I have three different types of asarina seedlings, all with their first sets of true leaves, and I have the idea to grow them in hanging containers so they trail down. Only thing, I'm nervous they won't be the lush vision I have in my head or that they'll look lopsided in the pot (I just have those 10" pots from last year from the store with petunias and whatnot in them).

I have Asarina erubescens, scandens, and wislizensis. I'm thinking a separate pot for each type, perhaps with some petunias or portulacas (other ideas welcome?) or something to fill in.

How many should I plant in each pot?
Do I need to pinch to make these full?
Any other tips?

Thanks!

I'm only familiar with Asarina scandens, which I dearly love. They will do ok in gallon pots, all by themselves (single plant to a container), but I haven't had a great deal of luck with them in combined plantings. Not sure if that's just me or if they just don't like company. Mine did best planted in a large container with only Asarina in it.


There are two different plants in this photo.

I tried putting one in a mixed planting in a half barrel, and it really didn't do much. Had a Pink Flamingo rebar sculpture in the barrel and really wanted the Asarina to climb up it, but it didn't want to climb and was barely visible in the planting.

Thanks, Woofie. That's massive--I didn't realize two could get that big, really. Perhaps that would work better on my arches, since they have a lower light requirement than morning glories. Did you do any pinching, or does it do all that by itself?

I grow the Lophospermum erubescens aka Asarina erubescens. They don't seem to get bushy .. I grow mine on arches. The one I have is Bridal Bouquet.

These weren't pinched at all. Just stuffed into the planter (it's actually an old wood stove that had two holes in the top--put one plant in each hole) and all I did was gently encourage them to climb. I left the cascading portion alone.

Looks like the flowers are quite a bit larger on the erubescens. Very nice!

The erubescens are way bigger than the scandens and I'm not familiar with the wislizensis.

So the erubescens don't branch much, Xeramtheum? I saw a nice picture of it in a hanging basket in the database here, by Pirl. I wondered how many plants and what she had to do to get it to drip like that. When you say bigger do you mean plant-wise or blossom-wise? It does look like the blossoms are bigger. Wislizensis blossoms look smallest of the three.

My erubescens didn't branch much and when I grew the scandens from seed, the flowers were about half the size if I'm remembering correctly. To be honest I haven't had much experience with Asarina except for those two. I was able to find the raw photo of the erubescens which will give you a better idea of the growth habit .. can't find any pics of the scandens.

I asked Pirl about her picture and she said there were four erubescens plants in the hanging basket when she purchased it and she just watered. I have two seedlings. Maybe I'll fill in with something like portulacas at the top since apparently these don't mind sharing space...

And the scandens I'll grow up my arches, maybe with the black-eyed susan vines I need to sow right around now...

What do you think?

That sounds good.

Lol, Woofie, you're probably like, "Didn't I say at least twice that the scandens did best in large containers alone? Why, yes... yes, I did..."

I completely forgot, and only around 5:30 did I remember. Well, they're pretty on their own, too! Maybe I'll sneak a separate pot of something like pansies or some other part shade plant into the same container, though, just to fill in the pot itself as it grows up the arches (I hope it does)...

Heh, actually I was thinking about trying something similar, except with maybe a morning glory in a separate pot, and letting them both climb the same support.

I need to grow this group again, I like them, too.

They are pretty little things, for sure. Joseph, I also accidentally had a Cardinal Climber grow in with some Morning Glories, and that was a very nice combination! The contrast of the different style leaves and the small bright flowers with the larger pastels was really lovely.