Top Tips for Planting Flower Pots That Thrive

Add Curb Appeal to Your Front Porch with Colorful Potted Plants

A great way to add low cost curb appeal to your front porch is by creating a beautiful display of potted greenery and flowers. But not just any ol' display. An outdoor floral arrangement so gorgeous and thriving that it lasts the entire season.

These top-notch tips and tricks will help you to create a lasting space that is bright and colorful. Select the right type of plants and learn how to care for them so they look beautiful all season long.

Container Gardening

Flower pots can have a huge impact on your yard if you plant them correctly. There are some easy tricks to get your pots to look nice and full all summer long. 

These large planters grew to be full and beautiful and lasted until the frost killed them. Learn simple steps to get your pots to grow just like these!

Important Tips for Planting Big and Full Flower Pots

First, whether you select a small pot or a large pot, they must have good drainage holes. If your pots are not draining well enough they will retain excess water in the bottom of the pot. This could cause the roots of your plant to develop root rot and die.

Add Drainage Holes

Start by drilling 4 to 5 holes in the bottom of your pot.

Use Filler Material

Once you have your holes drilled, fill the bottom of your pots with pop cans before adding your dirt.

Pop cans have always worked the best for me, but you can use gravel, milk containers or other items to help the water drain. 

Get a Good Potting Soil

Once you have your pop cans in place you can begin to add your soil. Selecting a good potting soil is important. It should be light and fluffy. Also make sure it is made up of peat moss, pine bark and perlite or vermiculite.

Garden soil is similar to potting soil, however they usually contain some cheaper additives like compost, sand or clay.  These additives will make the soil too dense and dry the plants out. While they are great to add to a garden, flowering plants in pots or a hanging basket need potting soil.

I like to use potting mix with a slow-release fertilizer in it. The fertilizer helps to feed your plants throughout the growing season.

After you add filler and a good soil to your pots it is time to start planting.

Planting Flowers

Sun or Shade Plants

Use plants that are tolerant for the amount of sun or shade in that specific area of your yard. For example, you wouldn't place a plant that thrives in shade in an area that gets full sun the whole day.

All of my pots get sun most of the day so I choose the types of flowers that prefer to have full sun. Make sure to determine how much sun your pots will get depending on their location. You can check the plant labels to determine how much sun the plants needs to thrive.

• A full sun flower needs 6 hours of sun a day. 
• A part sun flower needs 4 to 6 hours of sun.
• A full shade flower needs less than 4 hours of sun a day. 

Choose the plants that work for the area you will be placing the pots.

Thriller, Filler and Spillers

A common flower pot design can include a thriller, filler and spiller. A thriller is one or two tall plants with a strong statement of form and color. This will be the focal point of the container. Fillers are plants that fill the space hiding the soil. A spiller drapes over the edge of the pot. The result is a beautiful display that looks full and beautiful.

Thriller

There are some great thriller plants that can be used. Tall and spiky ornamental grasses are a good neutral choice, but I also use geraniums. Lavender and cana lillies are great too. There are so many options depending on the type of plants or flowers your prefer. 

Filler

When you have something tall in the center, add other flowers around it. These are the fillers. These will fill in around the thriller plant to make the container full and colorful.

Some great filler plant ideas include marigolds, petunias, coleus alyssum and so many more. I added orange zinnias to either side of the spike grass. The spikes and zinnias will keep the top looking full.

Spiller

Anything that leaves will hang and grow over the side of your pot is ideal for a spiller. I like to use a mixture of trailing flowers or vines.

Full Sun Flower Pot Ideas

In this pot for my trailing flowers and vines I used sweet potato vines, the green leafy plant, a calibrachoa, and two verbenas. All of these will trail out of the side of my pot. 

For this other pot I planted a geranium in the center for height.  Geraniums do great in pots. They will get really big and full. I added a potato vine and verbena for my trailing flowers in this pot.

This one has a display of orange calibrachoa and red verbena for trailing flowers. Two orange zinnias are for the bushing flowers and height.

And here I planted a geranium in the middle for height and bushing and for my trailing flowers I planted blue lobelia, and yellow wave petunias.

Shade Flower Pot Ideas

This is my full shade pot.  It sits up against the house and doesn't see the sun much. For this pot I planted a hosta in the center and impatience around the edges. This pot does not have any trailing flowers in it as it will be big and full without any additional smaller plants.

Best Tips for Flower Pot Maintenance

Plants like these grow really well in the hot weather of summer, however they won't thrive without food and water.

Water

Now that you have your pots planted, continual care is very important. I water my pots by hand EVERY night. The reason I water by hand is to ensure they are getting enough water on a consistent basis.

Consider the weather when determining how much water your plants need. Sometimes watering twice a day is a good idea, if the summer heat reaches high temperatures above 100 degrees.

Another great tip is to water at the same time every day. If you water in the morning one day and then the evening the next day, that is too long for your flower to be without water, unless it is a plant that prefers less water.

Food

Plants also need to be fed. Even though my potting soil has a fertilizer in it, I have found that flowers still need more nutrients. I like to use Miracle Gro once a week when watering. This is a simple way to feed your plants and the results are well worth the effort. You will get bigger plants with more flowers all season long!

 

I hope this beginner's guide for planting flower pots will help you get started on planting containers that are full and beautiful! You can also try your hand at luscious flower beds that will surely impress. Once your flowers are successfully growing you can take it one step further. Learn how to arrange fresh flowers as well decorate with flowers too.

Happy Planting!

Brooke

Shop my favorite pots here