Patio Planter Ideas

We have had a very hot and dry summer. The yards in our neighborhood are drying up and turning brown. The flowers in the patio planter are in need of watering twice a day. We have decided that we need to do something different in the patio planter next year.

We built our new deck last summer. We did not have it completed until late summer early fall, so we did not plant anything in the patio planter that the carpenter installed along the railings or our deck. Last year I bought several mums in the fall and placed them, still in their containers inside the patio planter. They looked nice and after the frost I simply through the containers away. We put evergreen tips in the planters for the winter season and then removed them in the spring.

This spring I made the mistake of filling the patio planter with dirt and directly planting flowers into it. The plants looked great in the early part of the summer, but with the heat they are starting to look bad. I am also concerned that the dirt and the water are going to wear through the wood of the patio planter. My neighbor suggested measuring the planter and then buying a plastic liner that I can place inside of it. This will keep the wood safe and will allow me to exchange the plants for the different seasons with ease. I thought this would be a great idea. I measured the planter and then went to a nursery supply store and found a heavy duty plastic liner. The gardener at the nursery suggested that I place large rocks in the bottom of the container topped with an inch of gravel and then potting soil so that there would be plenty of drainage for the plants.

While I was at the nursery I found several colors of garden mums. The gardener said that they would bloom until the frost came. When I arrived home I pulled the aging plants out and then I scooped all of the soil out of the patio planter. I placed the liner into the planter and then placed the individual pots that the mums came in into the wooden planter. This will be very easy to clear away once we have a frost. I think next year the plants will do much better being in the liner rather than directly in the wooden patio planter. I think the planter will stay looking nicer longer also.