Adding Some Wow to the Deck with Colorful New Plants & Planters

Disclosure: this post may contain affiliate links, which means I may make a commission if you decide to make a purchase through one of my links, at no cost to you.

The deck got a little more colorful this week thanks to some new flowering plants and stylish planters!

We got started on the new outdoor sectional this week! For those of you who have been around since last summer’s big floating deck build, you know that I’ve been (cue dramatic teen girl voice) dying to get to this project.

But, there was one little surprise delay on that: we changed the design completely from what I shared with you earlier! Just before I left for the SpringMake conference, K and I tweaked the design with a few curves… which kind of snowballed into an entirely new look at the seating area. Here’s a preview:

Suddenly, it was that internal “YES THAT’S IT” moment — after months of procrastinating, we were both psyched to get started. And I could picture where planters, umbrellas, and everything else will go. Funny how that happens, right?

But, why am I bringing it up when this post is not about that build? Because I was planning on incorporating the reveal with another dramatic change: adding some BIG-TIME color with new flowers and planters scattered everywhere. I went and got everything because I was anticipating us to have a few of the chairs done by the time I got my plants ready to style and photograph, and then we went and changed the design. ? Let’s all have a collective laugh at my ability to plan properly (I think my project eyes are bigger than my project stomach). But it’s okay, because I know exactly where they’re all going to go now!

How to Add More Color to Your Deck

For these plants and planters, I partnered up with Better Homes & Gardens at Walmart (kind of a dream come true for me, TBH — my family thinks I’m pretty cool right now). They set my budget around $100 for everything (including soil), and I stayed… close to that target ?. This trip taught me that if I’m let loose in the garden section, I will try to get it all (you’ll see in the video there were other ones I also wanted to get, like those gorgeous hanging planters). It was also kind of fun to bring K along because he has wildly different tastes in flowers than I do. He’s the one who picked out the orange lilies and the yellow daisies you see, where I gravitated toward the bunches of little blooms. I think it made for a better combination than I could have done alone.

Check out the video

We got some video of the entire shopping trip too, which was a learning experience for both of us (to film in a store versus at home). I also included a good tip about keeping blooms fresh! It was kind of fun to play around with the store displays a little.

After picking out the planters, I grabbed plants to fill each one (tip: if you want to stick to a budget, do this the opposite way; I wanted every planter from the Better Homes & Gardens line at Walmart, so I think if I’d picked out plants first, I would have been more focused on getting planters to fit those specific plants, rather than trying to fill every planter I wanted).

I like a good mix of color and greenery for container gardens. So when assembling larger planters, I try to pair height (like the lilies) with things that will spill over the edge (like the ornamental grass). Here’s what we picked out:

Planters

• 2 – 12″ Teal Brookmonte planters
• 1 – 11″ Kennewick planter
• 1 – 20″ Diamond Blue planter

Plants

• 2 – ‘Shocking Blue’ Confetti Garden (mix of Calibrachoa, Petunia, and Verbena)
• 1 – Yellow Gerbera Daisy
• 1 – Sedum
• 1 – Impatiens
• 1 – Asiatic Lily
• 1 – Blue Fescue

Out of everything, I still think I like the confetti mix best — I loved that I could fill that entire 12-inch pot with one huge mix, and it’s going to look fantastic on either side of that sectional when it’s done. Plus, it required zero thinking on my part to make sure everything matched.

Even Charlie seems pumped about the direction we’re headed with our outdoor space. (I’ll use any excuse to share the dog smiley photos.)

But there you have it. The outdoor garden benches I made last year will do for now to sit outside with my coffee in the mornings and enjoy these flowers, but I’m one step closer to that little dream of mine of sitting out there, surrounded by my gorgeously decorated deck, and watching the pups.

Don’t forget to pin!