Designing Domesticity: Get the Look: Statement Planter

There are times when you want your planters to all coordinate, creating one overall scheme. Then, there are times when you want one single planter to stand alone, creating a real statement.

Of course, we want a big statement in the new urn situated front and center in our kitchen garden.

Note: After a lot of research, we settled on a clean lined, 27" cement planter from Lowe's.

Like with any new project, I spent time looking through magazines and online researching combinations for said statement urn. Unfortunately, I didn't come up with much.
When all else fails, it's time to hit the shops.
First, I checked out Home Depot for flowers, but ultimately left feeling uninspired. Time to pull out the big dogs and get some personalized attention at a local nursery.

I'm sure I've mentioned Banner nursery before. They are a small locally owned nursery with very competitive pricing, excellent personalized service and a selection that is second to none. Clearly, I am a big fan. If you are local, check them out.

I worked with one of their planter designers ( I'm calling her that because she was actually working on a planter when I got there). We walked around the nursery looking at various combinations and she highlighted some of their more unusual selections. Ultimately, she left me with a great piece of advice: get a cart and start laying the plants/flowers out how you would imagine them in the planter, keeping the thriller, filler, spiller concept in mind, and go from there.

Here's what I ended up with.

I knew I wanted to keep the scheme fairly neutral overall because I have a lot of colors, textures, and varieties in the surrounding beds. The designer at Banner wasn't super thrilled with my "drama without color" concept, but I think we made it work.