Gardening Sweet Spots
By Donna Hessel
There’s no need to retire all your weather-resistant containers for winter. Add evergreen boughs, branches and colorful accessories to create winter porch pots with pizzazz to welcome holiday visitors.
Start with a Container
The best containers are waterproof, durable, strong and easy to move. Metal or concrete pots or urns are suitable, but resin or fiberglass are ideal. Consider the shape. Wide and short pots work well with smaller greens and shorter branches. A tall, thin container looks best with a strong vertical arrangement. Any color will work, but shades of green or terra cotta lend themselves to winter. Clean up the outside of the container if it has turned grungy over the summer. Drain any water that may still be in the pot, but leave the soil in place. The soil will freeze and hold boughs, branches and accessories on sticks securely in the soil base.
Consider a Color Scheme
Wintery colors with a festive mood include cool shades of white, blue and black. Accent colors might be berry red, emerald green or deep rose. Rusty yellows and oranges also make striking accents. Gold and silver evoke a festive ambiance. Consider the color of your house siding, front door (if the containers will be at your entrance) and the surrounding landscape.
What materials will provide the color spark desired? Dried artichokes for green; pear gourds, dyed eucalyptus, rose hips, dried pomegranates for red or pink, as well as red berry branches and red dogwood twigs. Purple ornamental grass fronds provide texture and will also sway in a breeze, adding movement to your arrangement. Dried hydrangea blooms come in soft blue, pink and tan. Browns and yellows can be found in pine cones, sweet gum and other dried seed pods.
Don’t dismiss the idea of painting dried materials to add a color. Painted dried alliums make stunning, colorful accents! White adds class. It might be in the form of snow caps on the arrangement, but given our trending milder winters, some white birch logs or pine cones painted white will add that accent. No birch logs? Any suitably sized logs painted white with brown/black spots (check birch bark coloring online) will suffice nicely and less expensively (!) than sourcing birch logs. But they are available from Amazon.
Accessories can add color, too. Glittery stars, solar powered spotlights or accent lights, bells, faux white or red poinsettias, bright ribbon or bows and perhaps a winter-appropriate metal sculpture (such as a deer, pine tree form, etc.) can complete your display. Don’t overlook gold and silver items that will make a statement.
Find Greens and Natural Materials for a Base
Fir, cedar, pine, juniper, boxwood and spruce work well; hemlock and white pine branches drape beautifully. If cutting branches and boughs from your own trees, cut bottom branches or those that may be too long. Consider carefully what to trim so the ultimate appearance and balance of your trees is not compromised! Local nurseries and garden centers will have bunches of assorted green boughs and colorful branches for sale if there are no trees you can use as sources in your landscape. Spraying the foliage with an anti-dessiccant (such as Wilt Stop or Wilt Pruf) before arranging the container will keep greens looking fresh all season. Twigs and branches can be found in wooded areas, as well. Stay out of the state and local parks, however, as it is illegal to remove foliage from those venues. Fake foliage, especially holly with berries, variegated holly and berry branches of various colors will last all season and no one will know they aren’t real.
Create a Pot with Pizzazz
Use the same design technique you would apply to your summer containers… the “thriller, filler, spiller” one. The first selection should be the “thriller” or the main focal point. In the summer container it might be a striking perennial or annual, a colorful sculpture or even a piece of art. For the winter season, look for an equally engaging focal point. It might be that rusted sculpture, a rustic birdhouse, sparkly painted stars, berry twigs or birch logs. If your container is large enough, a miniature evergreen tree (such as a tabletop dwarf Alberta spruce or dwarf Cypress) could be your focal point. The “spillers” are the various types of boughs and foliage that spill over the sides of the container. “Fillers” can be anything that will fill out the container, such as pinecones, colored ornaments, branches of dogwood, berries or boxwood. Holly makes a great filler.
Leave room for a couple of solar lights—perhaps some designed especially for the holidays—that will add interest after dark. Small plastic containers (such as the ones that contain individual servings of olives, applesauce or pudding) can be nestled upside down among the fillers to elevate ornaments or other accessories. A hole or slit cut in the base of an upside down container will hold sticks or ornament hangers to keep them secure on windy days.
Have fun creating your porch pot. Walk by it often to admire it and make sure nothing has become dislodged. Spritz the greens occasionally if the container doesn’t get rained on to keep it fresh. Enjoy it all winter long!
Text Resources:
jayscotts.com/blog/outdoor-winter-planter-ideas/ – Garden Gate Newsletter – 11-14-24
savvygardening.com/why-the-thrillers-spillers-and-fillers-idea-works-for-winter-containers/
savvygardening.com/winter-container-garden-ideas/
courtesy of Savvy Gardener Website – “Winter Container Garden Ideas.”
and courtesy of Pinterest.
All other photos by Donna Hessel (Emerald Necklace Garden Club members’ porch pots).
