DIY: Easy + Lovely Spring Planters

When the first spring flowers show up in garden centers, I feel a boost of energy. This is the beginning of my favorite time of year. I love the vivid colors that light up the drab gray scenes that have been the norm for the past few months. The air smells fresh, and we start opening our windows on a regular basis to let the cold air circulate through our house and freshen things up.

One of my favorite spring flowers is the primrose. I love their mounding style and their big green leaves. The flowers grow from a cluster in the middle. I always have a pot or two of primroses on my front porch to greet my neighbors, and me when I get home from work.

I like to plant my pots myself because the planters at garden centers are often overpriced, and they rarely come in pretty pots. I recently found these pots at Ross for less than $10 combined! They are heavy-duty glossed ceramic, and gorgeous. I couldn't pass them up, and am now very excited I didn't talk myself out of buying them!

Let's get into the super easy steps for your own spring planters.

STEP 1: Choose your flowers. 

This seems easy enough right? Just a tip to remember: be mindful of spacing and growth habit. I chose primroses, and a forced daffodil bulb. The daffodil takes up very little space as most of its growth is upward. The primroses form a mound and spread out evenly in a circle. They don't get much larger than they are here, maybe just a few more inches in height and width so roughly 6-8 inches all around.

STEP 2: Choose your pots. 

I wanted to cluster my three pots, and put a variety of similar plants in them. The bigger one is roughly 12-14 inches across, so it can easily fit a few plantings, the other two are about 6-8 inches across, so I knew they would host one plant each.

STEP 3: Do a test run.

I like to set my plants in their nursery pots inside the planters so I get an idea of how I want to plant them. I decided to do one each of the primroses in the smaller pots since they will pretty much spread out and cover the entire top. For the bigger pot, I was doing three plants -- two primroses and a daffodil. I positioned the daffodil in the back of the bigger pot since it will grow tall and stand over the two shorter flowers in front. Then I played around with color schemes. I didn't want all yellow together in the big pot since the daffodil is yellow. I also didn't want a yellow flower in the yellow pot. So, I decided to mix them up.

STEP 4: Plant the flowers.

Add some dirt to the bottom of each pot so the plants will sit with their dirt levels just about an inch or half-inch below the lip of the pot. Then tip the plants on their sides with one hand while lightly squeezing the bottom of the nursery pot to loosen them. They will slide out and into your hand. Then loosen the root ball a little bit, and set them into the pot. Don't try to just grab the plant to pull it out of the nursery pot, this can uproot it. Let gravity help you do the work! Fill in dirt around the plants. Make sure when you fill in the gaps in the pots with dirt, that you don't bury the plants any deeper than they were in their nursery pots. Once all the plants are in, and the extra dirt is filled in, lightly press down the soil and then water the plants to set the dirt.

STEP 5: Enjoy.

Place the pots where they'll get the proper light they need, and where you can see them often.

See my final product below? I am very happy with how these turned out! I'll be even more excited when that daffodil in the back of the bigger pot starts blooming, too. You can do this with any variety of spring blooms you like. It's a super easy way to bring on spring, and brighten up your space.

 ++ Are you planting any spring flowers at your house? Which spring flowers are your favorite? 

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