Looking for a design tip to make your flowerpots look prettier this summer?
Combine flowers of different heights!
Planting flowers of different heights can help you create a lot of visual interest.
Think of a city skyline or a beautiful mountain range. There are different layers that make things interesting, right?
The same is true for the flowers in your flowerpots.
In gardening lingo, this design concept is known as thrillers, fillers and spillers.
- Thrillers are your tall flowers.
- Fillers are your mid-size flowers.
- Spillers are your flowers that spill out of the flower pot.
if you find these words hard to remember or confusing, then…
Think about this flowerpot design tip in western terms.
You want your flowerpots to have mountains, foothills and waterfalls.
Your mountains are your tall flowers that add height and a strong focal point to your flowerpots.
For example, you could use a tall ornamental grass or a gorgeous red canna lily, like the one pictured below. (Just like the mighty peaks in a mountain range, these tall flowers are your thrillers.)
Your foothills are your mid-size flowers that add interesting textures or pops of color, like the yellow Marguerite daisies below. (These flowers fill your flowerpots.)
And your waterfalls are your flowers that spill out of your flowerpots and cascade down the sides, like the light-green licorice plant and lime-green sweet potato vine in the photo below. (These flowers are your spillers.)
When you go to the garden center, how do you know whether a flower will make a good mountain, foothill or waterfall?
1. Notice which direction the plant is growing.
Even in the garden center, you can usually tell whether a flower is growing upright or growing down.
If you hold up a plant that seems to be trailing from its container, it could be a great flower to spill from your flowerpots like a waterfall. The pink petunias below are a good example.
2. Look at the plant tag to check your flower’s final height.
Often times, the size of the flower in the garden center is only a fraction of how big that flower will grow by the end of the summer.
For example, a flower that’s about 8” tall in the garden center may grow several feet tall over the summer!
When you pick up flowers at the garden center, check their plant tags to see how tall they’ll grow.
If you pick up a flower that grows 14” to 36” tall, it could make a great mountain.
Flowers that aren’t quite as tall — 6” to 14” in height — can make great foothills.
Keep in mind, the height suggestions above are just that: Suggestions! Gardening is personal, so you can do whatever looks good to you.
For this flowerpot design tip to work, do you have to include mountains, foothills AND waterfalls?
This is a matter of personal preference.
Personally, I love all three together.
But you can definitely go with just two.
The flowerpots below are hanging in my neighbor’s yard. The pots are small, so she just used foothills and waterfalls. She didn’t have enough room for all three.
And the flowerpot below is really big, but the gardener made a strong statement with just mountains and foothills.
If you liked this flowerpot design tip, you may also like:
- “Should I buy big or small flowerpots?”
- 3 misconceptions about when to buy and plant flowers for pots that can lead to dead plants (ack!)
- 5 western garden trends to inspire you in Colorado and the West
