Easy Hack to Brighten Up a Potted Shade Planter

Last year we repainted our deck and added potted shade planters by our deck stairs. The main purpose of the planters is to cover bald spots where grass won’t grow. Our yard is shaded by a huge, beautiful silver maple tree that won’t grow  grass near its roots. Instead of trying to grow grass where it just won’t grow, we decided to take the path of least resistance and work with what we’ve got: a beautiful area for potted shade planters!

Easy Hack to Brighten Up a Potted Shade Planter

This spring, I got clever with our potted shade planters after seeing a genius hack at a few local businesses. Do you know what their secret is? The use a few fake flowers as filler! What a clever trick, huh? The fake flowers brighten up the potted planter, ensuring that it looks good all the time.

I tried this hack on our own potted planters next to my deck. Curious to see how they turned out? Here they are:

What do you think? Too fake? Just right? Can’t even tell what’s fake?? Seriously, I want to know so tell me in the comments. Meanwhile, read on to learn how to pull this off.

Potted Shade Planter Supplies

• Container (similar as we built ours)
• Potting Soil
• Spade
• Gardening Gloves
• Fake Flower Filler (ours was snagged from Michael’s spring clearance sale)
• Sticks or another tall filler (also snagged from Michael’s sale)
• Real flowers

Arranging Potted Shade Planter

Caveat: I am no expert in floral arrangements! But I have one fail proof trick to arranging any planter: start with the largest pieces and work down to the smaller ones. For this planter, I placed my sticks in the center of the planter, and then added fresh potting soil around the sticks to hold them in place.

Another trick: you know that rubber band that comes with the sticks so they stay nicely bundled together at the store? I left that on. It keeps the sticks neatly nestled together in the planter.

Next I separated my fake yellow flowers a bit, and stuck them into the soil near the sticks. I used two fake yellow flower fillers per planter, but feel free to add more or less depending on what appeals to you.

Now it’s time to add the real flowers. Our planters sit shaded by our large tree, so I chose shade loving Impatiens, Begonias and Creeping Jenny. I use the rule of odd numbers on my floral arrangements, always placing an odd number of each type of flower (or an odd numbered “grouping”) in my potted planters. The amount of flowers needed depends on the size of your pot.

Dig small holes for each plant, pop them in and cover them with more potting soil. Be sure to water your new little beauties generously! Note: if I were to do these planters over, I would add more potting soil before planting my flowers. Poor planning meant I ran out of soil. Lame. But with time, the flowers should fill out the planter a bit more, so I’m not too concerned.

How do you brighten up your garden in the spring? Share in the comments below!

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