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.

Clown/Lemon Drop is the yellow Torenia. It appears you had no trouble growing it but I've read that particular color can be troublesome. Your M.B.'s are gorgeous too. They are beautiful right after being planted but amazing in August too. I'm having a bit of trouble with a pot I just planted. It's the one with spike plant in the center which did GREAT for me last year in the same pot, but I wanted to try some different plants with it this year so I bought Purple Knight which is the alternanthera. It looks a lot like sweet potato vine, same dark purple and has a very similar growth habit. It's just what they had at my local nursery so I decided to go for it. But, I've completely lost one of the torenia already and two of the purple knight plants have some brown spotting on the leaves. We've had a lot of rain and I'm wondering if that might have anything to do with the spotting but also, I'm wondering if it has to do with my soil so I'm probably going to be buying yet ANOTHER bag of that this weekendand re-potting the whole thing. I tried mixing old soil with a little new and I'm having doubts about that working. I've always read how it shouldn't be done and that pots are supposed to be sterilized from year to year but frankly, I get tired of buying new soil every year and I guess I'm just impatient and want instant beauty without all the extra work. Oh well, just one more example of how cutting corners only ends up costing twice the money and twice the time. grrr. :-) BTW, sure wish I could figure out how to attach pics. to my e-mails so you could get a visual on my feeble attempts! I'll keep trying.

Hi again... I'm confused! The link above from gusolie indicates my purslane wants moist, well drained soil, but another response I got on the Name that Plant forum said it was a succulent and hated a lot of water. Should I infer from the two pieces of info that the plant needs to be well drained and soil kept slightly damp, or well drained and allowed to dry out between waterings? For now, I plan to keep it in the container, but may move it later to the sunnier side of my garden ("sunnier" being a relative term in my yard!). I have two more questions: 1 - Will this plant grow well in my sandy, acidic soil? 2 - Will it over-winter in my mild climate? (Here, winter nighttime temps seldom drop below 20 degrees, and that doesn't happen often.) Thanks for all the help, guys! BTW - let me say now that GW, and particularly this forum, has helped me turn my "sand pit" into a lovely green space. Couldn't have done it without you! ;-))

Torenia for color in shade. Tried it last year and loved it. Someone gave me a packet of cosmos seeds and coleus seeds, so if they sprout I'm going to try those this year too. I have a big asparagus fern that I overwinter in the kitchen every year. It's going back out to its spot in the big stone container as soon as the tulips finish blooming. Haven't decided what to surround it with this year. And last is annual salvia. I've had such poor results with perennial salvia and such good results with annual salvia, the I'll put a bunch of white salvia in the scent garden again this year. It makes a great filler while I'm waiting for the permanent plants to fill in.