The secret hack experts love for hydrated hanging baskets

Be honest? Do you truly water your hanging baskets as much as you should? Don’t worry if you’re not, as we’ve just discovered Miracle-Gro Moisture Control Water Storing Gel (£4.50, Amazon), which keeps your hanging baskets hydrated and flourishing for longer – so you don’t have to water them every day.

It’s always a good idea to plant hanging baskets. These beautiful garden additions are a great way of adding extra flowers and even vegetables (you can grow tomatoes in a hanging basket) to your garden. But they are thirsty, and in hot weather can benefit from being watered twice a day.

If you don’t have the time or memory to water your hanging baskets multiple times a day, you may benefit from using moisture control gel to help keep the soil moist. Here’s how they work.

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The key to hydrated hanging baskets

At a recent event with B&Q, Ideal Home’s Digital Editor, Rebecca Knight, discovered that she wasn’t watering her hanging baskets enough, and that she was missing out on the winning recipe to keep them properly hydrated with less effort.

‘I discovered the Miracle-Gro Moisture Control Water Storing Gel at a recent B&Q event where one of the experts was helping me to plant up a hanging basket. He mixed some through the compost so that it would hold the moisture better. As anyone who has tried to water a hanging basket will attest, it’s not the easiest task, and with the Verve Multi-purpose Granules Universal Plant feed mixed in, I only have to water my hanging basket a couple of times a week, depending on the weather,’ she said.

But what exactly is a moisture control gel, and how does it work?

‘Moisture control gel and feed can reduce the amount of watering that hanging baskets need. Moisture control gel usually consists of water-retaining crystals or granules, and these can absorb several times their weight in water. They will then store this water, stopping it from draining through the hanging basket and slowly releasing it to the roots of the plant. Moisture control feeds contain these crystals as well as nutrients, as they are designed to keep plants hydrated and fed,’ explains Richard Barker, horticultural expert from LBS Horticulture.

‘They can reduce the need for watering a hanging basket daily, especially during warm, dry or windy weather. However, even with the moisture control gel, the feed hanging baskets are still shallow and should be checked often during hotter weather.’

Hanging baskets require much more watering than even pot plants, so even with the gel mixed into the compost, you should keep an eye on the moisture level of the top inch of soil.

‘Hanging baskets need a lot of water because they are more exposed to air and wind than plants in the ground or containers. They are surrounded by air on all sides, with this and wind exposure accelerating the evaporation of water from the soil.

‘Hanging baskets also have a small amount of soil, and as they have less soil to act as a reservoir, this can mean that moisture is depleted much faster. The small size of the baskets can mean that they are packed with more plants than they can realistically support to make them look fuller. This can mean that plants quickly become root-bound and take up a lot of space in the soil, leaving little space for the soil to hold water,’ says Richard.

What you need

For a happy, hydrated and thriving hanging basket, try out this special recipe this summer.