Looking for lush, exotic, showstopper planters for your patio, deck, and landscape this summer? Go tropical!
Outdoor Craftsmen has designers dedicated to container plantings, and they never fail to come up with the most unique, standout arrangements.
Tropicals, especially rich green palm fronds, have grown in popularity across interiors, fashion, home décor, and landscape design recently. This influential style is less about brashy brights and more about lush, exciting greens in a wide palette of hues and tones.
The beauty of working with ferns and tropicals is that they fill a pot with their rich color and exuberance without requiring other plants to complete a look. When translated to outdoor containers (and even in-ground plantings treated as annuals instead of perennials) tropicals are fun and unexpected.
Ferns are a popular pick of both clients and our container design team. Autumn fern, Giant Chain fern, and Western sword fern all handle fluctuating temperatures well (from searing hot one day to cool and cloudy the next). Ferns are especially pretty beside pools and ponds, gracing garden pathways where cool shade is more abundant, or tucked into the crevices of boulders where their roots can stay cool but their leaves stretch for the sun and bask in the warmth of the rock.
We are fond of using accent plants with periwinkle blue or white flowers to contrast and compliment the greens of ferns, and often we use only other greens to make a cool aristocratic statement.
Succulents are a favorite of clients and often requested – especially for those with a modern aesthetic. Succulents’ hardy habits, large variety of colors and size, and beautiful form combine to make them a wonderful standalone in a pot. They’re extremely drought tolerant and require very little of their owners.