Container gardens provide the perfect opportunity to showcase all of the splendor of Spring!
Each year, we eagerly anticipate the arrival of Spring and all of the flowers and color that it brings. Fortunately, in the Pacific Northwest there are lots of early-season annuals that help fill the gap between Winter and warmer weather ahead. Cool-season beauties like Ranunculus, Primroses, Nemesia, Narcissus, and Hellebores invite us to reinvigorate our plantings and bring a much-needed dose of color to our rainy days.
By sprucing up your pots with fresh, blooming colorful plants in Spring, you can bring new life to containers that may have sat dormant or were filled with static evergreen plantings throughout the grey months. We think there’s real value in early Spring container plantings that celebrate shorter-season Spring favorites alongside evergreen plants for an injection of color and energy.
Whether you have a strong vision for what you’d like or need some container inspiration, we’re here to help add something fresh and fun to your container plantings. Our Portland-area nurseries are fully stocked with locally grown Spring color, healthy evergreen foundational pieces, and high-quality outdoor pottery to help you find everything you need for a Spring container refresh!
Spring Container Garden Design Tips
Happily, early Spring is a time of year where there are fewer design do’s and don’ts because the point of your containers should be to capture the season in all of its fleeting glory rather than to craft a design that will last all Summer. But some foundational concepts still apply to the creation of a beautiful and impactful Spring container.
Container gardens are most successful when they complement the aesthetic of your home and existing plantings and feature a color scheme that you like! We always recommend you start with the simple formula of “Thriller, Filler, and Spiller” to create dynamic container plantings that will be well-proportioned and engaging.
Kelley’s Clever Design Tip: One of my favorite ways to approach pots this time of year is to treat the annuals like long-lived floral arrangements—keep the centerpiece and filler plants mostly evergreen and fairly static, and rotate the annuals every couple weeks for fresh color. When early Spring bulbs and perennials are spent and done blooming, I plant them out in the yard to enjoy for years to come and refresh the pot with the next showstopper of the season. Once we settle into May and warmer-season annuals arrive, I let those shine for much longer. But in early Spring, when we need color the most, I love being a little playful with it!
Thriller Plants for Spring Containers
Thriller plants are the largest element of your container planting, add height and drama, and help dictate the overall look and feel of the combination. In large container gardens, thrillers are typically static elements that are only replaced every 1–3 years. For smaller container gardens, you might replant your thriller element seasonally. Small trees, flowering shrubs, conifers, grasses, and perennials all make excellent thrillers! Evergreen plants or deciduous plants can both be used as the thriller centerpiece in a container garden.
- Thriller Plants for Spring Interest: Columnar Apple, Contorted Filbert, Spring Camellia, Sweet Pea
- Evergreen Thriller Plants: Columnar Yew, Evergreen Magnolia, Hardy Olive, Star Jasmine, Topiary Wax-Leaf Privet
Filler Plants for Spring Containers
Filler plants help fill in the space around your Thriller, and can be blooming or textural, depending on your preferred aesthetic. You can use annuals, perennials, grasses, and herbs as fillers, and they can be replanted each season or kept in the container planting for 1–2 years before replacing.
- Filler Plants for Spring Interest: Heather, Hellebore, Hyacinth, Narcissus, Nemesia, Primroses, Pansies, Ranunculus, Violas
- Evergreen Filler Plants: Carex Grass, Euphorbia, Heather, Hebe, Hellebore, Heuchera, Sage, Thyme
Spiller Plants for Spring Containers
Spiller plants drape or cascade over the edges of the container planting, adding yet another dimension of interest and softening the edges of the planting. Spillers are often a combination of seasonal foliage plants, seasonal blooming plants, and/or evergreen groundcovers.
- Spiller Plants for Spring Interest: Bacopa, Calibrachoa, Nemesia, Sweet Pea
- Evergreen Spillers (and Groundcovers): Trailing Ceanothus, Trailing Euonymus, Vinca, Wire Vine
Annuals are sold as assortments and our selection is always changing! Visit us in store for fresh seasonal finds and endless inspiration to help anchor your container color palette.
Spring Container Garden Design Inspiration
We love nothing more than creating novel combinations of plants to celebrate the color and feeling of each season. Visit us in store to find inspiration from our signature mannequin pots and check out our Spring container garden mood boards below. Each collection of plantings showcases stunning Spring thrillers, fillers, and spillers in elevated and intentional color palette to give you the best of what the season has to offer.
Jen’s Clever Container Design Tip: Beyond the obvious pops of color, some of the things I love to add to containers in early Spring are herbs and other edible or fragrant plants. They have a bit of a cottage vibe which is really on trend at the moment, and the fragrant foliage of the herbs is always welcome but especially in a container where you can really enjoy them this time of year.
1) Olive Tree, 2) Carex Testacea, 3) Heuchera ‘Changeling’, 4) Ranunculus, 5) Primrose, 6) Nemesia
1) Evergreen Magnolia, 2) Carex ‘Everillo’, 3) Heuchera ‘Berry Smoothie’, 4) Hellebore, 5) Wire Vine, 6) Pansy
1) Camellia, 2) Narcissus, 3) Carex ‘Feather Falls’, 4) Alaska Fern, 5) White Pansy, 6) Vinca ‘Alba’
1) Columnar Apple, 2) English Thyme, 3) Tricolor Sage, 4) Red Russian Kale, 5) Trailing Rosemary, 6) Mickey Pansy
Other Approaches to Container Garden Design
Premade Drop-In Container Gardens
All of our Garden Centers stock a beautiful range of seasonal drop-in container plantings. Drop-in pots are ideal for garden lovers with busy schedules or for those who prefer not to get their hands dirty. All drop-ins are planted into a plastic pot that can discretely fit inside your own decorative container at home to provide instant gratification. You’ll have dynamic, colorful, curated arrangements that can be easily refreshed or switched out through the seasons!
Custom Container Planting Service
If you’d like our in-house experts to design and plant your container garden, our custom container planting service is the perfect fit. Call us to book a consultation, bring in photos for inspiration, and book a time to have us plant up your container at the garden center. We will create a memorable, high-impact planting that is perfectly aligned with your style.
Annual Container Design Subscription
Eliminate the guesswork in crafting the perfect container gardens for your outdoor spaces with our NEW Annual Subscription Service, provided by our Residential Landscape Maintenance Division. Gather your pottery, choose your favorite color palette, book your three plant rotations for the year, and we’ll design, deliver, and install beautiful potted arrangements on-site with fresh foliage and blooms for each season!
Need some guidance on how to care for your container gardens? Check out our blog here for best planting and maintenance tips to keep your container gardens thriving through the season!
Visit us at any of our Portland or Vancouver garden centers to find new and unusual plants, high-quality outdoor pottery, and inspiration for stunning seasonal plant combinations. Our knowledgeable staff is always excited to help you choose the perfect plants and pot for your space in any season!