Spring Front Porch Refresh: Stylish Plant Decor Ideas

Hello friends, and welcome to this month’s Design Challenge! Cindy from County Road 407 has given us a challenge to design with plants this time. Happily, this is right in my wheelhouse as I LOVE to decorate with all kinds of plantings! To challenge myself, I thought I’d redo my front porch’s look for the season…

I am Barbara Chapman and I’d love it if you’d follow me here on my blog and on any of my other social media sites, too. Thank you!💜

French Ethereal: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest

Welcome to you all and a hearty welcome to anyone coming over from Michelle‘s site, Thistle Key Lane. Didn’t you just love how Michelle decorated her rooms with wire baskets? Perfect for spring! If you are new to my site, please consider subscribing and following along. I appreciate you!

A design challenge graphic featuring a green circle with white text that reads 'Design Challenge: One Inspirational Image, Various Distinct Styles', along with an illustration of a gazebo, surrounded by floral patterns.

Wrought Iron & White

A vintage white metal chair with a wire basket holding pink flowers and greenery, accompanied by a decorative plate resting in the basket. A white ceramic pot with pink flowers sits on the wooden floor beside the chair. — On the Deck

Our inspiration piece this time comes from our friend Debra Oliver over at Common Ground. In this particular post, she was sprucing up her porch for spring in soft pinks, whites and greens and pretty iron pieces.

I love how Debra used a chair as the base and then placed a wire basket atop it to hold two pot. To that, she placed a metal tray in back which echoes the pink, green and white of the flowers and greenery. Soft, easy and lovely!

Well, believe it or not, I have been a bit stumped as to what to do for this challenge. Wouldn’t you know it?! I JUST donated a curly metal basket I have had for close to 20 years, which would have worked perfectly for this challenge…

A colorful display of blooming red and pink tulips in a stone planter, accompanied by small purple pansies and a blue potted plant in the background.

In our last home, the wire basket sat up on the primary room’s bathtub, a rather large garden tub with a nice 16″ tub surround. I would set candles in the little wire tray along with some rolled wash cloths. Rolled wire was really “in” then. 😉

A front porch decorated with two cream-colored pumpkins placed on stone pedestals beside a statue of an angel holding a basket, surrounded by green plants and brick walls.

Well, my front porch has pretty much had the same look for two or three years now. Same pots, same position, large cement angel still up on the garden chair since Mr. Ethereal set it there at Christmas time a couple of years ago.

It is definitely time for a front porch refresh! 😉

Moving the angel from the front to the backyard ~ part of
One Garden Move Begets Another!

Now I could have done something indoors as you will find some of my friends have created, but this was a good excuse (do I really need one?) to refresh our front porch.

So, this past week I went to our local box store and found some plants in lovely spring colors. I began looking in the half-price section and found several plants which had just been over-watered, which was a great score! Most of those are going into the backyard. 🙂

I am keeping the main urns just as they are with purple and yellow violas and the boxwood centerpieces for the season. I might add some other flowers tucked in those urns to jazz them up, but the violas are growing well now with the warmer weather and I like them until well into June.

Let’s get these guys planted!!!

This is one of the half-price plants I found, and petunias are perfect for late spring going into summer.

I cleaned all incoming pots, this chair and this little cherub bird bath so they were nice and bright!

Here are the poor, withered, half-priced lavender which were overwatered at the store… They did make their way to the backyard and I have since planted a small terracotta planter with begonias.

Our local Walmart has tricolor begonias in a 16-pack for $10. I picked up two packs. I didn’t even use all of this first flat, so I may return the other pack.

I wanted to keep with mostly pinks and whites, like what was used in our inspiration photograph which is how I chose the petunias and begonias. Our front porch only receives morning sun until 12 noon, then it is completely shaded all afternoon. Begonias are perfect for shady areas and I can always move the petunias later on to a sunnier spot.

Adding French vibes

Love this look and together they definitely have all the French feels and our inspiration’s vibes!

One of the gates as I left the gardens at Versailles, July 2023.

Adding white pottery to our front porch and a tray to the chair mimics our inspiration’s look. The red and gold in the tray add a nice bit of color and shine to our chair vignette.

Mums across the way add lots of green to our scene.

In progress before the begonias.

The Final Reveal

And this is how the whole porch area looks after all the planting and clean up. By adding a variety of pots and planters with different textured patterns and just a few simple plant choices and their colors really adds a lot of French Country style.

One last shot of our old angel birdbath filled with begonias for the season… A small piece of black-painted, cast aluminum in the lower right corner is a tiny fragment leftover from the gate I designed for our last home’s backyard gate. If you are ever near Spinning Wheel Drive in Murrieta, California, enjoy it for me!

Next up is Lora from her site, Lora Bloomquist, and I am sure you will love her vintage garden vignette looks! Thank you for stopping by today and let me know what you think of our front porch’s changes. Enjoy all the garden-inspired designs created for you on today’s tour!!

Bon jardinage*, mes amis,