Hanging Gardens for Colorful Accents
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• Attract birds to your garden with a concrete bird bath. They come in many attractive styles and make good gifts.
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• New Guinea impatiens have variegated foliage and giant, impatiens flowers. These striking plants will take more sun than regular impatiens and will bloom all summer.
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• Pepper plants should be fertilized when the first blossoms open.
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• Check roses for black spots on the leaves and treat immediately to prevent defoliation.
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• Dress up for the Fourth! Red, white and blue petunias, verbena or combinations of these with lobelia, geraniums, impatiens and salvia will make a nice display for the Fourth of July.
Hanging Gardens for Colorful Accents
Hanging baskets are an easy way to dress up your home and add atmosphere to your patio. Baskets filled with colorful flowers bring outdoor living areas alive and make them a welcome retreat. Whether you have a sunny porch or a shady patio, you can brighten it up with hanging baskets.
Wave Petunias are vigorous growers that produce hundreds of fragrant blooms from spring until frost in sunny locations. They come in bright pink, purple, magenta, as well as soft lavender and white. They are ideal for hanging baskets as they grow in a horizontal habit, draping down over the edge of the pots, sometimes reaching 4 feet long. Their bright colors are very eye-catching. They bloom from spring until frost in sunny locations.
Calibrachoa, or Superbells®, look like a mini-petunias and come in bright pink, purple, orange, red and yellow as well as some new two-toned flowers. They love hot sun all day and make very attractive hanging baskets.
Ivy geraniums will grow well in morning sun and afternoon shade. They have an airy charm and this year there are red-and-white-flowered plants ready for the Forth of July. Their glossy ivy-like foliage is a handsome background for the bright colored flowers that bloom all summer.
Tapien® Blue-Violet Verbena makes a fine hanging basket. It has delicate, feathery leaves and blue-violet blooms all season that attract butterflies. Heat tolerant and compact, it grows beautifully in full sun.
Parrot’s beak, or Lotus, have orange flowers that look like flickering flames which contrast with the feathery blue-green foliage. Hang them in a sunny location.
Fuchsias are popular for shady areas. Their lush foliage and bright hanging flowers are frequently visited by hummingbirds. The flowers come in many shades of red, pink, purple and white and they bloom all summer if the seed pods are removed.
Hanging begonias are ideal plants for the shade. Their bright colored flowers are produced in profusion from mid-summer to frost. The bulbs can be stored and grown again and again.
Specialty baskets are combinations of colorful annuals that bloom all summer. ‘Spring Picnic’ has bright red and white verbena and blue calibrachoa. ‘Color Wheel’ calibrachoa is a bright combination of red, yellow and purple flowers. ‘Summer to Remember’ is a real heat lover with dark purple angelonia, white scaevola and red-and-yellow lantana.
You can create your own hanging gardens with combinations of colorful annuals. Impatiens, begonias, lobelia and coleus provide summer-long color in shady areas. Petunias, alyssum and verbena give lots of color in sunny locations.
If you like the mossy look, you can create a hanging basket using a wire basket and some green moss. With flowers growing out the sides as well as the top, it makes a spectacular lobe of color. For an easier, but similar, look use a coconut liner and slit holes in the sides for plants or just plant the top with trailing plants.
Hanging baskets should be fertilized weekly and watered daily in hot weather. Pinch off faded blossoms for continuous color all summer and enjoy the beauty of summer flowers all around you.
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