Many of you have already purchased your hanging baskets for your deck or patio.

I thought I would give you some hints to keep your investment beauty looking great till the fall. First of all, and this might seem drastic, but try and pinch off all the flower blooms especially if you are actually making up your baskets. The reasoning is quite simple. The flowers take away lots of the plants energy to produce those flowers. When you are trying to get your transplants established, especially their root system, and flowers on the plant will reduce their ability to get established. Pinching off the flowers might seem drastic especially, after all that’s why you bought them in the first place, but the hanging basket will produce more beautiful flowers is you remove the flowers before you transplant. It’s for the same reason you should purchase vegetables like tomatoes and peppers transplants without flowers or even tiny fruit.

Make sure you understand the fertilizer requirements of the flowers in hanging pots. Flowers like geraniums and petunias have big appetites for fertilizer.

Finally, give your hanging ferns a drink of Epson salts once a month. Water then with a mixture of 1 tablespoon of Epson salts in a gallon of water.