Front door planters make a lasting impression. Your front door and porch reflect your personality and how visitors perceive your home. Enhancing this area doesn’t require a significant investment of time or money. Simple touches like a freshly painted door and a couple of potted plants can make a bold, welcoming statement.
For a quick boost in curb appeal, consider one of these 17 creative container garden ideas. They feature vibrant blooms, seasonal herbs, and fall foliage, perfect for making a stunning first impression.
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1. Pot of Pansies for Easy Elegance:
For a high-impact look, fill a shallow urn with violas and pansies. This arrangement, suggested by Mark Thompson, owner of Shoppe in Birmingham, creates a full, vibrant display. Mixing colors or sticking to one hue offers flexibility and cost-effectiveness.
2. Sophisticated Boxwood Beauty:
A green and white theme is ideal for spring. Thompson recommends a boxwood topiary in a charming container, surrounded by star jasmine, lemon thyme, and phlox. Swap the phlox for violas or pansies for more color. Ensure this arrangement gets full sun to part shade and regular watering.
3. Cheerful Pansies and Green Accents:
A mix of blue and yellow pansies, accented with creeping Jenny, chives, and sedum, creates a cheerful trio of planters. This multi-container approach, also by Thompson, is a budget-friendly way to use extra pots and extend the life of your blooms into spring.
4. Patriotic Hydrangeas and Bold Doors:
Celebrate patriotic pride with glossy red doors, white trim, and blue hydrangeas. Paired with elephant ears and trailing pothos, this setup creates a stunning summer entrance. Keep containers in part shade and water regularly.
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5. Vibrant Blue Door with Citrus Blooms:
Complement a cobalt blue door with satsuma mandarin topiaries in sapphire pots. Add zinnias, lantanas, and cosmos in citrus hues for a vibrant summer display. Satsuma mandarins should be brought indoors if temperatures drop below 20 degrees.
6. Classic Meets Modern with Junipers and Flowers:
French doors are enhanced by ‘Blue Point’ junipers, ‘Ogon Gold’ sweet flag, and creeping Jenny in concrete urns. Add ‘Liberty’ snapdragons, marigolds, and dianthus for color. Ensure at least six hours of sun for this arrangement.
7. Warm Hues for a Sunny Entrance:
Mimic sunrise and sunset hues with Chinese fan palms, bromeliads, and acuba in earthenware planters. Bromeliads thrive in bright or dappled shade and can be brought indoors during frost.
8. Tropical Vibes with Jungle-Inspired Planters:
Complement evergreen vines around an arched door with sago palms, variegated ivy, and white Epimedium in large urns. These plants prefer bright shade or part shade and are cold-hardy in USDA Zones 8b and up.
9. Romantic Floral Staircase:
Adorn stair steps with pastel flowers like geraniums, petunias, and lobelias against a turquoise door. These flowers thrive in sunny spots.
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10. Green and Verdant Welcome:
Create a captivating green display with salvia, rosemary, coleus, and ornamental cabbage. Contrast with spillers like Wave petunias. These plants need full sun to thrive.
11. Dramatic Foliage for Summer:
Use elephant’s ear for a dramatic display, surrounded by colorful flowers and foliage. These plants need full or part sun and ample water.
12. Layered Floral Display:
Layer ‘Pop Star’ hydrangeas with euphorbias, gauras, and calibrachoas for depth and color at your front door.
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13. Elegant Topiaries with Seasonal Flowers:
Tall planters with waxleaf privet topiaries, creeping Jenny, and ivy create an elegant entrance. Add warm-colored annuals for seasonal color. Ligustrum is hardy in USDA Zones 7-11.
14. Classic Hanging Ferns:
Classic Boston ferns add a lush look to porches. They need bright, indirect light and moist soil. Bring indoors if temperatures fall below 40 degrees.
15. Colorful Container Garden:
Group pots of bright zinnias, verbenas, and phlox for a colorful container garden. These flowers need plenty of sun.
16. Foliage-Only Arrangement:
Combine plants with interesting leaf shapes and colors, like caladiums, coleus, asparagus fern, and ivy, for a no-flower container garden. Caladiums need to be dug up and stored if you live outside USDA Zone 9.
17. Warm-Toned Floral Pot:
Fill a concrete pot with warm-toned flowers like lantanas, coneflowers, and roses for a vibrant summer display. Plant in May for blooms through fall.
Frequently Asked Questions
How big should front door planters be?
For a striking impact, containers should be at least 12 inches wide, ensuring enough space to walk comfortably. Small trees or shrubs thrive in planters at least 16 inches wide. Aim for a planter that’s about one-third the height of your door for the best visual effect.
What can you put in front door planters in winter?
In the South, opt for small evergreen shrubs like arborvitae, nandina, holly, boxwoods, and leucothoe. Mild climates can also use coral bells, winter pansies, and ornamental kale and cabbage.