Making festive outdoor evergreen pots is fun and relatively easy project you can make at home. Stop by Sargent’s Nursery to pick up all your fresh greens, tree tops and picks to complete your project and follow these steps. Our staff can help make sure you get enough greens for your project.
Start with the Container Hopefully your pot isn’t frozen. If the potting soil in your container is from spring and summer you may be able to reuse it. Fresh potting soil is too loose to hold the tree tops upright so at Sargent’s we prefer to use sand. First fill the bottom of your pot with 2-3 inches of wood chips. The wood chips help lighten the pot and keep the sand from running out.
Next add sand to about an inch from the top of the pot. Amounts of chips and sand vary with pot sizes and shapes. Taller containers can use a bit more chips but be careful to not make them too top heavy.
Start with the tops. Start with the largest, tallest pieces first. Usually this is the tree tops. Trim the bottoms to shorten the overall height as needed. The tree tops should be about 2/3 the height of your container. Place tops in the center if you pot will be viewed from all sides. If your pot will be up against your home or garage add the tops between the center and back of the pot. A 12″ pot usually needs 2-3 tree tops depending on the fullness of the tops.
Mix up the greens! Once the tree tops are in place add pieces of 2-3 other types of evergreens to fill in the space between the tree tops and edge of pot. Mix textures like long needle pine, short needle spruce or fir and finally some feathery cedar. Cedar is a great accent and also is a great way to add draping in the edge of your container.
Dazzle it up After the container is full of greens move onto to the fun stuff. Twigs like dogwood and curly willow make a great addition along with our white painted branches. We have a great selection of picks like pinecones in red or champagne glitter, natural or snow covered or choose stars, ornaments, and many other items. Shatterproof ornaments and bows can also make a festive addition.
Sargent’s also offers this project in our Holiday Tree Top Planter classes on Saturday, November 25 and Thursday, November 30. Register today.