Author: Anna Buczkowska

Planter Installations to Enhance Entrances/High Visibility Areas

The immediate way to provide an eye-catching color is to install planters with annual flowers at the entrance to a property. Whether it’s an office, apartment building, institutional property, or a residential site, visitors and tenants will certainly notice the attractive color. 

Specifically, highly occupied properties will be worth investing in the planters since many tenants pass the entrance each day. If it’s an apartment building or workplace, the tenants and employees will appreciate the attractive place to live and work. It will also provide great curb appeal to prospective tenants and clients, as the entrance will make the first impression. The use of planters with colorful displays can be also a successful tool to use around gathering areas, such as outdoor patios, lounge areas, pool decks, cafeterias, small nook gardens, and other seating areas. Having a work lunch on a restaurant’s patio? Business meeting in the courtyard? Enjoying a pool party? Planters can certainly enhance these areas and provide a pleasant setting. 

The most popular containers are designed for summer display, including lush, tropical plants and flowering plants with bold colors for summer months; however, fall and winter containers can be equally spectacular and provide the seasonal eye-catching interest. For fall months we suggest using Garden Mums, ornamental Kale and Cabbage, Violas, and Pansies mixed with cold-hardy perennials, such as Coral Bells, Sedums, and ornamental grasses. Some fall containers can hold up well through the mild winter, but adding a smaller evergreen shrub will certainly extend the seasonal interest. There is also a number of ways to enhance the winter look of the container. One of our favorite ideas for winter months is to add the branches of Red Twig Dogwood or exfoliating birch branches, along with the winterberries and other greenery from evergreen trees and pine cones to provide the detailed features.

Regardless of the season, the key is to keep the balanced composition in planters and a good proportion between colors and textures. This is especially important when the planters are grouped together. When designing a container combination, we look for a visual balance between each container. The color palette, textures, heights, and shapes of containers will influence both the final design and the unity of the composition. The other important aspect is to follow the recipe “thriller-filler-spiller” – a formula for a successful plant combination. 

Thrillers are focal points, usually the tallest plant, with the most attractive attributes. For example, unique tropicals, tall ornamental grasses, shrubs with interesting flowers, or foliage. We like to use tropical Palms, Banana Leaves, Cordyline, Hibiscus, or Mandevilla as seasonal thrillers. Fillers are medium-size plants that fill the space around the thrillers. They usually have a spreading habit and offer either many clusters of flowers or ornamental foliage. We often use Begonia, Petunia, Verbena, or Lantana as flowering fillers and Coleus, Caladium, or Variegated Ginger as fillers with interesting foliage and contrasting colors. The main role of spillers is to finish and soften the look of the planter combination. They often bring together the composition by including similar colors, or textures as other plants used in the planter. For this purpose, we use the trailing plants, such as Variegated Vinca, Sweet Potato Vine, Bacopa, trailing Petunia, Geranium, Dichondra, and a very popular Creeping Jenny. 

There is no exact template for all planters, as each design is unique and carefully planned for a specific location. While we follow the “thriller-filler-spiller” recipe, we also keep in mind that the plants need to relate to the scale of the planter, location, amount of sun/shade, and watering needs. When designing the planter, we consider all criteria and adjust accordingly to the client’s needs, so the eye-catching planters will accent the landscape throughout the entire season.

While we can see an increase of interesting trends for commercial properties, there are still many sites with overgrown evergreen vegetation and a few pockets with annual flowers. Landscape enhancements can improve the appearance of these properties, including more than just a flower rotation when adding color. With the right landscape design, commercial sites can transform into beautiful spaces with plants that thrive in each season. 

Currently, with COVID-19 shaping the way we live and work, we recognize the importance of spending time outside. This especially relates to a workplace, where employees can benefit from spending time and work outdoors. Working in a natural environment allows for a connection with nature, therefore it is important to provide the right plants that will continue giving attention throughout the whole year. The idea of all-season interest is to include the plants that provide ornamental attributes in one season and overlapping with another group that provides interest in the following season. Certainly, most plants display an interest in spring and summer, however, there are multiple plant options to make fall and winter attractive as well.  

Spring and summer interests are known for providing showy blooms and interesting textures. After the winter is over, people want to see colors, so the earliest blooms are found in spring bulbs. The swaths of early blooming Daffodils and later drifts of Tulips add a desired color to the landscape. We also like to use the spring-blooming ornamental trees, like Cherry and Magnolia to bring eye-catching flowers. Dogwoods and Redbuds are also popular spring-blooming native trees that we use in commercial landscapes. When it comes to shrubs, many commercial sites are still covered with the popular old-fashioned Forsythia, but we like to often replace it with native Fothergilla and Itea. These shrubs also offer a beautiful fall color.

By late spring, many trees and shrubs are leafed out, giving way to blooms. One of the popular shrubs in April and May is Encore Azaleas. There are multiple varieties of this relatively new species which provide a multi-season interest and require less maintenance than the traditional Azaleas. Besides blooming in spring, Encore Azaleas re-bloom in fall and stay evergreen through the winter. We have tried and can recommend other newly introduced plants are Dwarf Lilacs for late spring color and Little Lime Hydrangea for early summer stunning flowers. In addition to shrubs, we like using the long-blooming perennials, like Daylily, Russian Sage, Catmint, Coreopsis, and late summer blooms like Sedum, or Rudbeckia. 

In fall, a must-have color comes from Red Maples, but also shrubs like Nandina, Oakleaf Hydrangea, and Spirea can provide beautiful fall foliage. They provide an outstanding mix of contrasting colors and textures in combination with ornamental grasses and fall-blooming perennials. There also are a few plant options for winter interest. We often use a multi-season Red Twig Dogwood with attractive red stems, Winterberry, known for its bright red berries, and ornamental trees like Paperbark Maple, or River Birch with peeling bark. Ornamental grasses still look beautiful and soft in winter before being cut back in early spring.  

We all want to enjoy the outdoors and work in a pleasant environment.  By making a few changes to the property, it is possible to provide an attractive and thriving landscape with multiple interests throughout the whole year.