6 ways to use planters in your garden

Your garden is a fantastic extension of your living space. Proper landscaping makes it beautiful, allowing you to enjoy your time outdoors and relax amongst nature. However, landscaping isn’t always easy. There can be quite a lot of work involved if you want a professional-looking garden but have poor quality soil or steep ground gradients.

That’s where garden planters come in. They’re a faster and more economical way to spruce up your garden and boost its looks. Below are my six ideas for using planters in your garden (which has also inspired a trip to the garden centre on my part!).

1. Improve the look of your railings

Railings are commonly found on staircases, balconies, decks, loft areas, porches, terraced gardens and paths with steep sides. If professionally done, railings are beautiful on their own, but dolling them up with greenery makes them even more visually impactful.

The first option is planters that sit on top of the railings. For taller railings, you may want to add planters on the sides to break the vertical gap. Popular plant options for railings include jasmine, ivy, clematis, strawberries, honeysuckle, and fuschia. 

Ensure the planters blend well with other outdoor decor in terms of colour and texture. Cedar planters are an excellent option for the outdoors because wood is a natural material and blends perfectly with many decorative elements. 

2. Frame your pathways

Your garden walkways and paths don’t have to be kept plain. Lining them on both sides with greenery can effectively divide your garden into sections for different activities and add some needed interest to an otherwise flat space.

You can use two large planters to mark the entrance or starting point of the walkway. Then, sprinkle smaller planters along the path, making sure to space them appropriately so the path remains wide enough even when the plants are fully grown. 

You can mix different colours or sizes of planters for a rhythmic effect as one walks along the path. Plants like hostas, ferns, palms, box hedging, blue fescue grass, creeping zinnia and lamb’s ears are often used to line walkways because they’re low growing and spread low to the ground.

Another helpful tip is to add solar-powered lights within the planters for illumination at night.

 

3. Create privacy

A living privacy screen essentially creates intimacy and might help you to escape from lively neighbourhood activity (or prying eyes) and can also reduce the noise from your neighbours. Besides privacy, living screens act as windbreaks during storms and high winds, something we experience a lot living next to open fields.

Planters are great for growing privacy screens. Use plants like bamboo, boxwood, or privet, which are dense enough for proper coverage. You may want to layer different heights and types of plants to enhance the natural barrier, while also adding visual interest. 

4. Create designated areas

Your home has several rooms for designated activities, including the kitchen for food preparation, the bedrooms for sleeping and the living room for watching TV or relaxing. In the same way, it’s possible to create designated spaces in your garden, and planters are an excellent tool for the job.

For instance, you can surround your outdoor furniture with planters and grow bushy hedges for a more cosy setting for conversations. You can also use them to separate areas for dining, lounging, entertaining, children’s playing, reading, and creating art. Doing so means you garden can serve all your needs.

 

5. Group them together

You can group planters for a more profound visual impact and arrange them according to colour, material or size. However, don’t feel that you have to cluster together all the brown pots or all the clay or plastic pots. Do some experimenting and mix your planters up to create a more relaxed and eclectic feel in your garden.

Something you should be mindful of when grouping, though, is size. You want to have the larger pots at the back, followed by the medium ones, then the smaller ones at the front so as not to obscure any plants from view. These rules apply to pots that are standing next to a wall or fence.

If in an open space within your garden, the larger pots could be at the center, with the medium and smaller ones surrounding them in a circular fashion. Likewise, consider the plant heights when arranging them.

6. Plant a statement piece

You can create a focal point in your garden by placing a gigantic planter strategically and growing one large plant in the centre. If the planter is bold and colourful, too, this is even better! If you have a very big space, you can try using two planters instead of one. The planter should be bold and eye-catching. One should be enough, but you can try two if you have a big space.