Eager to enjoy the outdoors again? Classic Teak furniture will set the stage for family meals and parties in your home’s exterior spaces. High-quality table sets in various sizes and styles are ready for feasts. Or arrange any combination of individual pieces from attractive tables and chairs to benches and club seating in enticing cocktail and conversation groupings. Tuck versatile teak planters among your furnishings to enhance outside areas. Perk up strategic spots on patios, decks, porches, and stairs that can’t accommodate flowerbeds. Beautiful container gardens in door, bucket, and hanging planters and stands will add delightful color and texture accents. Try the following tips to design lush, fragrant masterpieces.
Colors Clusters
Neutral-looking teak planters, from newer golden browns to aged silvery grays, will coordinate with any natural hues. Consider these color strategies: Hot or cold: Design a color palette that reflects your outdoor living space’s intended purpose. Hot saturations such as reds, oranges, and yellows can draw attention to typically overlooked spots and establish focal points in gathering places. For relaxation, favor cool shades including blues, purples, and pinks to inspire tranquility. Monochromatic: This color scheme is the easiest design. Mingling three variants of one basic tone like romantic pinks or purples will avoid garish clashes while providing diverse concentrations. Or use a color wheel to combine different tones: Analogous shades: Select adjacent colors like muted or bright oranges, yellows, and greens for analogous sequences that mix well. Complimentary values: Choose tints across the color wheel from each other like violets and yellows. This daring and dramatic look uses contrast to make both colors pop. Triad: Try a trio of shades at equidistant spaces on the color wheel. Selecting one equilateral triangle’s three points results in reds, blues, and yellows. After picking colors, develop your container garden’s composition. The popular thriller/filler/spiller design technique combines three plant varieties in full, upright, and well-rounded arrangements. Everyone will enjoy the customized upscale appeal.
Thrillers
Start each assortment by selecting thrillers, tall centerpieces that exude star quality. Big, bold, vibrant options add vertical interest and drama. Use flowering plants, ornamental grass, or greenery with attention-grabbing qualities like spectacular flowers, intriguing shapes, or colorful foliage. Many thrillers boast striking architectural forms that serve as sturdy backbones or frameworks for less structural supplements. Rest your chosen towering thrillers against your container’s back for wall or corner displays with front visibility only. Move those key elements into the center for multiple-side viewing situations. Ideal possibilities include tall ornamental grass, yucca, spiked blooming plants, asters, coleus, gaura, angelonia, and argyranthemum.
Fillers
Next, select spicy fillers to stock your container’s middle ground. Mid-sized mounded or rounded flowering plants or foliage will make your planter look more lavish. They should complement and enhance your featured section without overwhelming it. So growing fillers should never shoot up above thrillers. For back-situated thrillers, slip fillers into the center of your container in front of those soaring focal points. When thrillers assume center planter positions, surround them with fillers. Common plants include petunias, caladiums, geraniums, lantana, euphorbia, nemesia, ageratum, and chrysocephalum.
Spillers
Lastly, place your third variety near your planter’s edge to invite a feeling of softness. As this final touch of trailing foliage tumbles gently over the rim, it refines the desired classy look. Position spillers in the container’s front section for direct-angle viewing. For multi-sided arrangements, station spillers around all borders. Standard choices include ivy, railing begonias, bacopa, lobularia, torenia, and sweet potato vines.
Hanging Baskets
Typical thrillers have too much height to fit into hanging baskets. So mix just fillers and spillers instead. Or pick plants that suit both types. Create rounded formations that cover suspended planters’ shapes. Some petunias rise high enough to serve as fillers while also cascading over basket edges to act as spillers.
Sunshine and Watering
Combine plants sharing comparable sunlight and watering requirements. Full sun: The most versatile category needs over six hours of daily sunshine. It includes most perennials, annuals, herbs, and vegetables. Low lighting: These plants fare best when they get sun four to six hours daily. Good options include begonias, coleus, impatiens, and heuchera. Ample shade: Under four hours of daily sun will help ivy, caladiums, and most foliage plants flourish. Moisture: Prioritize water retention with drainage when picking your potting soil. If you forget to water regularly, chose drought-tolerant succulents, perennials, and annuals.