Sixteen beautiful flower planter ideas for your sunniest areas that are simple, colorful, and use easy-to-find flowers – plus where to find more inspiration to create your own colorful planters.
Every year in early spring I find myself wandering up and down nursery or home store plant aisles looking for the best flowers for our containers. Maybe a little desperately, since I long for the colorful beauty of flowers at that time of the year. Can you relate?
Many times I just start throwing things in my cart based on the tag description, since the flower starts aren’t usually blooming yet. The problem with this is twofold:
- I often don’t buy enough OR buy too much for the planters I have.
- The colors may not work well together – the pictures on the little tags are not very reliable for color.
What we need are some tried-and-true flower container ideas that can be used reliably with the typical flowers found at nurseries and home stores. These basic combinations can serve as a backbone for our container gardens, leaving us free to add new or unusual varieties within the basic scheme.
Sounds good, right? I think so! With this in mind, I’ve collected sixteen flower planter ideas, most which use the “thriller, filler, spiller” technique (a center tall plant, some bushy medium plants, and the trailing plants), plus Pinterest boards you can follow to provide you with ongoing ideas.
Planter Ideas for Sun
A hanging basket with creeping jenny, purple calibrocha, white alyssum, and bicolor purple-white trailing verbena with a center of purple & white fuchsia (not blooming yet).
These pots from our backyard deck are planted with light pink supertunias, purple and white alyssum, bi-color purple-white verbena, creeping jenny, dusty miller, sunflower, and two ‘Victoria’ purple salvias that haven’t bloomed yet in the largest planter. TIP: Save money by buying 6-pack flower starts – they may look small after planting, but just 2 weeks later they are starting to fill in nicely.
Urn planted with pink New Guinea impatiens, asparagus fern, creeping Jenny, and a red dracaena from Empress of Dirt.
An oblong planter with pink canna, pink and green supertunia, and coral bells (heuchera) at House of Hawthornes. TIP: remember that perennials like coral bells make great container plants, too.
Rusty urn planted with an annual fuchsia-colored dahlia, sweet potato vine, white bacopa, and purple sweet alyssum from Garden Therapy.
A favorite combination of blue salvia, fuchia-colored Wave petunia, maroon calibrachoa (million bells), and purple lobelia from Hearth & Vine.
A simple pairing of orange lantana and creeping jenny in an old wheelbarrow at Our Fairfield Home & Garden.
Hanging iron planter of sweet potato vine, creeping jenny, pink geraniums at Nest of Posies.
Three planters with pink and yellow zinnias, purple verbena, orange and yellow calibrachoas, variegated mintleaf, and creeping Jenny from Southern Living (where you can find 100 more ideas, too!).
You can make your planters colorful, too: a brightly painted polka dot pot filled with petunias and impatiens from Restoration Reduoux.
How about pots filled with nasturtiums grown from seed like these from Time with Thea? Super colorful!
A sweet tub filled with evergreen arborvita, oranamental cabbage, asparagus fern, purple & white violas, and pink pansies from Cottage at the Crossroads.
Here’s a way to use roses in a pot: red knockout rose tree, yellow verbena, magenta pink lobelia, and purple fountain grass from Duke Manor Farm.
3 Little Greenwoods filled their baskets with creeping Jenny, red annual geraniums, and coleus.
A subtle colored planter with pink begonia, white alyssum, asparagus fern, lamium, variegated ivy at Lost & Found Decor.
A large metal tub filled with perennial coral bells, annual lobelia and calibrachoa at House of Hawthornes.
A planter ‘recipe’ from BHG (where you’ll find 24 recipes more): Magenta lobelia erinus, Petunia ‘Blue Velvet,’ Geranium (Pelargonium ‘Fantasia Salmon’), Viola ‘Sorbet Purple Duet,’ and Lavender pink Petunia.
Wondering how to plant and maintain your planters?
Here’s how to plant your pots so they thrive all summer long.
And here’s my best ever tip for watering your pots while you’re away – no need to ask people to do it for you.
4 Pinterest boards for LOTS more flower container ideas for full sun:
AOC’s Garden: Flowers board
The Tuesdays In The Garden board (Psst – the 2017 season of Tuesdays In The Garden is starting on March 14th!!)
BHG’s best garden ideas board where you’ll find lots more of their ‘recipes.’
Front Porch Ideas container garden board (SO many good ideas here)
Okay – ready to plant some flowers? What were your favorite planter ideas?
Brenda Gutoske says
Jami, thanks for the great planter ideas and pictures! Our flowering season is a bit shorter in our area of Canada, but that makes the time extra special ….. Canadians love summer! The vacation watering ideas are great. I plant most of my annuals at our cottage but return to our home for a few days throughout the summer. By trial and error, I have found that flowering perennials work best at our home. Once again, thanks for the tips! Brenda
Jami says
I bet you do, Brenda – fleeting things are often more treasured. 🙂 That’s a good tip about perennials doing better without constant upkeep – probably because they can become more established and drought-tolerant (to a degree). Thanks for the comment!