Front Door Planters

Fall look

I've wanted a nice pair of planters for either side of our front door, but wanted them to be low maintenance, so my plan is to try out a few seasons with clippings or faux plants to see how it goes.
Supplies:

• Pair of 27" by 14" Tierra Verde planters from Home Depot, $120. These are made from recycled rubber tires and are supposed to be cold-weather hardy
• 3 bags of wood chip mulch (only needed 1.5), $12
• Birch branches (scavenged from the ground in Two Harbors)

Fall contents:

• $75 worth of faux fall leaves on stems and garland, faux pumpkins and gourds, faux greens and yellow flowers from Hobby Lobby

Set up

These are large planters, and will be quite heavy if completely filled, so I opted to put in a few empty milk jugs and peanut butter jars, etc. in the bottoms, then filled both with wood mulch. I arranged my faux contents in the planters, mounting the faux gourds on stem wires and anchoring the leaf garland with wire.

Filled with mulch and birch branches

Winter contents:

• $25 worth of faux pine, red berries branches and cardinals (which I mounted on wire stakes) from Hobby Lobby
• Red bows I already owned
• Fresh clippings from Home Depot:
• Pair of white-tipped pine cones with pick, $14
• Princess pine bunch, $9
• Noble fir bunch, $9
• 2 Juniper bunches, $18 (these turned out to be pretty dry and monotone- don't get these again)
• Dogwood twigs, $8

Winter look

Next year I'd like to add some more ornaments on stakes, like in this one at Home Depot.

For spring into summer, I purchased $95 of faux flowers and greenery.

April- some greens, too early for flowers (even faux)

Summer