Annual Hanging Baskets

14 years ago

How can I keep the birds from making nests in my hanging baskets? They tend to do this every year no matter where I hang them , any advice greatly appreciated.. Thanks

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Comments (5)

moonshadow
14 years ago
Maybe tie a ribbon on the hanging basket handle till they are done nesting? My mom's neighbor ties shiny little blue ribbons to an area on her porch that she wants to keep birds away from. (Ribbon like you'd wrap a gift with.) The movement of the ribbon in the breeze keeps them away.

On the flip side, my late MIL used to keep a moss basket hanging right off her back door. One year she left it out all winter and a dove found it. Every year after that dove came back to nest there, so MIL just left it there for her to nest in, no plants. We'd walk right past that basket to get in the house and it didn't even phase that dove! Sometimes they are stubborn and they want that same home every year! ;D
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
14 years ago
it might be as simple as exerting your authority ...

move the baskets every day .... sooner or later they will get the idea ...

maybe even leave them on the ground every other day or so ... since most birds dont want to build a nest on the ground ..

nest building season is limited... so if you break the cycle early ... they will find other places to do their business ...

just brain storming ...

ken
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I recommend that if you want the nasturtiums, you dedicate that basket to only nasturtiums. I've grown them in potting soil re-used from the year before, no food, and they looked great. Planted in the ground, with lots of water and rich soil, I got mostly lush leaves and very few flowers. If you mix them in a basket with other plants, you will have a tough time keeping all of them happy. Either the nasties will be overfed and all leaf, or the other plants will be underfed and cranky. You may be able to balance it out, but I'd rather spend time lounging and admiring than fussing over everything. I keep it simple and fill the basket with potting soil, then poke in several seeds of a climbing nasturtium. The "climbers" are really more like "trailers." I've never had them so much as twine around the basket wires, but they trail gracefully and eventually get quite long. You could get the touch of yellow you are looking for by adding a yellow nasturtium to the red. The climbing/trailing variety I keep coming back to is "Moonlight." It's soft primrose yellow, and looks much more delicate than it is.
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I've planted wire baskets like that for several seasons now, imitating the gorgeous ones sold at Roger's Gardens in Newport Beach, CA. I just love the look of a huge ball of beautiful flowers and foliage with no visible container. I put the plants' root balls in between the wires of my basket, and stuff soaked sphagnum moss into spaces between wires between the plants. I like the look of the sphagnum while I don't care for the coir. My husband also wired a couple of pieces of twisted driftwood to the wires. I did not use anything else to line the wire basket. I poured in a bit of Roger's potting mix if there was space for it. One year, I thought I might save myself some watering by using those jelly-like moisture-retaining granules. They basically turned my FLORAL basket into a MUSHROOM basket. Mushrooms thrived while the flowers barely bloomed. Every morning I would pull out all the mushrooms, but by the next morning there would be a whole new crop of them. Aside from the bad experience with the granules, the other years I planted healthy annuals in early March and would enjoy blooming till almost Thanksgiving, provided the plants did not get decimated by Santa Ana winds that we sometimes get in the fall. (If we do get Santa Anas, it goes from a daytime high of 72* one day, with moisture from the marine layer, to 104* raging winds the next. It is hard to keep the plants happy when this happens.) Incidentally, I am a cheapskate so I didn't want to pay the $120 or so Roger's charges for their huge wire basket planting. I thought I would get the look for less by buying the plants and basket and putting it together myself. The first season I did this, I bought flats of annuals at Home Depot, but by the time I had enough to create the lush, full Roger's look in a big basket, I had spent over $100, plus half a day making and then cleaning up the huge mess of planting it. (Not to mention several trips to HD because I needed way more plants than I thought.) Last year, I really did save money, and work, by starting with a large basket with multiple trailing and bushy flowers sold at Lowe's for $18, plus a few other plants.
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There are some great begonias that would do well in a hanging basket, and I used to do the trailing type of fuschia. Another nice trailer is the annual Lobelia. And don't foget that shade garden standby, Impatiens. The New Guinea ones are big and have beautiful foliage. They would look good as the main upright plant, with the dark blue Lobelia as the trailer.
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Petunias Begonias Nasturtiums Coleus Impatiens Dusty Miller Baby's Breath Heliotrope Verbena Lobelia Fuchsia Million Bells Sweet Alyssum Geraniums Asparagus Fern English Ivy Sweet Potato Vine Coleus Campanula Strawberry Plants For more great ideas, join us on the Annuals forum!
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DYH
14 years ago
I know what you mean -- there's a Carolina Wren nesting in the middle of our hanging basket of begonia, fuschia and purple heart.

I actually like the idea of giving our doves a nesting place! Of course, some other bird will probably find the basket before the doves. I feel sorry for them not having a good place to nest and they are in my garden all the time.

Cameron
Kat SE Wisconsin z5
14 years ago
Several years ago I had some mourning doves start building a nest in one of my hanging pots. For a few days I kept throwing the twigs and stuff out. Then I thought that was it. Nope. Before I knew it they had one built and the female was sitting there. So I gave up on that plant. I like birds, but I don't want them nesting in my pots. It was fun watching the babies grow though. After that experience, I've put small twirly things in my pots. They apparently didn't like those because they haven't come back.

Kat
angela_gipson_hotmail_com
12 years ago
Try buying some metal ties at Home Depot in the chain link fence dept; for just a couple of dollars you can get a pkg of 10 or so. They look like small shepherd hooks and I use them to hold down floating row covers. I stuck a few into my hanging basket (about 8-10 per basket) but pull the hook straight first and then insert the other straight end. They can't get in to the base of the plant that way. It seems to be working.

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Annual Hanging Baskets

Comments (5)

moonshadow

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5

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DYH

Kat SE Wisconsin z5

angela_gipson_hotmail_com

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