Making Hangers for Your Plant Pots

Creating Pot Hangers, and Maximizing the Use of Your Growing Space

I have only a certain amount of growing space. That is true for most people, and whether it is a giant old glass greenhouse with unlimited funds, or a small tabletop area, you need to be able to maximize your space.

I live in New England, United state. Connecticut, just North of Hartford. On the Connecticut River, or just about so I am definitely zone 6, sometimes into a possible Zone 7. Yes, we have snow and plenty of freezes, but we have few days where it is horribly cold, a least most years!

My winter growing space is my back porch, which in cold months I seal with a double layer of construction plastic (1 layer inside, 1 layer outside, 5 inches dead space in between for insulation) and heat with a small electric heater. The total size is 6 feet wide by 22 feet long, and about 9 feet in height. Big enough to include 2 chairs, a love seat, and a 3 tier re-circulating brook-pond complex. As well as 400+ orchids and stuff.

I am lucky, and I take advantage of found objects. By the side of the road I found that some family was getting rid of metal bunkbeds. The bunkbeds included the sides, naturally, which are metal slats, painted black, with a gap of about 4 inches between, meant for kids to climb up to the next level. Perfect!

With 3 S-hooks, in the summer I hang these in my Lath House (a sort-of arbor). In the winter, they are inside the back porch, forming 2 sides of the indoor growing area, with a 250 Watt Metal Halide lamp in the middle and the construction plastic on the outside for maximum light and growth opportunities.

Horizontally, these metal bunkbed steps give places to hang plants. Plenty of commercially available hangers can be used, or you can make your own.

I make my own.

I use 16 gauge or 14 gauge galvanized wire that I get in 100 foot rolls from the local hardware store. I have used other wire, but I'm not happy having my hangers rust after only 2-5 waterings. The galvanized wire is a little more costly, or a little more difficult to find, but it doesn't rust.

The wire hangers can be made to adapt to any size pot or plant. There are several ways to set them up. You will need sturdy wire cutters and a pair of pliers for this project. Needle nosed pliers are often helpful, but the ability to press down on an end of wire is the most important.

For traditional round terra-cotta pots, it is simple. Select a pot (with or without a plant in it). Cut a piece of wire slightly more than 2 and times the circumference of the pot. Form the wire into a loop and cross the ends once. Then, set the pot into the loop, tighten the loop down to size. Remove the pot and repeatedly wrap the loose ends of the wire all the way around, crossing over each other to stabilize the size of the loop. With about an inch remaining, reverse the direction of the wrap so that there are no sharp ends pointing outward.

Next, cut 3 pieces of wire about 20-24 inches long. Hold all three of them together, equally. Starting about 5 inches from one end, braid the wires together, working towards the other end. When you have about two inches of braid (which will hold together as you bend the wires repeatedly), stop and finish the short end. This will become the top. Wrap the wires around each other to bind together, and then bend the finished end into a hook.

The three long ends attach to the wire circle. I bend each one into a hook about an inch in length, facing inwards again so there are no sharp ends. Set them about 1/3 of the way around the circle, the same distance from each other.

You can vary the length of the hanging portion to best suit your hanging area, or the size of the plant in the pot.

Plastic pots can utilize hangers made in the same manner, or in two other ways. Because they are so much lighter in weight, for smaller pots (2-4 inches) a hanger can be made from a single piece of wire.

Take a piece of wire about 2 to 2 times the length of the circumference of the pot. Starting in the center of the wire, form it into a circle, crossing it over where it intersects. On each side of the intersection, wrap the loose part of the wire over the circlet twice, then bring it back to the intersection. There, wrap the ends together, separating from the circlet. Continue crossing them until you get to the ends, then barely bend back the ends so there is no sharp part. Bend this over to form a hook of whatever style best fits your racks.

You can also use square or round plastic pots with wire hangers. I have found that I can make a great hanger by boring holes in plastic pots and inserting wires through those holes. It is best to do this outdoors since the plastic fumes can be poisonous to you and your plants.

Plastic melts at such a low temperature that you do not need to use a glue gun or anything like that to bore the holes, you can simply heat the ends of your wire with a candle flame. Or you can use a nail for larger holes, but in that case be sure to hold the nail in pliers or a pot holder so you don't burn your fingers! You may need to heat the nail for a minute or more before it is hot enough to melt the plastic. Be careful when putting it down after melting the hole, it will still be hot.

I mostly use these pots with the metal mesh racks I built for show displays. It is easy to set them up as very flat hangers and they go right onto the screening for easy arrangement of ferns or other plants that I am using in my backdrops. One inch wire mesh or other metal "cloth" is great stuff, or even chicken wire is easy to use with this style.

The easiest thing to do it to bore 2 holes in a pot, about inch or so below the rim, one in each corner (presuming a square pot). I then take a length of wire, bending it in the middle into an extended U. I insert the legs of this U into the holes from the inside, so the U is inverted and inside the pot. When the plant is pushing the U against the inside of the pot, it gives it great stability.

Both legs are then bent over at the level of the holes. This design has proven to be very stable when used in either displays or in my summer lath house. It does better with a flat rack rather than the inch round pipes that many of my other plants are hung over.

The whole idea is to maximize your growing space, and the exposure of your plants to any available (natural or artificial) light.

Good growing!