Christmas pots for the porch are the simplest method to decorate the exterior entrance or terrace economically and quickly. If you need a little pizzazz to greet visitors, create a bright green arrangement with evergreens and twigs cut from your property. Bring it to life with something shiny and you can leave it in place for weeks without any care. If you don’t have the greens available, many garden centers sell greens or even a “porch planter” kit.
Top 10 Tips for Creating Outdoor Christmas Arrangements
- Use a winter-proof pot (fiberglass, metal, cement), not terracotta, as it may crack.
- Add water to the soil or use oasis to make it moist; The arrangement will freeze when the weather turns cold.
- Cut the vegetables and place them in containers to hydrate them for at least 24 hours beforehand.
- Spray Wilt-Pruf, an anti-dryer that will keep greens fresh, but be careful with some spruce and juniper berries, which may lose their color when sprayed.
- Create it outside instead as the container will become too heavy to move.
- Don’t use styrofoam berries, only natural ones – the styrofoam splits and reveals the white base.
- Use full green wreaths as urn bases.
- For central height and drama, use curly willows, dogwood branches, birch trunks or winterberry branches.
- Since most arrangements will be seen from a distance, the bolder and larger the better.
- Add large outdoor balls or other accents (shiny branches) for more drama.
If you want something more permanent that will last until spring, plant evergreens in your containers using different textures and colors and insert a few branches of winter berries for the WOW factor.
Lasting fixes
Once I empty my large pots and window boxes at the end of November, I will be able to dress them again with greenery that will last most of the winter. I keep the soil in them as it is the glue that will keep my vegetables in place.
can I insert
If you don’t have containers filled with soil, you can use a waterproof fiber pot filled with oasis. Once I finish placing it in a fiber pot, I place everything in an empty outside container.
crown trick
A trick I’ve used for a long time that will help you get started quickly is to buy a pre-made wreath of fresh greens and build on it as a base.
Placing this wreath on top of the rim of the pot will hide most of the soil and you will be able to stick the vegetables in and around it. Buy one ready-made or make your own.
Start by placing your wreath horizontally on top and begin adding other plant materials. Once you insert the stems through the wreath, that will anchor it to the container. For this container, I started by adding gold tipped Arborvitae. Glue the branches through the wreath into the oasis or into the ground.
Insert magnolia branches into the oasis along with yellow dogwood sprigs for drama.
Add some eucalyptus with red-dyed seeds for a pop of color.
I finished it with large branches of golden berries and bright pine cones.
Lay out your materials first to see what combinations look good and then place your materials in the pot, using the largest items first.
