Indoor gardens are gardens—any space you dedicate to your plants and their arrangement and care is a garden space. For indoor gardeners or those of us focused on indoor plants during the colder months, hanging plants are often a key feature of our interior décor. Hanging plants allow us to maximize space by expanding our indoor gardens vertically. They also allow us to create visual interest in our indoor gardens by letting vining plants drape downward. And the plants that thrive in hanging containers come in a variety of sizes, colors, and growth types, meaning that there’s bond to be something that’s right for you.
Hanging plants do require some particulars of care, in addition to the normal love we show our indoor plants. In this blog we’ll take a moment and learn a bit more about how to care for hanging plants so that our indoor gardens can thrive all year long. Let’s dig in!
Selecting Hanging Plants
The first step, of course, is to determine which species or varietals might make the best hanging plants for your space. We’ve written blogs about selecting and caring for indoor plants, and those might be good starting reference points in determining which plants will thrive in the space you have. While you’re assessing available light, temperature, and humidity, just remember that word “hanging”. Hanging plants are often located higher up than their container counterparts, so make sure that the vertical space they’ll occupy offers the right combination of light and temperature for the plant you’re considering. Likewise, make sure that you’ll be able to both see and access your plant for care and watering. A plant that’s out of sight and out of mind isn’t as much fun as one you can interact with daily and will likely receive less care. And this can make a big difference for hanging plants; we’ve noticed they tend to need a bit more watering than their non-hanging container plant counterparts.
Finally, within the limits of light and space, select plants that you enjoy, are curious about, or find beautiful! Your indoor garden space is meant to make your life richer, so choose plants that do just that!
Selecting the Right Hanging Planter
Hanging containers or hanging planters come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and styles, so finding one that fits both your interior design needs and your budget will likely be fairly easy. We do recommend selecting a well-built container of the right size for the plant in question, with a fairly minimalist or neutral design scheme so that it will fit in any corner of your space. Gardens have a tendency to evolve, and we have a habit of moving our indoor plants around to suit our changing home décor or the seasonal changes in sunlight. Drainage is always a consideration with soil-based plants, so think about where excess water will go—and what might happen with accidental spills!
If you’ll be mounting your hanging container to a wall or to the ceiling, make sure you’ve installed a sturdy hook or other support for it to hang on. A falling planter creates a big mess and can damage your plant, so take some time to ensure that doesn’t happen.
Enjoying Your Hanging Plants
Hanging plants bring life, color, and visual interest to a space, and we hope you can locate yours in a part of your home that you enjoy being in. There’s something quite lovely about being surrounded by our plants while we read a book or enjoy a cup of coffee. No garden is too small to be special, and spending time with an indoor garden can be especially rewarding and refreshing in the winter.
We’ll end with one final request: please send us photos of your hanging plants! We love to see your garden spaces—Gardzen is all about community and we love to hear from you!
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