5 Autumn Hanging Basket Ideas To Try

Most hanging baskets get emptied out when summer's over, and that's completely understandable.

The petunias are done, everything's gone leggy, and nobody wants to look at a basket of dead stems.

The plants you need are different from summer ones, and so is the thinking. You're not trying to create something that looks lush and full from June to August. You want plants that can handle a bit of frost and don't mind shorter days.

1. Ornamental kale with trailing ivy

Ornamental kale is one of those plants that genuinely gets better as it gets colder. The leaves tighten up and the colours deepen, so by November a basket planted in September can look better than it did when you first put it together. You'll find it in most garden centres from late August onwards.

Pair it with a trailing ivy to fill out the sides of the basket. Ivy is hardy, it doesn't need much from you, and it keeps the basket looking full even when everything else is slowing down. Stick with a plain green variety rather than a variegated one if your garden is on the darker side; the plain green holds its colour better in low light.

Use a good multi-purpose compost with some slow-release fertiliser mixed in, and line the basket well to hold moisture. These baskets need watering less often than summer ones, but they still dry out faster than a pot on the ground.

2. Cyclamen and heuchera

Cyclamen are the most underused autumn hanging basket plant going. They're usually sold as indoor plants, but the outdoor hardy varieties, look for names like Cyclamen hederifolium or Cyclamen coum, or any plant explicitly labelled "hardy outdoor", are completely fine in a hanging basket through autumn and into early winter. The flowers come in pink, white, and deep red, and they keep going for weeks rather than days.

Heuchera gives you the foliage contrast. The leaves range from burnt orange through to deep purple depending on the variety, and they hold their colour well into winter. Plant one heuchera per basket and let the cyclamen fill in around it. This combination tends to look more put-together than a single-plant basket because the heights and textures play off each other.

If you can only find cyclamen labelled as indoor plants, keep them on a covered porch rather than somewhere fully exposed. Hardy outdoor cyclamen are specifically labelled as such, and that distinction matters.

3. Pansies and spreading alyssum

Pansies are the reliable choice and there's no shame in that. Autumn pansies are bred to flower through cold weather, and as long as you deadhead them regularly they'll keep producing flowers from October through to spring. The winter-flowering varieties specifically (look for that on the label) are the ones worth buying.

Lobularia maritima, which most people know as sweet alyssum, has a spreading, low-growing habit that works well around the edges of a basket and it flowers later into the season than you'd expect. Look for trailing varieties if you want stems that spill over the sides. It's not as frost-hardy as pansies, so this combination works better in a sheltered spot than somewhere fully exposed to wind and rain. Against a south-facing wall it can look good well into November.

The main mistake people make with pansy baskets is not deadheading often enough. Check them twice a week and pull off anything that's gone over.

4. Dwarf conifers with winter-flowering heather

This one is more of a structural planting than a flowers-first basket. Dwarf conifers stay evergreen all year, so they give you something to look at even in the bleakest part of winter. Combined with winter-flowering heather, which typically starts flowering from late November or December and runs through to March or April, you get a basket that earns its place through the worst months.

The trick here is not to overcrowd it. One small conifer and two heather plants is enough for a standard 35cm basket. These plants grow slowly, but if you cram too many in they'll struggle for root space and the whole thing will deteriorate faster than it should.

Winter-flowering heather does best in ericaceous compost in a basket, that's the same acidic mix you'd use for blueberries or rhododendrons. Regular multi-purpose compost will work short-term, but the heather will yellow and fade if the pH isn't right.

5. Sedums with trailing diascia or trailing verbena

Sedums are succulent-leaved plants that handle autumn well because they've naturally adapted to drier, cooler conditions. They don't need much watering and they're not particularly fussy about temperature as long as they're not waterlogged. Low-growing, mat-forming varieties work best in baskets, as the stems can spill over the edges. You can find them in most large garden centres from late summer.

Pair them with a trailing diascia or a trailing verbena to add a bit of loose, light growth around the edges. Diascia flowers until the first hard frosts, and verbena is similarly tough in a sheltered spot. Even once the flowers fade, the trailing stems help the basket look intentional rather than half-finished.

The one thing to watch with sedums in baskets is drainage. Waterlogging is the main way these plants fail. If your basket sits somewhere that gets a lot of rain without drying out between showers, add a layer of grit at the base of the compost before planting.

A few things worth knowing before you replant

Buy the right liner. Coir and wool liners hold moisture better than moss in winter, which matters because you'll be watering less often.

Feel the compost before you reach for the watering can. Overwatering in autumn is a more common problem than underwatering.

If a hard frost is forecast, move the baskets off the brackets and sit them on the ground or in a sheltered corner overnight. Most of the plants above will tolerate a light frost on a bracket, but a prolonged hard freeze is a different matter.

Plant up a couple of weeks earlier than you think you need to, and the plants will settle in before the cold really arrives.