People get a first impression of your home before they ever step inside. The outdoor decor of your home says as much as the indoor style.

After eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring, it’s finally time to add some flowers to our front porch!

Once I found the right planters which I picked up on sale at Joann, Etc., it was really a simple affair, even for someone with a brown thumb! As simple as picking up plants from the local nursery. Here’s the end result:

It’s a simple recipe. I picked out some plants that I thought would look nice, a combination of taller & shorter plants, as well as some vines that will eventually trail over the side of the planter. Also a combination of flower colors.

I chose more than one of each plant – two or three of each – so there would be symmetry around the planter. Honestly, I don’t even know the name of all of the plants I chose – I know a couple, like the Wave petunia and geranium. More important was that all of the plants were full sun, so they could live happily together!

Then I filled the planter about 2/3 full with potting soil. Then came the simple part. I started placing the plants in the planter, starting with the spikes in the center – yes, they’re actually called spikes – followed by a geranium plant on two sides of the spikes.

Next I placed a Wave petunia next to each of the geraniums. After that I filled in the areas that still had holes in the dirt with the daisy-like plants. Finally, I placed the trailing vines & tiny trailing petunias around the edges of the planter, so they could do their thing & trail! A couple handfuls of potting soil to fill in any remaining blank spots & voila!

A view from above…

It took a grand total of maybe 20 minutes to complete both planters, and they look fabulous & add interest to the front porch.

It’s the simple stuff that makes a difference!

Since spring has indeed sprung here in central Ohio, I decided it was time to spruce up our front porch with flowers.

Ever since we moved to our new home, I had a picture in my mind of the type of planters I wanted for the front porch.

Imagine my delight when I saw my dream planter in the Target Sunday newspaper flyer. And it was on sale! Here it is…

Well, imagine my surprise when I placed the planter on the porch & thought, oh no, it doesn’t work!

My dream planter was way too fussy for the style of our front porch! I couldn’t believe it! Slouching, I dragged it to the garage, where it awaits my next trip to Target to return it.

Eventually, I found a different set of planters that weren’t my dream planters, but they worked much better ~ not fussy at all!

The moral of the story is that even a pro sometimes needs to try it on for size. Occasionally, our mental picture works just right, but reality hits when you see it in real life!