,
you get an instant reading of that moisture level and
you know right away, Wow, it's dry or it needs water.
Do you use it every day? No, but there's times
when you're like, what's going on with this plant? Why
is it doing this?
Speaker 3: And that's the first thing we check, just to see
if it's water logged or something.
Speaker 5: Right, it gives you accurate reading of whether you need
a water more or less.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Again, like I said, you can use the old
fact of sticking sticking it down.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: The other question is Mary, when you water matters as well.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, Like we said before, we water first thing in
the morning, before the sun comes out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is the absolute best time to water. And
why is that? Well, first of all, your plants are recovered.
Speaker 2: Overnight from a long day from the previous day, so
now they're ready to accept that water and prepare for
another hot or sunny day. That morning water and gets
them hydrated and able to withstand it if you let
that dry out through the day and it gets hit
by the hot sun and then all of a sudden
you come in the middle of the afternoon or at
night and you water that plant. It's not getting the
same type of water and it's not the same type
of health structure.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 5: And also if you're watering midday when it's super hot outside,
you also risk sun skulled on the leaves you do.
Speaker 2: And everything else from that to the plant not getting
much as much from evaporation. Okay, so not everybody can
do that. I really suggest if you can, that's the
best thing to do. But if you can't, Mary just
said avoid the midday waterings and try to then water
a little bit in the evening. My other issue with
evening is when you have a cool session or things
like that, that can also produce some mildew and things
like that. But it's far better than the middle of
the day. Now that said, we just did this yesterday,
and I have to tell you our day was a
little crazy.
Speaker 3: Yesterday.
Speaker 2: It was a hot, sunny day and what were Jim
and Mary doing. We were out there at one o'clock
in the afternoon, right, and.
Speaker 5: I was like, great, we're not even that following our
own advice exactly.
Speaker 2: And that does happen when you have to water because
they were drying out. We had missed the morning schedule
because we had some commitments we had to be at.
Speaker 3: Here's the key.
Speaker 2: If you are going to water in the afternoon, just
make sure that your watering source is below the leaf
level and you're right to the.
Speaker 5: Soil right water what I call low and slow as well.
Make sure you're right at the soil, right at the base.
Try not to hit any of the leaves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again, and that just shows your real life
and it it's going to happen. It happened to us yesterday.
Speaker 2: We were joking about it, making fun that we knew
we were going to be doing this podcast to day.
Like here we are just going against our own advice.
But it's important when you do that to make sure
you're underneath. The one thing you never want to do
is liquid fertilize in the afternoon. When you fertilize with
your liquid fertilizer, that is one thing you really want
to do in the morning. Make sure it's in the morning.
It allows the plane to absorb it. The sun's not
super hot on it yet and it can hidrid it
a lot.
Speaker 4: But I guess that's a good question.
Speaker 5: Should you with a liquid fertilizer, are you watering just
to the soil or are you putting it on the foliage?
Speaker 2: I like, here's what I like. I like both because
it's stematic. What you means, it can go through you know,
the leaves and the soil.
Speaker 4: You can absorb it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's why.
Speaker 2: I don't like doing it in the middle of the day,
because that fertilize can burn the lease a little bit better.
Speaker 3: But I like a little of both.
Speaker 2: Some people will do that and then they'll rinse a
little water on it, and I'm like, I kind of
wash to stop.
Speaker 3: What you just did.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I like watering the plant as a whole.
Especially when we're doing that, it just seems to be
a lot better. So we've talked about fertilizing, We've talked
about watering. Here's the one other thing that people don't
do enough of that really really makes a difference to
your plants, and that's.
Speaker 5: That Absolutely, it makes a big difference on how many
blooms you're going to have throughout the season.
Speaker 2: So deadheading, what is it it's a simple process that's
actually kind of cathartic.
Speaker 3: I always said, I enjoy it. But you know, when
those blooms start to.
Speaker 2: Fade off of a plant, let's just use geraniums or marigolds,
anything like that. When those blooms start to fade from
the plant, they're designed by their very nature to create
seed pods for the next generation. Well, that takes a
ton of energy away from the plant. So you do
not want that to go against your plant. So the
quicker you remove those old blooms, it helps the plant
recover and flush out new blooms. The other thing it
does is it makes your plant.
Speaker 4: Look a heck of a lot better, right right exactly.
Speaker 2: So you asked me earlier, Mary about does it matter
on which kind of plants it does? On this one, Marigolds,
you want to get below the just the seed head
stem right there, and they usually pinch off.
Speaker 4: Right at the bloom, but the base of the bloom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Petunias, you want to get below that, but make
sure you're taking that little stem out as well. The
one change to this are geraniums, you had that long stem.
You want to make sure you get down low.
Speaker 5: You're not just taking off the flower petals, you're actually
taking off the stem at the base of the plant, so.
Speaker 3: It'll shoot up a new stem.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, But I'm telling.
Speaker 2: You go when you water your plants every morning.
Speaker 3: We like doing this.
Speaker 2: When we water, we just if there's a few blooms,
we take them off. You can wait a few days,
three or four days between them. But I like doing
that because it keeps the plant perfect, It makes it
always look nice, and it keeps that steady supply. Not
going to making seeds, but to help them make new blooms.
Speaker 5: And don't worry if most of your blooms are fitting
off all at the same time. When you clip them
off and you just have the greenery left, in a
few days, you're going to have tons more blooms popping up.
Speaker 2: At and you know, it's just again a little Sometimes
we like to throw in little things of advice, and
I think we have two of them here. We want
to talk about what happens if your plank is too big.
But first when it comes to those seed pods, whether
it's marigolds and you want to save some seeds or zenius,
anything like that, saving your seeds the best time to
save seed pods is in the middle of summer, not
early spring and not lake fall. People make so much
save the last of their plants, and the problem with
that is there's had so much more chance to cross
pollinate with other things.
Speaker 3: I like the middle of the summer because they're mature.
Speaker 2: If the seats has are mature, you pull them off,
you let them dry out a little bit, pick a few,
and then you save those seats.
Speaker 3: Those are your most viable, best seeds to save for an.
Speaker 4: Extra right, they're the biggest and strongness in the middle
of summer.
Speaker 2: They are okay, Mary, Now let's talk about the other
thing that we want to kind of throw it as
an extra hint.
Speaker 3: You've done everything right.
Speaker 2: But this basket that was huge and was already pretty
grown into its roots, it just becomes too big in
the middle.
Speaker 3: Of July and August.
Speaker 5: And then the one sure sign of it's growing too
big is that when you go to water, the water
as soon as you water, it flows right through the
bottom of the pot of plant.
Speaker 2: And people always ask, what can I do for my
plant at this point? Well, your plant, if it stays
in that container, will not make it. It's not going
to make it because no matter if you feed it,
it's not the feed's not getting to it because its
roots are so bound that it can't absorb anything.
Speaker 3: There's no soil left sometimes in the pot. So there's
a couple tricks.
Speaker 2: Yes, you can always repot it into another larger pot,
and you want to make sure that pot is at
least twenty five to fifty percent bigger than the previous
one to allow for a new root group.
Speaker 3: And when you do that and you pull it out,
you want to take your hands. You can take it.
Speaker 2: I like taking my hands at the bottom of that root,
just kind of softly pulling it out to break those
roots apart a little bit so they can reset a
new soil.
Speaker 5: Right, it's super easy to do. Sometimes it's easy to do.
Sometimes when they're super root bound, it's more difficult. But
just tear the roots apart a little bit and then
repot it.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing that's not always practically because if
you have a large hanging basket or a large pot
and it's already eighteen to twenty four inches, there's not
too many people that keep thirty six inch pot, So
do you throw it away? We love doing this, So
take that basket out in late you know, or early
August or late August, and it's starting to look weak.
Find a spot in your flower beds, find a spot
in your garden, find a spot right outside your door
in the soil. Dig a hole that's twenty five to
fifty percent bigger. Fill it with some potting soil, some compost.
Set that hanging basket plant down into that. Plan it
like you're playing just a single plant. You will be
and then hit it with a nice dose of liquid
fertilizer and a little more worm castings, and you will
be rewarded Mary with the most beautiful plant. We've had
so many comments like, well, how did you come up
with that combination in the soil.
Speaker 3: It wasn't It was a potted plant, right.
Speaker 5: It's just a way to repurpose it and still gain
the beauty throughout the rest of the year.
Speaker 3: It really is. So there you go, folks. That's how
to keep those baskets.
Speaker 2: In bloom and what to do if they just become
simply too big.
Speaker 3: So remember, fertilize correctly.
Speaker 2: You want to do those worm castings once a month
and the liquid fertilizing every seven to ten days.
Speaker 3: You want to water, and this.
Speaker 2: Mary said, try to water in the morning, try to
water every day if needed, but make sure you're checking
that soil to make sure it's not becoming overly wet
or too dry in between waterings.
Speaker 5: Right, And the final tip is make sure that you're
dead heading your flowers so you can get more blooms.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: Do it every time you water.
Speaker 2: Just take a few of those off and you'll be
good to go. So I think that's it for today's show.
This is one of my favorite subjects always because hanging
baskets can just boom, give you.
Speaker 3: Instant color anywhere.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and we always say every year we're going to
cut back, and I think we add we do all right,
everybody well for Simple Garden Life.
Speaker 4: I'm Jim Competti, I'm Mary Competti. Thanks so much, Happy garden,
Happy Gardney.
Speaker 6: We hope you've enjoyed this episode. Subscribe to the Simple
Garden podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or most of
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of the show notes to every episode and if.
Speaker 5: You have any questions, any ideas for show topics or
If you want to share your favorite garden tip, email
us at the Farm at owgarden dot com.
Speaker 6: Until next time, Thanks everyone,