A beautiful set of planters will elevate the look of the garden. Thankfully, you don’t have to spend a fortune on pots and planters to liven up your outdoor space. In this guide, we’re dishing out gardening hacks for a stylish garden and planter boxes.

How Do You Style a Planter?

There are so many ways of styling a plain planter. It’s virtually a blank canvas; you’re only limited by your imagination! Here are some tips to get you started:

A fresh coat of paint:

Breathe life back into your old, dusty planters with a fresh coat of paint. You can choose a bright or muted color palette to match your garden theme. Plain white is also perfect for rustic and minimalist garden themes. Painted flower pots could work as a focal point for the garden. These could draw the eye to highlight the beautiful arrangement.

Grow multiple plants in one pot:

This is a great trick to add lushness to the garden while also making the most of the area’s square footage. For example, combining succulents with some flowering plants would make a terrific addition to the garden. You can also mix some greens with herbs for texture or flowering plants with creeping plants as if the plants are spilling over the pots.

Hang wicker baskets on bare walls

Hanging baskets make an excellent base for creeping plants because the plants could spill over the edge and accentuate the space. Wicker baskets, in particular, look best when hung over bare concrete, brick, or timber walls. Style it with a combination of colorful plants (zinnias, begonias, etc.) with fillers like Blue cape plumbago and golden lantana. Finish the arrangement with English ivy as a spiller for drama.

Tabletop arrangement

A classic tabletop arrangement will always look good in any garden setting. It’s especially good for a garden with a seating area. Set a large, round, or square planter on top of a small, sturdy table. Fill the pot with a combination of flowering plants, fillers, and spillers to add lushness and a sense of movement to the arrangement. Using contrasting colors will work well for a plain or dull backyard setting. For example, combining yellow and pink flowering plants with

Freestanding pots

Large, tall planters are best set at the bottom of the stairs, near a doorway, or in a blank corner. We suggest using a tall planter with a geometric shape for some architectural drama and then filling the pot with creeping vines as spillers and, perhaps, some plants with dense, tiny foliage as fillers. A neutral-toned pot or one with texture will complement brightly-hued flowers! You can create two freestanding pots and set these on either side of the stairs or doorway, framing the structure with gorgeous blooms!

Multiple pots in complementing colors

Setting various pots in a corner is a tried and tested trick to add style to a garden. You can choose pots with the same neutral tones or play with different contrasts or textures; it’s really up to you. What you want to achieve is a unique yet uniform design so that the pots won’t clash with your garden design. Experiment with pots of different sizes and shapes, as well as plants of different heights. Just be sure to set the tallest plants in the back so these won’t create shade that could stunt the growth of nearby plants. Also, give these plants ample room to grow, not setting them too closely together.

Wide shallow planters

A wide, shallow planter is often used to grow various succulents and cacti. You can also grow plants with beautifully patterned leaves on a shallow, wide pot. Adding small rocks and pebbles to the arrangement perfectly mimics a beautiful desert-themed design. You can use a flat rock as a base for the shallow planter, set it on a small table, or use it as is. Set in strategic areas of the garden to add interest to the space.

Raised Bed Planter Design Ideas

In-Ground Customized Raised Bed

This is a type of customized raised garden in a design that looks like the rest of the hardscapes in a garden. For example, if you used brick for an outdoor oven, the rest of the hardscape can be made in the same material – including the raised garden bed. It’s a great idea if you have unused extra materials lying around. Because the raised bed is customized, you have more control over the dimensions.

Herb Elevated Raised Bed Garden

An elevated raised bed makes a perfect planter for various herbs. Many herbs grow well together, so you can speed things up by getting an herb kit and an elevated raised bed as a set. This way, you’ll only figure out the placement of the elevated raised bed. We highly recommend setting the raised bed in a spot that receives at least 6 hours of sunlight because herbs love the full sun!

Flower Box Raised Garden

This is the perfect planter style to use if you want to create a windowsill garden. A flower box may be small and narrow, but there’s plenty of space to grow various flowering plants or herbs!

Tiered Raised Bed Garden

A tiered raised bed is an excellent planter if you have a small space to spare for a garden. We also recommend this planter style if you want to organize the kids of plants you want to grow or if you want an alternative to the more traditional raised garden design.

Choosing the Best Plants for Pots and Planters

While there are many types of pots and planter styles to get, the right one will depend on the size of the plants you’re growing, the size of the garden, as well as the materials that are ideal for a specific plant variety. Below are the standard sizes for plant pots:

10-inch Pot: This size can hold up to three gallons of potting soil and is best used for small plants. Herbs, succulents, and cacti are best grown in a 10-inch pot. Crops like strawberries, beets, and carrots will also fit a 10-inch pot.

14-inch Pot: This size can hold up to 7 gallons of potting soil and is best used for growing a variety of leafy vegetables. Kale, collard greens, chard, spinach, and cabbages will fit a 14-inch pot.

18-inch Pot: This size can hold as much as 15 gallons of potting soil. Use this pot to grow a variety of berries, cacti, dwarf fruit trees, and shrubs.

24-inch Pot: This size can hold as much as 25 gallons of potting soil. Choose this if you want to grow a variety of small trees and ornamental plants with deep root systems. Trees like fiddle leaf fig trees, dwarf trees, large shrubs, and big ornamental plants will do well in this pot size.

30-inch Pot: This size could hold as much as 30 gallons of potting soil. It’s the biggest diameter in standard pot size and will do well as a pot for small trees. Pear, apple, and citrus trees should fit this pot size. In fact, these trees could live their entire lives in this pot size as long as the soil is amended with fertilizer.

Popular Pot Materials

Some of the most popular pot materials are: plastic, terracotta, and glazed ceramic pots.

Plastic pots: Affordable, lightweight, and widely available, plastic pots are the most ubiquitous of all pot types. However, it can trap heat and cook the plant roots in the summer. Plastic pots are also prone to cracking due to temperature changes.

Terracotta: The traditional material for pots and planters is terracotta, which is made from red clay. It drains water well and dries quickly because red clay is porous. It’s also durable, lasting for years with proper care. However, the material is quite brittle and is prone to cracking when exposed to sunlight for an extended period. They’re heavy too, so the material isn’t ideal for balcony gardens.

Ceramic Pots: Durable and porous ceramic pots are often used as an alternative to terracotta pots. They’re made from clay and come in an array of colors and shapes. But apart from being heavy, ceramic pots are expensive and prone to cracking at freezing temperatures.

Where To Shop for Pots and Planters?

You can buy pots and planters at your nearest gardening supplies store. You can also buy your gardening essentials online at ECOgardener and score great deals on high-quality gardening tools and supplies.