A pot of flowers is a great way to add an instant pop of color and life to any space, from a porch to a balcony to a backyard deck. At Cornell Farm, our team is constantly hard at work composing botanical creations that will grow beautifully together throughout the seasons. We pooled our gardeners’ expertise to create a cheat sheet to help you plant your own. ‘Containers 101’ will guide you step-by-step to create beautiful custom planters. While designing a planter is sometimes compared to painting, you don’t have to be an artist to take your designs into your own hands. With a few easy tips to get started, you’ll have all the tools you need to let your creativity run wild.
Watch the Video
Follow along with our container designer extraordinaire, Tammy.
Start with the Basics
Light
Are you planning to put your planter in full sun, full shade, or part-sun/part-shade?
Different plants will thrive under different conditions, but there’s a plant palette for every space – from intense sunlight to a shady porch.
Water
How often do you want to water your planter?
Some plants are drought-tolerant, while others like consistent moisture. Grouping plants with similar needs means that they’ll have the best chance of happily flourishing together.
Containers
Your container is the foundation of your design and a powerful way to complement the colors of your plant. The options are nearly limitless, but these are some of our favorite types of outdoor containers for a gorgeous arrangement.
Terracotta Pots — Terracotta is lightweight, inexpensive, and stylish. It’s important to note that the material is extremely porous, so your soil will dry out faster than many other containers. This can be an advantage for dark locations or for plants that don’t like their feet wet, but make sure to water more regularly.
Ceramic Pots — Ceramic pots offer the widest range of colors, from simple glazes to complex textures and intricate designs. These are typically heavier than terracotta and dry out a little slower.
Ecoforms — Ecoforms are a light-weight yet durable container option, engineered out of recycled plastic with sustainability in mind.
Biodegradable Pulp — Sturdy pulp pots are a great and inexpensive option for a short-term seasonal container — for example, a summertime pot full of annuals. After you’re done showcasing your arrangement for the season, the entire pot can be easily composted.
Your container is the first opportunity to get creative. You can coordinate or contrast the color, texture, and form of your pot to accent the plants you put inside. Choose one with a hole in the bottom for proper water drainage. If you’re setting the container on a balcony, porch, or deck, we recommend adding a spacer and/or saucer to prevent damage to the surface underneath.
Color Story
In container design, color is everything. An easy design tip is to coordinate with the colors of your house, door, or a piece of outdoor furniture. Our color pots at Cornell Farm come in brightly-colored containers which match the thematic palette inside, but you can also use color contrast to create a striking visual.
Here are a few directions you could go with your color story:
Warm Palette
- Yellows, oranges, reds, pinks
Cool Palette
- Greens, blues, purples, whites
Color Theory Combos
- Complimentary colors like orange/blue, purple/yellow, or pink/green
- Analogous colors like yellow/orange or blue/purple
Themes
- Pastels
- Red, white, and blue
- White for a moonlight garden
- Black for a “goth garden”
- Cozy autumn colors
- Your favorite sports team’s colors
Elements
Arranging a container is all about creating an eye-catching composition. Beyond color, you can take advantage of your vertical space by using elements of different heights. The tried-and-true trifecta of “Thriller, Filler, and Spiller” gives you the basic ingredients to cook up a stunning design.
Thriller — The highlight of the container – a showy centerpiece that towers above the rest
Filler — A dense mid-height feature to fill out the bulk of the container
Spiller — A waterfall of foliage and/or flowers that drapes down the side of the pot
Like a work of art, you can use basic guidelines to compose your container design. Try staging different combinations to see what you like best.
Bonus: Annuals vs. Perennials
- Annuals are warm-weather plants that will look amazing from late spring to early fall, but they will need to be replaced after the sunny growing season or replanted next year.
- Perennials will return year after year (or even remain evergreen), but they can develop robust root systems inside your pot and may need extra maintenance to keep in a container.
- Try a mix of both! Many containers use a perennial thriller element that remains consistent as the filler and spiller change. A draping sedum makes for a gorgeous long-lasting spiller for a dry, full-sun pot.
How to Plant
Choose Your Container
First, choose your container as the foundation of your new arrangement.
Choose Your Plants
It may be helpful to plan out your design before you start — try using a piece of scratch paper or simply staging the plants beside each other. Imagine how they’ll look when they grow in. Depending on the size of the container and your patience in waiting for the pot to fill out, you can choose the density of your planting — maybe you want to add multiple fillers or spillers for that instant lush effect.
Plant It
Fill your container with fresh soil, a few inches from the top. We recommend layering Sure Start fertilizer with your thriller, then your filler, then your spiller. It’s helpful to manually loosen the root ball of each nursery pot to encourage the plant to grow downwards into the soil. Plant so the top of the nursery soil is level with the substrate in the container. Feel free to move things around and change your design as you go.
Water It In
Drench until liquid runs from the bottom. Water as close to the soil as possible to prevent burning or the possibility of disease when moisture remains on the foliage.
Tips
- You can keep updating your container year-round for seasonal flair
- Set your planter up for success with Sure Start and feed every few weeks with a flower-boosting fertilizer like Ultra Bloom to maximize those showy flowers
- When blooms are spent, don’t be afraid to deadhead to encourage more flowers
- Water less frequently but more deeply so that moisture can percolate all the way through the soil and reach your plants’ roots
- Consider how texture can add to your design — for example, contrasting the fluffy cloud of your filler with a spiky thriller can create a pop of interest!
- Accessorize! Add some garden art like a hand-made Shroomyz mushroom
