Basket ideas please

Tea bags are a great fertiliser, I keep my used green teabags to split open and put on the veg patch along with the coffe grounds.
I have been told they also repel cats and slugs.

I put used tea bags in the bottom of baskets it seems to work ok.

Jalimal, we used to collect caterpillars and feed them nastrutium leaves until the chrysalises turned into butterflies. Then the kids used to set them free. Was something they liked to do every summer.

I can second the bacopa suggestion, they are excellent. Three are enough to fill a container on their own so they are quite economical. I'm pleased to hear about the bidens, I'm growing one for the first time this year, it sounds promising.

I used nasturtiums one year in the baskets at the front, they were doing really well until I noticed holes in the leaves and they were infested with caterpillars! (Cabbage white variety)

I usually do the ivy leaved trailing pelargoniums Shysal because they last a long time and don’t mind a bit of drought, also I put them in the shed over Winter and bring them out in Spring, with new Miracle Gro compost they race away.Saves a lot of money.I do buy surfinias and bacopa as well though.I love nasturtiums but they get so much black fly!

I tried large flowered bidens last year and they were brilliant. Flowered all summer and just got bigger and bigger. I would highly recommend for a basket or containers.

I'd be wary of putting anything that floats in the bottom of a container, in case it gets waterlogged and floats to the top. But the nappy/pad thing sounds a good idea for any container.

On GQT a couple of weeks ago, one of the female panelists suggested putting a load of washing up sponges through a mincer and putting a layer of that at the bottom of hanging baskets!

Bacopa is another good trailing plant that keeps on flowering. Mostvof the ones you see are white, which makes a lovely contrast with deeper colours, but you can also get them in lilac and yellow.

Thank you for the tips. I spoke to a member of staff at my local plant centre and she showed me a lobelia different from the bedding variety, which she says is longer lasting. To try it I bought 2 plants just for one basket and Million Bells for the other 6. I have planted them up adding water retention crystals to the compost as usual but shall bear in mind the nappy tip for the future!

Place 'clean' disposable nappy
( I use one's that my DGC have grown out of) or a clean panty liner/sanitary/tenna lady pad in bottom of your basket between liner and compost.
This is a great way of retaining water in the basket

Mimulus are nice- flowers a bit like nasturtium but trails and spreads quite well. Lots of colours in red/orange shades.

What about callibrachoa, or million bells, both of which trail.

I find trailing petunias and fuschias give a lovely show throughout the summer and well into the autumn.