This winter, deck out your front door with a gorgeous winter greens planter that really celebrates the season using natural evergreen boughs, branches and holiday accents! Not only will you feel the Christmas spirit every time you get home (not to mention have that wonderful evergreen aroma) but your family and holiday guests will as well.
Our easy guide to creating a winter planter of your own will soon have you singing fa-la-la-la-la and stocking up on fir boughs and pinecones.
Gather all your greenery and branches together for your design. There are so many great choices for a winter planter, make sure to mix it up with at least three or more kinds of greenery, to really get different textures in your design and create interest.
Some of our favourite winter greens include: Carolina sapphire, juniper, noble fir, hemlock, white pine, Oregonia, cedar, douglas fir and silver fir.
We also love to use eucalyptus (there are a number of different varieties and they all look amazing!), magnolia, skimmia, and ilex berries (so colourful) in our designs as natural accents.
1. Prepping the Pot
Fill your pot with potting soil, it's a great base for anchoring your greens and branches in place! (PRO-TIP: You can also re-use a finished planter from last season. To prepare a used pot from last season, simply sheer the tops of the old plants off from their roots and clean the top of the soil. The roots in the soil are a perfect anchor to hold your greens in place.)
2. Branching Out
Start with the tallest branches/poles in the centre of your planter. We suggest that your final greens arrangement should be double the height and double the width of your pot. (So, if your pot is 16" tall and 12" wide, your arrangement is 32" tall and 24" wide.)
For branches, try cornus, birch poles, alpine huck, or anything you can collect from the wild. You can also use faux berries or pinecones on picks in the centre.
3. Create a Collar
Next, create a collar using greens around the rim of the pot, to define the overall width of the arrangement. Jason uses silver fir boughs here, turning them over to showcase the pale white needles which fit in beautifully with the theme of this winter planter.
4. Fill in the Greens
Finally, add in the greenery tight against these poles/branches to secure them in place. Fill up the centre of your design with greens that stagger in height, decreasing as you get farther from the centre. Bright green douglas fir, long-needled white pine, juniper and seed pod eucalyptus branches create interesting textures and varied shades of green!
5. Add the Bling
Accents are a great way to add interest. Faux berries, glitzy ornaments or natural seedpods. A few shiny baubles create reflections and immediately bring the Christmas spirit to an arrangement! You can also use natural accents you've collected like pinecones or woodcuts. We carry a large assortment of different accents for every style!
Even though these winter planter arrangements are not living, they need to be watered once a week, with cold water, to help keep the greens fresh. In climates where freezing is normal, once the arrangement is frozen, you can leave it. In climates where it doesn't freeze often, you will need to water more often.
Take a look at our DIY Winter Planter video above to see Jason create this Silver & White Celebration planter!
For more inspiration in creating your own winter planters, take a look at our free Planter Templates collection, where you can download and print instructions and blueprints to use!