How to Water Hanging Plants Without the Drips, the Mess or the Step Stool

People do not give up on hanging plants because the plants die. They give up because watering them is annoying: the step stool, the drips on the floor, the pot that swings when you tip the can. Solve the watering and hanging plants become the easiest plants in the house, because nothing knocks them over and no pet digs in them. Here are the four ways to do it, and which one we would choose for each situation.

Why hanging plants dry out faster

A pot in the air is surrounded by moving, warm air on all sides, including the bottom. Heat rises, so a plant hung near the ceiling sits in the warmest air in the room, often five degrees warmer than the floor. The result is that a hanging pot can dry out in half the time of the same pot on a table. That is the whole reason this chore is harder: it comes around more often.

Method 1: Take it down and water in the sink

Best for: macrame hangers with regular drainage pots; anyone with three or fewer hanging plants.

Lift the pot out of the cradle (or unhook the whole hanger), carry it to the sink, water thoroughly until it runs out the bottom, let it drain for ten minutes, put it back. This is the most reliable method because you can see the soil, you flush salts out with every watering, and no water goes anywhere near your floor.

The downside is obvious: it takes ten minutes per plant and involves a step stool if the hook is high. It is also the method that most stresses the hanger, since you are lifting a wet pot in and out of the knots. Make it easier by hanging pots at a height you can reach flat-footed, and by using plastic or resin pots rather than ceramic so the wet weight is manageable.

Method 2: Water in place with a drip tray

Best for: hanging baskets with an attached saucer; light waterings between proper soakings.

Some hanging pots come with a clip-on tray underneath. You water slowly in place, the excess collects in the tray, and you empty it later. It works if you water little and often and never fill the tray; overfill it and it overflows down the plant onto the floor. Use a long-spouted watering can or a squeeze bottle so you can reach the soil without tipping the pot, and pour slowly at the rim, not the center.

We would not put a loose saucer under a pot inside a macrame cradle. It tilts, it spills, and it adds weight to the knots.

Method 3: Ice cubes (do not)

You will read that two or three ice cubes on the soil is a tidy way to water hanging plants. It is tidy. It also delivers near-freezing water directly onto roots that evolved in warm forests, and far too little of it. A 6-inch pot needs a cup or more of water to wet the root ball; three ice cubes is a third of that, so the bottom half of the soil stays permanently dry while the top stays permanently cold. Skip it.

Method 4: A reservoir planter

Best for: anyone with more than three hanging plants, anyone who travels, and anyone who hates the step stool.

A self-watering hanging planter has a water tank in its base with a fill opening you reach from the side, and the plant draws water up through a wick as it needs it. You refill it every one to three weeks instead of watering every few days, you pour into an opening rather than onto soil so nothing splashes, and an overflow hole prevents the reservoir from flooding the soil if you overfill. Our 10-inch hanging planters are built this way and are the reason most of our own plants hang without a saucer.

The trade-offs: a reservoir planter is heavier than a nursery pot (ours is about 9 pounds full, so hang it from a joist hook, not a tension rod), and it needs a plant that likes even moisture (pothos, philodendron, spider plant, fern, not succulents). You still take it down once every couple of months to flush the soil from the top. Everything else about watering becomes a fortnightly glance at the water level.

A schedule that works

Whichever method you use, the rhythm is the same: check often, water rarely but deeply.

• Twice a week: push a finger into the soil to the second knuckle. Dry at that depth means water; damp means wait. For reservoir planters, glance at the water level.
• When you water: water until it runs out the bottom (methods 1 and 2) or fill the reservoir to the line (method 4). Shallow sips are what cause dry cores and salt buildup.
• Every six to eight weeks: take every hanging pot down, including reservoir planters, and flush it in the sink until the water runs clear. This is also when you check the hook, the knots and the chains.
• Winter: halve the frequency. Warm dry air from heating dries the surface fast but the plant is using little; check the depth, not the top.

Making the reach easier

Hang pots so the rim is at or just above your eye level, not at the ceiling. You lose nothing in light (the top of the window is still the top of the window) and you gain the ability to check and water without climbing. A hanger set in graduated lengths, like ours at 41, 35 and 29 inches, puts the pots between shoulder and eye height on a standard ceiling for exactly this reason. Keep a long-spouted can within reach of the plant corner, and keep the floor under hanging plants clear of rugs and electronics so the occasional drip is a wipe, not a problem.

Watering is the whole difference between a hanging garden that lasts and one that comes down after a summer. Pick the method that matches how many plants you have and how much you like step stools, and the plants will do the rest. The reservoir option and the standard hangers are both in our Hanging Planters collection.