Convert Your Hanging Basket into a Patio Planter

Question: If I miss the spring planting season for my patio planters, is there a fast-growing solution for beautifying my patio for summer dinner parties?

Answer: So your spring was busy and, before you know it, it’s June and guests are coming over on the weekend. You want your patio looking bright and beautiful; your planters, however, are barren, and quickly planting up some small annuals for colour is just not going to cut it. What now?

Head down to your local garden centre and pick yourself up three things: a lovely hanging basket, a large bag of planter-box soil, and a box of granular 6-8-6 fertilizer.

Garden centres always have a great selection of lush and colourful hanging baskets in June, or anytime spring through mid summer, for that matter.

What we’re going to do is take that hanging basket and “drop” it into your container on your patio.

Wim preps the container before placing the hanging basket plant inside

1. First, remove any soil from your patio container to a depth of the height of the hanging-basket pot, and discard that soil by placing it in and around plants in your garden. Next, loosen the remaining soil in your patio container.
2. Scratch about 1 cup (250 mL) of the 6-8-6 fertilizer into that soil.
3. Now it’s show time. Remove the hangers from the hanging basket so that you’re left with just the container.
4. Use the fingers of one hand to support the top of the planting by pressing against the soil (being careful not to bend or break any of the plants).
5. Pick up the basket with the other hand and tip it over so that the upside-down basket of plants is balancing on your fingers.
6. Remove the pot from the hanging-basket root ball and gently turn the planting upright, and lower it into your patio container. Wow, it looks fantastic!
7. Now you need to add some planter-box soil around the basket. This is easier with two people—one to hold up the leaves of the sprawling hanging plants while the other pours the soil in and around the hanging-basket roots. Either way, fill your patio container with soil. You’ll want to pack that soil down around the root system of the hanging basket by firmly pressing, with your fingers, all of the freshly-added planter-box soil.
8. Now add 2 cups (500 mL) of 6-8-6 fertilizer around the entire basket on top of the fresh soil. Top up the soil again to just below the top of the container. Scratch an additional cup (250 mL) of 6-8-6 around the top of the basket.
9. Thoroughly water the planter.

You’ve now created a masterpiece. Your guests will think that you’re a brilliant gardener, and you and I will be the only two who have to know about this little trick.

Which fruits and vegetables grow best in patio pots? When is the best time to cut back rhodos?

These are just some of the 100+ burning questions that garden expert Wim Vander Zalm answers in his frank, friendly and often funny bestselling new book Just Ask Wim! Down-to-Earth Gardening Answers.