Create a beautiful fresh evergreen porch pot using left over cuttings from your Christmas tree and back yard. Cypress holly cedar, Frasier fir, and Cedar greens make up the base of the arrangement. Magnolia leaves and twigs/sticks from my back yard fills and elevates the pot. Add a bow and you are good to go.
If you want to make a table top arrangement here is one I made for a gift. The base is a clay pot painted with white chalk paint. A black and white checked painted band created a pretty accent to the woodsy arrangement.
Before giving as a gift, I added thin sticks and red bow. Turned out so pretty. Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of the finished pot.
How to Make a Centerpiece or Porch Pot
You will need the following supplies. An urn or base container, sand, gravel or small pebbles, oasis- for fresh greenery ( soak in water) assorted greenery and twigs. Pruning shears and scissors necessary for cutting the ends of the fresh greenery and ribbon for bow.
First Step: Fill bottom of urn with pebbles or gravel. This is to help with the weight to keep the filled urn from tipping over during winter winds.
Step 2: Cover pebbles with sand enough to cover the pebbles about 1/2 of the urn or container.
How to prepare oasis?
Step 3: After soaking the oasis until it is totally saturated with water. Place oasis blocks in a bucket filled with water, make sure the blocks are covered entirely in water.
Step 4: Place oasis inside urn on top of sand/gravel. Pack the oasis in solidly cutting the pieces as needed to fit container. Next trim the ends of your greenery at an angle with pruning shears, see photo. This will allow the stem to drink water to help keep it fresh.
Once the pots are made and outside for awhile, you can water them if they need it.
How to arrange greenery?
Step 5: Select the tallest evergreen stems first (Fraser Fir) and place in the center of the container. Add the next stem that is just a bit shorter than the main stem in center, and add the third stem that is a bit smaller than the second one.
Step 6: Fill in around the edges of the urn/container with a second type of greenery like the incense cedar/juniper.
Step 7: Cut magnolia stems about 8-10″ tall, clear leaves from the bottom of the magnolia stem and insert into the oasis close the edge of the container to help fill in empty areas.
Be sure to turn your container around from time to time to make sure your greenery is positioned in a balanced manner.
Step 8: Now that your container is completely filled, attach your bow and insert 3 to 5 tall sticks into center of container.
Behind the porch pot is an ornament topiary .
The container with the black and white clay pot (below) is the table centerpiece. You can see the twigs in the center of the arrangement.
Create a porch pot for each door, whether front to back or side patio doors, these pots will welcome everyone.
They are fun to make and will last through January. Makes wonderful gifts for friends and family.