What are the best plants for summer hanging baskets

Want to discover what the best summer plants for hanging baskets are in the UK?

Adding some elevated colour to your garden is a wonderful way to brighten up the space and bring it to life. There is a vast selection of plants to choose from for a summer flowering display to ensure your garden is a vibrant haven during the warmer months.

In this blog, discover some of the best plants for hanging baskets and vertical garden designs this season.

If you’re all clued up on what to do with hanging baskets for winter and how to care for them in cooler seasons, you may be considering how to handle them in summer.

Creating a summer hanging basket is a great way to add elevated colour and interest to your garden, no matter the size of the available space. Plus, not only brightening up a plant-free space but choosing your plants is a fun activity to boost your well-being.

The size and number of plants in your hanging basket may entirely depend on the size of your hanging basket. There are several styles available, from plastic to rattan with waterproof linings and even wire baskets with linings, such as coconut fibre, to retain moisture whilst also allowing drainage. If your basket is 12 inches in diameter, you can create a strong and colourful display.

When choosing your hanging basket plants, consider how you want your design to look. It is great to have a plant which acts as a ‘focal point’, being slightly taller than the plants around the edge to attract the eye. This works mainly in larger hanging baskets, giving you more room to plant around these focal plants.

Some lovely examples include upright Fuchsia with its vibrant dangling flowers, or perhaps Impatiens, coming in a variety of flower shapes and colours. Petunia plants also produce bright flowers to create a lovely feature.

Trailing plants are impactful features for planting in hanging baskets, allowing them to grow and hang over the edges of your container to create an attractive sight.

The best trailing plants for hanging baskets include Calibrachoa, or ‘million bells’, wonderful trailing plants. They have trumpet-shaped flowers available in shades like purple, pink, yellow, white, orange, and red.

Other great trailing plants include Lobelia, ivy-leaved Geraniums, and trailing Verbena. You could even grow productive trailing plants in your hanging baskets like strawberries, which are a feature on their own with their delicate white blooms followed by jewel-coloured fruits.

Depending on how high up you position your hanging baskets, watering them could require regularly bringing them down and then repositioning them back in place. This may certainly be necessary on very dry days to ensure they get an ample soaking.

With an Irrigatia watering system, they can be watered automatically using just the sun's power as a guide. The tubing and drippers simply need to be positioned once, and then your plants are cared for. Check out the benefits of automatic irrigation systems and our top watering tips for more information.

There are a few ways besides hanging baskets to inject colour at height in the garden. Whether it’s window boxes, living walls, or climbing plants creeping up trellis surfaces, there are plenty of planting options.

Planting up window boxes is a fantastic way to add some plants to enjoy within immediate view, even whilst sitting in your living room. Similarly to hanging baskets, suiting your plants to the size available is key, but there are some wonderful options.

Evergreen plants for consistent colour include ivy, such as Hedera helix ‘Midas Touch’, which has heart-shaped variegated leaves for a wonderfully warming look. Impatiens (Busy lizzies) are striking and colourful plants that repeatedly flower throughout summer.

Herbs are also a fantastic choice for window boxes, making them easily accessible for picking without needing to head outside.

Living walls are an easy and convenient way to add swathes of plant colour to your garden in as small a space as possible. Positioning plants up living walls on your fences, sheds, walls of your home, and more take advantage of previously untapped space whilst adding vibrant and necessary colour. Find out more about making the most of a small garden space.

Plants suited to one-litre pots are best, as this size typically fits in living wall kits. Great options include Campanula (bellflowers), which produce vivid mats of purple colour, or easy-to-grow Nasturtiums (Tropaeolum), sun-loving annuals which can be easily grown from seed.

Choosing plants to grow up trellis are also reliable performers in summer gardens, with a variety producing wonderfully scented flowers to enjoy in the summer.

For sunny spots, there are countless climbing roses you could choose from in colours from red, white, yellow, pink and more, being reliable flowerers in the summer.

You may also choose Clematis or Jasminum officinale, with their delicate, impactful flowers, magical on a wall. Additionally, shade-loving climbers include varieties of Clematis, sweet-smelling Lonicera (honeysuckle), and the burning ember shades of Pyracantha (firethorn) berries.

Adding elevated colour and interest in your garden design, no matter the space available is simple with a few easy and effective steps. Plus, you can make caring for these plants straightforward no matter where they are by investing in one of Irrigatia’s irrigation kits, with the SOL-C12L capable of watering up to five individual hanging baskets.

Still have a question about what the best plants for a hanging basket are? Please get in touch - we’d be delighted to help out. What’s more, don’t forget to check out our blog and how-to guides for more summer gardening tips.