orchidgal said:Has anyone noticed that it's hard to find the regular hanging baskets. The ones I like (dark green) are already already planted; I want to buy some empty ones. You used to be able to find them on the shelves of Wal Mart, Home Depot and Lowes. No longer -- they're either an ugly shade of green - or even black. Maybe someone doesn't want the general public making up their own hanging baskets. Another gardening friend asked me the same question a couple of days ago. 
Our local Home Depot has a "recycle/reuse" shelf in the garden center. There are often hanging baskets there, along with nursery pots of various sizes. They tell me "take them and use them" and don't even charge. There are the most there in the spring and in September-early October when people are doing fall plantings.
I sometimes use the cheap hanging baskets to line shallow plastic pots that don't have drainage holes or don't fit any 'saucer' I have. If I'm hanging those indoors, the pot without drain holes becomes the catch pan/saucer, and the inexpensive/ugly nursery basket is the "pot" with drainage.
For hangers, I make my own from twine. I'm pretty good with the lost art of macrame, combined with some braiding as well. I also sell these at local farmers' markets during the summer, and I'm about to start putting some on Etsy or Amazon's new handcrafted section.
For hanging planters I have indoors, I like pots without drainage holes, and use a nursery container within that with drainage, sometimes with marbles or pebbles holding it up out of the water that drains.
