Gardens
Would Banks approve?
Ursula Buchan
There are many things for which we should be grateful to Sir Joseph Banks, the explorer and botanist. In 1804, together with the son of Josiah Wedgwood, he founded the Horticultural Society of London, the forerunner of the Royal Horticultural Soci- ety; he gave his name to Banksia, the Aus- tralian honeysuckle, and Rosa banksiae; and, rather more controversially, he is credited with inventing the hanging basket.
According to Dr Brent Elliott, the distin- guished garden historian, he employed them as receptacles for orchids which he discovered were epiphytic rather than para- sitic, i.e. they simply clung to trees for sup- port rather than plugged into them for sustenance. A perforated metal basket, sus- pended from the roof of a greenhouse or conservatory, must have seemed a good way of mimicking their natural habitat, (To this day, tropical orchids are grown in hanging wire or wooden baskets, filled with tree bark chippings.) However, never in his most exalted fancies could Sir Joseph have guessed how popular they were to become.
All was comparatively well, and quiet, while these baskets hung from roof struts in grand Victorian conservatories but by the 1850s they had broken out and made their way into the garden. They now consti- tute an entire horticultural sub-genre, with a number of plant families associated par- ticularly with them, and whole books writ- ten about their cultivation and placement. Indeed, the popularity of several tender plants, especially those with a 'trailing habit', depends on their being considered `hanging basket' plants. Think of Petunia `Surfinia', Lobelia 'Cascade', even the tomato with a pendant habit called 'Tum- bler'. Not content simply with influencing plant-breeding programmes, they have also spawned ill-favoured progeny, such as the wall-fixed half-basket, the plastic 'flower tower' and the polythene 'flower pouch'.
The enthusiasm with which the British public have embraced hanging baskets in recent years must result from the opportu- nities they afford people with tiny gardens, or no gardens at all, to grow flowers. But they are far more widely used than that. Instead of being seen as a last resort, they have begun to take centre stage in many people's summer flower schemes.
There is no doubt that hanging baskets, when well planted with charming summer flowers, and so well-watered and fed that the receptacles themselves are hidden, are resplendent objects, capable of catching the eye from a distance and, in dull or dreary circumstances, providing a welcome `splash of colour'. However, they almost always lack context and, without that, they can look plain silly. The reason I have no objection to planted-up pots on terraces and patios, indeed I positively admire them, is that they are in context, with each other, and the ground from which they appear almost to spring. They soften the hard lines of paving and act as a link with beds and borders.
Not so with baskets, hanging queasily from their flimsy metal horizontal arms and hooks. They are in relation to nothing, except possibly the next-door basket. They are designed to ornament the house, not garden, but a good-looking house does not need them and their very gaiety will draw attention to a plain one, which they cannot hope to hide successfully. Such a house is better off clothed in climbing plants and wall shrubs.
Their use is only really justified where there is no garden soil at all, and the urge for colour,/(ife and horticultural fiddling is understandably strong, say in the courtyard of a sheltered housing development or the outside wall of a high-rise flat. Far be it for me ever to recommend labour-saving for the sake of it, but there is no doubt that baskets can be hard work. They are a fiddle to plant up and hang in the first place and, without a pulley system, it is almost impossible not to strain your shoulders, never mind your temper, water- ing them (and, by golly, they need water- ing). They require regular feeding and dead-heading as well. Only by the intelli- gent use of water reservoirs, water-retain- ing gel and controlled-release fertilisers can you hope to keep the daily grind and the cost of metered water in reasonable bounds.
Despite these strictures, all over the country hanging baskets are at this very moment being planted up with half-hardy annuals and perennials for the summer, their owners quite unaware of their inap- propriateness. Perhaps I am too harsh? I should love to know what Sir Joseph Banks, a far more open-minded individual than I am, thought. It is perfectly possible that the idea of Mediterranean, South African and Far Eastern plants, placed in Irish peat compost and British moss, and encased in a wire basket from China, would have appealed to a globe-circumnavigating naturalist like Banks. You never know.
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