Beautiful baskets.

Byline: By Hannah Stephenson

Hannah Stephenson says it's worth the work to swing out those great balls of summer colour.

You should now be thinking towards summer and if you have shelter such as a greenhouse or a porch, now is a good time to plant up hanging baskets, bringing them in in the evening until all risk of frost has passed.

If you are a newcomer to hanging baskets, remember that they are fairly high-maintenance ( they need lots of watering, sometimes twice a day in summer, feeding and regular deadheading.

But if you do have time they can add a riot of colour to your patio, against a backdrop of walls and fences.

The choice of styles and textures of baskets and linings can be overwhelming. There are some with solid sides, which are straightforward to plant up, or open mesh varieties which benefit from plantings at the sides as well as in the top.

Many gardeners use moss liners, which look natural and blend in with the plants.

Place a plate-sized piece of thick polythene on top of the moss in the centre of the basket, which will help aid moisture-retention, then add compost specifically designed for hanging baskets, which contains wetting agents and moisture-retaining elements. Alternatively, I always add water-retaining gel crystals as I go.

Only half fill the basket with compost to allow you to plant up the sides of the basket. I put the basket on top of a bucket and remove the hanging chains to allow easy access. If the rootball of the plant is small enough, pull it through the wire from the outside.

If not, carefully feed the shoots through the holes to the outside, leaving the root resting on the compost. Fill in the neck of the plant with moss so that the compost doesn't spill out.

Cover the roots with more compost and fill to a height where you can comfortably plant the top plants, filling in with additional compost as you go. It's wise to place an upright specimen such as a begonia or zonal pelargonium in the centre and plant the trailers on the outside of the basket around it.

Of course, there are many other liners which are arguably easier and just as effective, including green-dyed wool waste or coir fibre with cross-shaped holes cut for planting.

However, I've heard that one of the best liners for hanging baskets is a cut-out from an old woolly jumper, which provides drainage but retains moisture extremely well.

If you don't have much time, you may be better off with a solid basket, which now come in a range of shapes including the cornucopia and the cone, widely available in plastic lined wicker.

Some liners have a disc of capillary matting at the base to help retain moisture. Solid baskets retain water better but they don't allow as wide a variety of plants as their open-sided counterparts.