@picastoc, my dear gp :) We used to plant hundreds of hanging...

@picastoc, my dear gp We used to plant hundreds of hanging baskets every year.

The most favourite were the ball ones, we would do 500 of these.
Mainly impatiens (busy lizzies) and fibrous begonias.

We grew everything inside poly tunnels, due to the weather.
It is hopeless in Perth as it is far too hot and windy.You could never grow these here, but you could!
The method was as follows-

You use a wire basket, line it with thick black polythene allowing a couple of extra inches at the top.
Fill it with decent compost, mixed with osmocote (slow release fertiliser) and water retaining crystals.

We would buy trays of plants from Holland, which came in small plugs, 40 per tray.
Then we would cut an X just large enough to insert the little plants through the polythene.
starting from the bottom and then perhaps 4inches apart all round, then pop 6 or 7 in the top.
Each one used about 20 little plants.
They were hung up and regularly watered until they made a complete ball.



All of our baskets were smothered in plants, you could not see the baskets.
Even when they were planted just from the top.
We used plastic baskets for trailing petunias (known as surfinias)

I guess we probably grew close to 1000 baskets p.a.

Also we had a small poly tunnel up by the farm shop, which we used to repot plants on display etc.
This was opposite the shop, so if it was quiet, the staff always had jobs to do even when it bucketed down.

I also worked in there and every year, customers would bring their old wire baskets in for me to replant.
These, I lined with sphagnum moss and put a circle of black polythene in the Botton as moss dried out very quickly.
They then chose their plants and came back a few days later to pay.

I rather miss many of those days, but not the long hours.

PS. For economy, you could buy two or 3 large plants and take cuttings, you may find these trays in Bunnings?