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8 best hanging plant pots and baskets for creating luscious indoor and outdoor spaces

Get your at-home jungle started with the best aerial receptacles out there

Mollie Davies
Thursday 24 February 2022 16:38 GMT
They also help keep your specimens safe from cheeky pets
They also help keep your specimens safe from cheeky pets (The Independent)
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Hanging planters have been popular in gardens and front porches for years, but now they’re just as popular indoors. London pub gardens, townhouses, and even competitors at the RHS – you’ll find hanging plant pots and baskets everywhere, spurred on by Britain’s love of blooms.

They’ve also recently had a bit of a facelift. The classics still remain – a round, metal, lined basket – but now, there are the upcycled kind, macrame options, and even those made with smashed up tiles. There’s something nostalgic about filling hanging planters, and they also offer a great way to utilise small spaces by creating an overhead garden.

Plenty of people would just head to their local garden centre in search of hanging plant pots and baskets, but online retailers can offer so much more, from bargain to boujie options.

They are undeniably practical, and they have the ability to turn a dull part of the home, or garden, into something very beautiful. We’re hopeful that our round-up of some of the best can help in your search, whether you’re looking to save a bit of space, keep plants out of reach from pets, or you want to bring the outdoors in.

How we tested

We tested both traditional and modern designs, to find options for everyone. Some of the pots and baskets we tested came with suggestions of how to display them, or what to plant inside, so we tried out some of those tips. Overall, we wanted to test the quality of each planter, and how they fared when being filled.

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The best hanging plant pots and baskets for 2022 are:

  • Best overall – The Orchard Furniture faux baby’s tear hanging basket: £32.50, Notonthehighstreet.com
  • Best for trailing plants – Sass & Belle moon phases hanging planter: £13, Sassandbelle.co.uk
  • Best for indoors – Anthropologie bowie hanging basket: £24, Anthropologie.com
  • Best rustic hanging pot – Foras zinc clover hanging planter: £24, Notonthehighstreet.com
  • Best unusual planter – Rockett St George disco ball and macrame hanging planter: £48, Rockettstgeorge.co.uk
  • Best eco-friendly – Sarora Knots long style plant hanger: £30, Saroraknots.co.uk
  • Best budget-friendly hanging basket – Wilko iron hanging basket: £6, Wilko.com
  • Best for the front porch – Primrose set of two rattan hanging baskets: £8.99, Primrose.co.uk

The Orchard Furniture faux baby’s tear hanging basket

Planters Orchard.png

Best: Best overall

Rating: 10/10

From one of Not On The High Street’s sellers, this hanging basket is a perfect blend for those who love plants, but don’t quite consider themselves green-fingered. As the basket is made from plastic, it’s really hard-wearing, so it was able to take on hard weather with no damage. The faux baby’s tears that line the basket add something extra, and look really realistic – so the basket looks great on its own filled with soil, or as a base to fill with flowers.

The price may be just over the £30 mark, but you won’t need to replace this planter each year, due to its robust make-up and faux greenery, which means you’ll save money in the long term.

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Sass & Belle moon phases hanging planter

Sass and Belle.png

Best: Best for trailing plants

Rating: 7.5/10

This hanging pot from cutesy brand Sass & Belle is the ideal home for trailing plants. The celestial design and neutral colouring makes greenery really pop, and it’s small enough in size to fill with something like a string of hearts plant, without it looking lost. The “wax resist” technique used means that the colour isn’t transferable when wet. Hanging at just over 13cm, we found that this plant looked great above tables with a plant trailing below.

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Anthropologie bowie hanging basket

Anthropologie.png

Best: Best for indoors

Rating: 9/10

This hanging basket from Anthropologie is a little different to the rest of our planters. Carefully woven from seagrass, raffia and with the addition of vegan leather, it can easily be cleaned with a cloth. Slightly taller than other planters, it looks a little more like a pot or bag, so you don’t need to worry about soil or moss being on show. It also looks great when filled with dry flowers and grasses, because it’s got more of a soft finish. Having quite a small strap, we think that this basket looked great hung up on the spare coat rack pegs, adding a really rustic feel. When adding trailing plants, you need to be careful to add a plastic pot inside, to avoid dripping water.

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Foras zinc clover hanging planter

Foras.png

Best: Best rustic hanging pot

Rating: 8/10

Plenty of us love to have things around the home, or in the garden, that have an upcycled feel to them. This modern planter from Foras is made from galvanised iron and gives off a really lovely worn effect. It suits indoors and outdoors, and we found it looked best when filled with plants that bunch and fill out well, such as lobelias or fuchsias. The oxidised iron exterior will weather over time if the planter is displayed outside, so for some this could be a downside. However, given the rustic effect of the planter, we think it will only add to the charm.

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Rockett St George disco ball and macrame hanging planter

Rockett.png

Best: Best unusual planter

Rating: 8.5/10

Bringing the disco home is something that plenty of us have had to do over the past few years, so we were really drawn to this planter. Mimicking a full-size disco ball, the mirrored tiles are suspended by a hanging macrame design, mixing a zen space feel with Eighties party decor. We hung the planter off a curtain pole, so that when the sun flooded through the window, there was a stunning display of light beaming around the room.

Although the price tag isn’t particularly low, the quality of this planter definitely shines through, and you’ll struggle to find anything else quite so special.

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Sarora Knots long style plant hanger

Sarora.png

Best: Best for indoors

Rating: 9/10

Macrame-style planters have seen a huge rise in popularity over the past couple of years, and you can find them hanging everywhere, from restaurants to shops. Sarora Knots, which has been stocked in Anthropologie, designs a range of gorgeous hanging versions that are all made in rich, bright colours and made from clothes and textiles that would otherwise be destined for landfill. The knotting style means that plants grow in unique ways through the gaps, and at around 120cm long, they make for a really show-stopping overhead piece. The functional design means that pots sit firmly, and safely, within the knots, but still looks really interesting.

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Wilko iron hanging basket

Wilo.png

Best: Best budget-friendly hanging basket

Rating: 8.5/10

Sometimes nothing beats a classic. And the hanging basket that we all filled with geraniums while sat next to our grandparents during childhood is hard to beat. This 30cm planter from Wilko is just the right size to hold a tray of flowers. We found that the natural coco lining was perfect for absorbing moisture, and retained a good amount of water for a few days. The description on this basket said that it was the ideal spot for fruit too, so we’re trialling out strawberries for the summer. For the low price, this is a hard one to beat.

  1.  £6 from Wilko.com
Prices may vary
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Primrose set of two rattan hanging baskets

Primrose.png

Best: Best for the front porch

Rating: 7.5/10

For those who haven’t got a particularly large garden, but do have a front porch, or even just two hooks on either side of the door, then there’s still a way to add some colour and greenery. This duo of hanging plant baskets comes in at under a tenner, which is remarkably well priced, and the dark rattan has a lovely rustic feel. We found that the material fared really well in the wet weather, and didn’t flake or give way. The liner was super handy in preventing a mess when watering, but did mean that when the weather was particularly bad, they needed to be tipped to drain.

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The verdict: Hanging plant pots and baskets

Our favourite of the planters we tried is The Orchard Furniture’s baby’s tear hanging basket. We love that it looks rather special, but the faux greenery on the outside requires no extra attention. We also think that the Rockett St George disco ball and macrame hanging planter and Foras zinc clover hanging planter are great talking points, and will make your guests green with envy.

Voucher codes

For discounts on flowers and other greenery, try the links below:

If you want to continue to enjoy your outdoor space on chilly days and evenings, check out our pick of the best patio heaters

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