Any suggestions for low care plants for hanging pot or basket?

[naturalistSean]

I would like to hang some smaller orchids in pots or baskets. I would especially like ones that don't need daily watering. I already have some mounted plants that require daily attention but with 2 young children, and the desire to occasionally go on holiday, I don't want too many very needy plants. I like the way hanging plants look, but also the house we're moving to (Carinthia, Austria) has a sort of recessed window facing SSE and hanging plants would increase my usable space and also protect them from the imps. Any ideas for suitable orchids? I'll be placing an order with Schwerter tonight or tomorrow morning.

[rbarata]

A plant becomes needy only if your environment is not adequate for it. The plants you're after are the those whose requirements mett your environment.
Please tell us about it...humidity, temps (especially minimum), light levels, etc.

[naturalistSean]

Moving to a new place so the specifics of the environment are unknown. Given that it will be Austria I can well imagine indoor heating will lower the humidity a great deal. There will be windows facing every direction. With young children it won't get as cool inside as I like, perhaps lows in the mid-upper teens (C). I believe some plants require daily watering or misting regardless of the indoor environment. Perhaps Vanda and the like are this way. This is what I'm looking to avoid; plants that need daily watering or misting.

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[Shadeflower]

good luck with the move sean.

The one that popped into my head straight away was a ghongora galleata but schwerter haven't got any.

You can have lots of orchids in hanging baskets that don't have hanging flowers so it's up to you a bit what climate you can offer and what schwerter have in stock.

I would recommend a dendrobium of some sort. Maybe a sedirea japonica just because it's probably the most adaptable phal you could buy and is lovely.

maybe a phal equestris or one of its hybrids like Dtps. Tzu Chiang Sapphire - Orchideen der Schwerter Orchideenzucht

that is a beautiful hybrid well worth getting

[estación seca]

Gongora, Oncidium hybrids, Bulbophyllums and Coryanthes can be grown in baskets with a dish of water attached. They are very thirsty. The cirrhopetalum group of Bulbophyllum has a lot of plants that do well hanging, and many are small plants. Some flower through the year.

Den. loddigessi is a small-scale plant that creeps horizontally. It flowers best with cool winters. You could put it closer to the glass in winter.

Small to miniature Cattleya hybrids should do well for you in baskets.

[naturalistSean]

Thank you very much Shadeflower and estación seca! Great suggestions. Estación seca, I've a daft question: how do you attach a water dish to a hanging basket?

[estación seca]

You can put hanging wires or a macrame hanger on a regular pot that comes with a saucer, so the wires or macrame support the saucer. Keep the saucer filled. This is the commonest method I've seen used.

You can wire a dish under a wire or plastic basket so the bottom of the basket is in the water in the dish.

You can take a container with no drain holes and drill holes above the bottom, as when making a semi-hydroponics container. Then figure out how to hang the container with wires or macrame. The bottom of the container would have a reservoir. The container does not need to be deep, especially if the medium is loose and has lots of air. I could easily envision doing this with LECA as a medium - again, as with semi-hydroponics.

For plants with spikes emerging down from the medium you will need to use a wire or plastic basket.

I have not done these hanging things with reservoirs myself, but I have seen them in other people's houses. I do grow in S/H. And I grow some Bulbophyllums in shallow trays with no drainage holes, in sphagnum mounded over LECA. If I attached hangers these would be just what I'm talking about.