Here in Michigan our porches go dormant for the winter.. or so it seems! We deck them all
out for the Christmas season, with greens and berries, lights and lanterns, wreaths and garlands.. so many festive decorations!
Then it seems to come to a hault.. I take down what I can come January but usually some greens and berries remain until Spring, froze in the dirt of the containers. I do like to play a little with the reds again come February and stick a few hearts around.
But after that we are pretty much stalled till the thaw, or until it’s warm enough to do some porch sittin’ again!
I am lucky enough to have a crafty husband who has made me liners for all of my porch pots and window boxes. Which allows me to take them into the garage to thaw so I can work on them when it’s still frozen out.
It also allows you to keep your ceramic pots out all winter without them cracking, because the dirt is what allows them to expand and contract. These liners are made out of aluminum.. they also have handles which works wonderfully! I did find some pot liners also with handles on Wayfair that would totally work too. I’ll put the link HERE.
Usually it’s March by the time I’m getting spring fever and wanting to make some changes outdoors. It only takes a day or two where the birds are singing and the sun is shining for me to bring up some faux spring stems from the storage room.
I prefer to start out earthy and organic when it comes to adding to my porch containers this time of year. There is usually still snow on the ground here in Michigan so to stuff a container full of faux florals just seems really out of place and very fake looking.
As you can see in the pic above, I usually just remove my greens, berries and red twigs and leave the white birch branches in place. I added a moss green larger branch and a wired grapevine around the base to get started.
Next I add in some stems that look like Apple blossoms just budding out, and a few green leafed ones doing the same.. still somewhat twiggy.
Also added in Pussy Willows which have that same look to them.
Just for a little FUN, I finished it with a single stem of poppies, a birdhouse and a nest of eggs..so Springy!
I even added a bit of moss to the birch branches, the nest and the birdhouse.
Now it’s all ready to slide back into the the planter.
The second container I decided to keep the grapevine sphere in, it seems to tie the twiggy feel together nicely.
Porch planters sure can create a beautiful Spring welcome, and as it warms up it’s easy enough to add in some Forsythia branches and maybe even make room for some Pansies. At least this gives some color until its warm enough to fill your pot with summer plants.
So don’t wait till planting weather to wake your porch up, get creative with your planters and maybe …it’ll convince Spring to come quicker!
Have fun creating friends!
