Easy Fix: Refresh Outdoor Decor with Hanging Baskets
Have your outdoor plantings grown weary during a long growing season? Did the April marigolds finally flake out?
Maybe you’re the proud owner of a new custom Florida home from ICI Homes who’s tired from moving in, yet more tired of staring at a bare lanai or front-door stoop.
Existing landscapes can tire just like the humans who own them. And if you’re starting with a blank slate in a new ICI Homes home, there’s more opportunity to refuel and reinvigorate.
One quick trick is hanging baskets. They’re often a no-fuss fix for outdoor living spaces and entryways, and a good addition to poolside decor. They also can serve as temporary fill-ins for flower beds you don’t want to take a shovel to just yet.
Read on for more tips on refreshing outdoor decor with hanging baskets.
Gardening is good
It’s a great activity for mind and body, no matter if you’re creating new features or tending to current ones. Restorative benefits include the fitness aspects, and the satisfaction of accomplishing a needed task.
Sometimes beautifying your new abode is the exact pause you need after an exhausting move. Leave those unpacked boxes in the garage for another day. Instead, decorate your new front walkway with ready-made hanging baskets from a local nursery or home-improvement store.
Going in search of those baskets forces you to explore your new hometown. You can do this digitally and have them delivered, but why not choose what you want in person?
Bonus points for striking up recommendation conversations with store employees.
Ready-made or make your own
Hanging baskets are available in as many sun and shade combination as you can imagine.
A basket overflowing with begonias will flourish in a shady spot with morning sunlight. Lime-green or purple sweet potato vines crowned with pink petunias and purple heart will dangle all summer in full sun.
Don’t see what you want? Choose several inexpensive plastic baskets equipped with metal hangers, a few bags of potting soil, then your plants. Pot ‘em up at home, water them well, then hang them in preferred spots.
Remember that hanging baskets — any potted plant — requires more watering than plants in a flower bed. And don’t forget study metal hooks to safely anchor your baskets in outdoor ceilings.
Cheat!
You heard right.
If you don’t want to nail metal hooks in outdoor ceilings and eaves, choose metal shepherd’s hooks that you can stick in the ground. They should be strong enough to support a basket’s weight (don’t fill the bottom with heavy rocks for drainage if you pot your own).
Another way to cheat is to remove a basket’s hanging wire and place it on plant stands or in bare garden beds. This works especially well if your basket overflows with foliage.
No one will know it’s a hanging-basket-in-disguise!
ICI Homes who’s tired from moving in, yet more tired of staring at a bare lanai or front-door stoop.
