My 2014 Growing Season Shade Planters

This week I've been planning my front porch planters. My front porch faces North and has a large overhang, so anything that adorns my front porch is subject to almost full days of shade. In past years, I've just relied on the tried and true 'Impatiens' to provide color near the front door during the growing season. This year I wanted to branch out a little bit, get a bit more creative and try some different plantings.

After much research, I decided upon a color theme of various shades of purple and white. I carefully chose my plants after reading a lot about shade annuals and talking to gardening experts.

Before I bought my plants, though, I needed to decide what I was going to use for my planters. I didn't love anything I saw at most of the stores and I wasn't wanting to spend $30 or more on one planter. I finally ended up going to Tractor Supply Company where I bought two sweet wooden bushel planters on sale for around $14.50/each and two 6-gallon galvanized steel pails for about $15/each.

Now that I knew how many and what size containers I had to work with, I could get my plants. I ended up purchasing the following:

Torenia, Large Violet : 3 qty in pint containers
Torenia, Large Amethyst : 3 qty in pint containers
Bacopa, Betty Blue : 2 qty in pint containers
Bacopa, Taifun Mega White : 2 qty in pint containers
Lobelia, light purple : 2 in quart containers
Lobelia, blue : 6-pack
Spurge, White Manaus : 2 in pint containers
Pericallis, variegated purple/white : 2 in ~gallon size containers
Pericallis, royal purple : 2 ~gallon size containers

This morning dawned beautifully and I was anxious to get my pots ready and my flowers planted. First, I needed to prepare the galvanized steel pails to be transformed into a planter, meaning they needed to have holes poked in the bottom of the pail to allow for proper drainage. To do this, I used a hammer, a standard long nail and a small scrap of 4x4 wood.

I positioned the piece of wood under the bucket, wherever I needed to poke a hole.

Then, using the nail and hammer, I hammered away, repositioning the bucket and the wood until I had something that looked like this.

I put rocks in the bottom of the planters and then layered compost/manure and potting mix until the buckets were full enough to begin setting the plants inside. I arranged the plants in the layout I wanted, generally trying to keep the taller plants in the back and center of the planters, with the shorter trailing plants on the fringes around the outside.

In all my research, I found a container gardening tip that said to try lining the containers with newspaper, before you fill with potting mix. I forgot to line the steel pails, but I did line the wooden bushel planters, so we'll see if that makes any sort of difference. I kept the newspaper low enough in the containers, so that it is not visible on the sides and I didn't line the bottom of the containers, since I was putting rocks in the bottom for drainage.

Here are pics of the finished planters. I love them!