The most wonderful time of the year is right around the corner! That means it’s time for holiday planters and exterior decorating! This is a picture of Julie's festive front porch.
We love to change our outdoor decor seasonally and have gathered a few favorite holiday outdoor pillows, lanterns and door mats. Check out our Amazon storefront for festive decor ideas to enhance your outdoor living area this season.
The holidays are almost here! Time to get your front entry and outdoor planters looking festive for the season. See below for recommendations based on your Zone, using the “thriller, filler, spiller” design theory.
ELIZABETH’S TIPS FOR ZONE 7 (THAT’S YOU, OKLAHOMA CITY!)
The “thriller” is the one tall plant in the middle that gives the arrangement height. A live evergreen is our thriller of choice for winter planters. Other good thriller options, in addition to the evergreen, are red twig dogwood sticks and birch poles. Depending on the size of the planter, good evergreen options are boxwood, juniper and dwarf alberta spruce.
Next comes the “filler” which fills in around the middle of the planter. Our favorite fillers for the holidays are pinecones, berries and ornaments.
Last come the “spillers” which cascade over the sides of the planter. You could use one gallon evergreen shrubs that have a trailing habit (like pacific blue juniper or blue rug juniper), fresh evergreen garland or cut evergreen branches as spillers. Our favorite cut evergreen branch is incense cedar because it looks good long after the holidays are over. If you use fresh garland or any cut evergreen branches make sure to spray them with Wilt-Pruf or another anti-dessicant product and keep them misted with water on a weekly basis throughout the holiday season so they don't dry out.
In the picture below, we’ve used a boxwood as the thriller, pinecones and berries as fillers and blue rug juniper as the spillers. Doesn’t it look festive for the holidays? Once the holidays are over, just remove the pinecones, berries and garland and the evergreens will look great all winter long.
JULIE’S TIPS FOR ZONE 6 (KANSAS CITY, THIS IS YOU!)
Look at this gorgeousness that Julie created last winter! Since it is a lot colder in Kansas City, she will be using spruce tops as the thrillers instead of live evergreen shrubs. Her favorite fillers are pine cones, berries and various evergreen branches (princess pine, noble fir or silver tip fir). Julie likes to use an evergreen garland as the spiller and / or incense or coned cedar.
Thanksgiving will be here before we know it! Give us a shout if we can create a pumpkin centerpiece for your table. These pumpkins also make great teacher or hostess gifts. Both pumpkin options will last for months.
Succulent Pumpkins
Aren't these succulent topped pumpkins so festive and unique! They will last for months as long as the succulents are misted with water once a week. Prices range from $12 to $45 depending on the size of the pumpkin.
Faux Pumpkin Centerpieces
The large flower filled faux pumpkins are $35 and are available in white or orange.
When it comes to fall plants, there is no shortage of awesomeness. Check out a few of our favorites!
The thriller in this arrangement is one of our favorites for fall - THE CROTON! You can find these tropical plant beauties in the greenhouse section of big box hardware stores or local garden centers. We love using this plant in the summer too, but the colors in the croton just scream fall, especially if the leaves have a little red in them like the plant in this picture. They will do well outside until the first freeze and then bye-bye croton. If you are super industrious, you could always dig it up, repot it and bring it inside to enjoy all winter as a house plant and then bring it outside again in the spring. That's what we call getting our money's worth out of a plant.
The croton looks amazing with yellow, orange and / or red flowers such as pansies or mums. Try adding a few orange pie pumpkins to bring out the warm colors of the croton.
One of our favorite plants in a fall container garden is ornamental cabbage or kale. We adore the ruffled texture in its broad leaves and use it in almost all of our fall plantings as a filler. There are so many different varieties and colors of cabbage and kale and all are perfect to use in your outdoor fall planters. Ornamental cabbage and kale are very hardy and can withstand a light freeze.
We use grasses as "thrillers" quite a bit in our summer and fall planters. We love their toughness! They are drought tolerant and thrive in the hot afternoon sun and high temperatures. Dwarf fountain grass is pictured here as the "thrillers" in these planters. We love the wispy plumes - very fall-ish. Other favorite grasses are purple fountain grass or maiden grass.
We adore the seussical look of the celosia! Plume celosia has soft feathery flowers in red, orange, yellow, pink and purple. In this arrangement we used a gorgeous purple celosia and paired it with a croton, mum, ornamental pepper and moneywort.
These are fun plants to pop in a container! Ornamental peppers come in shades of red, purple, yellow, orange, black or white. It's interesting to watch the peppers change colors as they ripen, so you may see several different colors on the same plant.
The cooler weather means it’s go time for fall planters and exterior decorating! This is a picture of Julie's festive front porch.
We love to change our outdoor decor seasonally and have gathered a few favorite fall outdoor pillows, lanterns and door mats. Check out our Amazon storefront for festive decor ideas to enhance your outdoor living area this season.
If there is one phrase that Julie and I associate with our awesome dad, Smitty, it's "Use what you have." We grew up learning to recycle and repurpose things long before it was cool. So you know we are all about saving our plant babies. We used many tropical plants as the "thrillers" in our summer planters. These plants won't withstand a freeze in most zones so you are left with a choice...pitch or keep them. We advocate for keeping them, of course!
Before the threat of a frost sets in your area, remove the tropical and repot it in a pot with drain holes. We recommend gently spraying it with a hose and using an insecticidal soap on the leaves since it's been outside all summer and probably has a few creepy crawlies that you don't want to bring inside. We are planning to bring our bird of paradise (pictured here), majesty palm and dracaena inside this winter. Your tropical plant will live happily in your cozy home all winter long and you can bring it back outside next spring. Like Smitty says, "Use what you have."
It's go time for fall planters and exterior decorating! Julie will start planting in Kansas City the week of September 14th and Elizabeth will start planting in Oklahoma City the week of September 21st.
In addition to our normal container gardening services, we are also offering these fall specials:
Fall Porch Package
These packages include a large mum, small hay bale, large pumpkin, three pie pumpkins and two decorative gourds. We bring it all and arrange it so you don't have to lift a finger. Let us know if we can bring a little fall curb appeal to your front porch or storefront. Each fall porch package is $75.
Gardens To Go
Just what you need for a touch of fall by your front door. These will be available for pick up (or delivery for a fee) in Kansas City and Oklahoma City mid-September. They make a lovely housewarming gift or a "just because" gift to brighten someone's day. The planter is 13.5" wide and 12" tall and is $60.
The cooler weather means it’s go time for fall planters and exterior decorating!
We love to change our outdoor decor seasonally and have gathered a few favorite fall outdoor pillows, lanterns and door mats. Check out our Amazon storefront for festive decor ideas to enhance your outdoor living area this season.
Kids are going back to school (whatever that looks like for your family this year!). The air is starting to have a crisper, cooler feel. It’s official - Adorn’s favorite season is here! When it comes to fall planters, there are two color palettes that just can’t be beat. Read below for plant suggestions for each palette.
We adore the color purple! Especially when variations of the color are packed into an outdoor planter. Purple cabbage or kale and a combination of purple and white pansies are ideal plant options to incorporate purple into container garden design. The color blends perfectly with a green grass as the thriller and chartreuse moneywort as the spiller. We love to tuck in cute white pumpkins to add a festive, seasonal touch to finish the look. Love this cool palette for fall!
You can't beat traditional fall colors in an outdoor planter. Our go to plants for this warm palette are grasses, crotons, yellow and orange pansies, green cabbage and moneywort. In the picture below we used a green grass as the thriller, but you could also use purple fountain grass if you want to bring a burgundy color into the mix. Our fillers are yellow pansies, crotons, green cabbage and orange pumpkins. Chartreuse moneywort rounds out the arrangement as the spiller.
Fall planting season is just around the corner so make sure you have the right tools to make your container gardening more efficient. Here’s the scoop about our 5 favorite gardening tools that we can not live without!
Garden Knife: Julie and I never plant without our garden knives. The knife can cut through roots in an outdoor pot without any problem. The serrated edges also can open bags of mulch or soil if you don't have scissors handy. The garden knife is also a perfect tool for planting bulbs in flower beds.
Potting Scoop: We love the large potting scoop because you can add new soil quickly to a planter.
Hand-held Pruning Saw: If you have really, really stubborn roots we suggest a hand-held pruning saw. We call this the “magic knife”. We don’t have to use it often, but it sure makes work quicker when those plants are super rooted and won’t come out easily any other way.
Nitrile Gardening Gloves: We are big fans of nitrile gardening gloves because they are not bulky and you can pop them in the washing machine.
7-Gallon Tubtrug: When we go onsite to plant, we load all these tools into a 7-gallon tub trug. We have these tubtrugs in every color. We usually bring at least 3 of these when we plant and use the empty ones for the old plants that we are removing from the planters. These are also very handy when you are weeding a flower bed.
Do yourself a favor and buy these tried and true tools for the fall planting season! You won't be sorry! Pop over to our Amazon page if you’d like to see other items from our curated gardening tool storefront.
Hooray! Fall is almost here! Time to start thinking, planning, scheming and dreaming about getting your front porch or storefront looking festive for the season.
So...what are our favorite thrillers, fillers and spillers for fall planters? Colorful crotons and ornamental grasses are our thrillers of choice. Be aware that crotons will not survive a freeze. If you would like to keep your croton as a houseplant over the winter, make sure to dig it out before a frost.
Next come the fillers, which fill in around the middle of the planter. Our favorite fillers for fall are pansies, cabbage, kale and pumpkins. What? Pumpkins? You bet! Just pop some pie pumpkins or mini-pumpkins right into the pot. So festive!
Last come the spillers, which cascade over the sides of the planter. Our go-to spillers for fall are bright green moneywort and vinca major. You can find all these plants at your local garden center or a big box hardware store.
In the picture above, we used a croton as the thriller. There are lots of fillers going on here – cabbage, small pumpkins and bittersweet stems. Moneywort finishes out the design as the spiller. Doesn’t it look festive for fall?
For a unique teacher or hostess gift, check out the ideas below.
Succulent Pumpkins
We adore these sweet succulent topped pumpkins! The pumpkins and succulents will last for months as long as the succulents are misted with water on a weekly basis. The mini-pumpkins are $12 (1-2”), small pumpkins are $15 (3-4”), medium pumpkins are $30 (5-7”) and the larger pumpkins are $45 (8” or larger). Let us know if you'd like to preorder any.
Faux Pumpkin Centerpieces
These pumpkin centerpieces make great teacher or hostess gifts! The small pansy filled faux pumpkin is $18 and the large flower filled faux pumpkin is $35. We're taking preorders now so give us a shout if we can pot some up for you this fall.
One of our favorite places to plant in OKC is the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum. The Memorial Museum is an interactive learning experience that takes you on a chronological self-guided tour through the story of April 19, 1995, and the days, weeks and years that followed the bombing of Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The story tracks the remarkable journey of loss, resilience, justice and hope. The Outdoor Symbolic Memorial is a place of quiet reflection that honors the victims, survivors, rescuers, and all who were changed forever on April 19, 1995. It encompasses the now-sacred soil where the Murrah Building once stood, as well as the surrounding area devastated during the attack. 500,000 people visit the OKC National Memorial and Museum each year and millions have visited since it opened in 2000.
Adorn donates to the OKC National Memorial and Museum and would love for you to consider giving to this important organization also so it can continue to tell stories of resolve and resilience and of heroes and healing. Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum does not receive any annual operating funds from the federal, state or local government. The Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation is a private 501(c)(3) organization which owns and operates the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. The Foundation is the caretaker of both the Outdoor Symbolic Memorial and the Memorial Museum.
Together we can continue to educate and inspire this generation and future generations. Please click here for more information on making a tax deductible gift.
