How to Create a Flower Planter for Your Front Porch
How to create a flower planter for your porch. This tutorial will help you put together a beautiful potted flower arrangement!
Every spring I look forward to decorating our front porch with flowers. Usually we just purchase something simple and inexpensive from a nursery or greenhouse.
This year, after mentioning that I would like to get some flowers for the porch, my mom offered to make a planter for me!
My mom has a degree in horticulture, so I always look to her for gardening and flower advice.
I was so excited to see what she would come up with!
She asked if I had any preferences on the color of the flowers and the pot. I told her I mostly just wanted to match the blue front door.
And…look at this beautiful blue and white planter arrangement she created for us!
I was so thrilled with how beautiful it turned out!
And, it matches the blue front door perfectly. Mom created this planter pot for us in April, and it’s still going strong in June!
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How to Create a Flower Planter
If you’d like to learn how to create a flower planter for your front porch, here are some tips from Mom.
Step 1: Choose Your Container
First, decide on the planter container you’d like to use.
Mom chose this white terra cotta planter (similar to this one). I just love it because it matches the trim on our front door. I also like the classic look of this white planter.
This white planter is very heavy and durable, which is also a must at our busy house!
Step 2: Choose Your Colors
The next step in designing a container flower arrangement is to decide which colors you want to use. Do you have a particular color scheme in mind?
For our house, we wanted to match the blue front door. The blue created lots of options, but I really wanted something simple and elegant.
The blue and white color scheme we chose is just right, and I love this particular grouping of flowers.
Step 3: Choose Your Flowers
After filling your planter with potting soil, this next step is the fun part—getting to choose the flowers!
We knew the planter was going to go on the front porch, so we chose the plants accordingly. You want to make sure the plants you choose will be happy in their new location.
For example, if your front porch is very shady and hardly gets any sun, you’ll need to take that into consideration. In this case, you’d want to look for plants that tolerate shade.
If your porch gets full sun for hours, make sure to buy sun-loving plants.
You want to put plants together that have similar light and water requirements, since they’ll be living in the same pot.
Bonus Tip: Thriller, Filler, and Spiller
Here’s a bonus tip that will help you decide which flowers to get. You want to get three types of flowers for your planter arrangement:
- a thriller
- a filler
- and a spiller
What does this mean? Here’s how Mom explained it to me.
You want to choose one plant that’s going to be your “thriller.”
This is the plant that’s going to go in the center and be the center of attention. It’s supposed to have a bit of “drama.”
In our case, the “thriller” is white geraniums. They’re taller than the other plants and make a simple but beautiful statement.
Then, you need a “filler,” which is the plant that’s going to fill out your container.
In my planter, this is blue lobelia. It fills out the space around the geraniums beautifully.
And finally, you want to choose a “spiller,” which will spill down over the edges of your planter.
We chose white bacopa flowers for the “spiller,” and I think they’re so lovely!
They work perfectly to spill over the edge of the plant container and add that something special.
Create a Flower Planter for Your Porch
I hope you’ve enjoyed learning how to create a flower planter for your porch! I’m so glad my mom shared these helpful container gardening tips with me.
If you follow these tips, your front porch planters will be amazing!
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Related Posts:
- How to Grow Herbs: A Beginner’s Guide
- 12 Tips for Growing Tomatoes in a Home Garden
- My Mother’s Beautiful Garden
- Farmhouse Inspired Fall Front Porch
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Please ignore my last comment. I came back to the post, and lo and behold! Photos were there!!!
Couldn’t see the beautiful colors yet because I have FLUX on my computer and it’s 6am here…..
I’m glad you were able to see the photos! My mom did such a beautiful job with the planter.
There are no photos in this post….would have been nice to see photos to help with “copying” the look.Thank you
Blue and white are my favorite colors for a spring planter. Your potted arrangement is beautiful and the perfect accent for your blue door.
Judith
Thank you so much, Judith!
What a beautiful planter! I love the planter and the combination of colors your mother used. The tips you shared are very helpful! Thank you for sharing at Tuesday Turn About!
Thank you!
This is a fantastic tutorial we have purchased our first home with a porch so I will be definitely using this for planters gor our porch thanks gor linking to #fortheloveofblog
Thank you! And congratulations on your home!
So this really opened my eyes because I am so haphazard when it comes to this sort of stuff. I realise that actually doing a bit of planning is what is needed so create a really good planter so thanks for teaching me that 🙂 and for linking up to #ForTheLoveofBlog
I was the same before my mom shared this with me!
From now on, I won’t forget the thriller, filler and spiller
Thank you for sharing❣️
Glad it was helpful!
I shared thispost with my husbnd, our garden expeect as a possible comnbination, sun light dependent for our blue front porch pots. Thanks.
So glad it was helpful!
Great tips! I love the thriller, filler, and spiller! That’s really helpful and fun! Thanks for sharing it at TFT.
Thank you!
Your mom made a beautiful potted arrangement! Front porch pots are on my immediate to-do list.
Thank you, Allyson! I need to ask her to make another one this year!
I love the idea of a thriller, filler, and spiller! What potting soil did you use? Did you put any rocks at the bottom to help with drainage? I’m trying to think of putting together some potted plants for our front porch and this gives me a good plan of execution! Found you through Wonderful Wednesday
I’m not sure, since my mom put this together for me. Probably just regular potting soil. Also, I think she did put rocks in this planter just because the pot was so tall. It depends on the particular pot you choose. If it has drainage holes and is shorter, rocks may not be necessary. So glad it was helpful!
Very pretty and great tutorial! Thanks for sharing with us at The Blogger’s Pit Stop!
Thank you, Roseann!
Beautiful, I love Planters on the front porch. Love the colours.
Thank you, Gayle!
Pretty! I love planters that are full of flowers.
Thank you, Erlene!
Very nicely done. TFS with #omhgww. Pinned.
Thanks!
Love the planter and how the flowers match your door. Very informative also.
Thank you, Karie!
Beautiful container garden.
Happy summer,
Kippi
I love this planter! We live in a condo, so I’m always looking for container garden inspiration!
Thank you, Leslie! Glad it was helpful!
A lovely planter, I like the ways the colors match your front porch. I must remember the Thriller, Filler, Spiller
combination. We are going to feature your post in the next Blogger’s Pit Stop. Thanks for this bright cheery post.
Thank you, Kathleen!
Those flowers are lovely! I really love the blue lobelia!
Thriller, Filler, Spiller. I’m going to have to remember that one. Makes it stick in my mind.
Your mom did a great job!
Blessings, Laurie
Thanks for sharing on the Homestead Blog Hop!
Thank you, Laurie! The blue lobelia is one of my favorites, too.
I picked lots of white and purple this year for my porch flowers since I too have a purply-blue door. Thanks so much for sharing with us at the Summer Fun party. Pinned.
Thank you for this post. I always have these visions of how wonderful my pots on the front step will look and have had some failures. Yours are beautiful and I loved how you tied the pattern on your pot in with the trim!
So glad it was helpful, Julie! I’m so thankful for my mom’s expertise in this area.