My Pot Class

Oh, how I love calling it that.  And wiggling my eyebrows suggestively when I call it that.

Nope, my class wasn't on marijuana.  It was a free class sponsored by a local nursery that shows you how to decorate your porch pots for the holidays.

Sorry about the poor quality of some of these photos - I forgot my nice camera, so I used my Barbie phone, whose picture-taking capability is shoddy at best.  Also, the light was behind the displays.

Um, and no, I don't have any porch pots as of yet, but...I aspire to have them someday. 

Kay, so you have your porch pots.  They're all empty of flora, because it's too butt-cold to grow anything right now.  They just have soil in 'em.  You will want to use metal pots, plastic pots (you can spray-paint them if you don't like their color), baskets, or wood.  She says to steer clear of ceramic, terra cotta, or cement pots - they tend to crumble or crack in the cold weather outside.  If you've had those kinds outside in the summer, bring them into your garage for the winter.  The soil that's already in your pot - use a brick to pack the soil down a bit.  The soil will act as that floral arranging foam stuff does.

You start with the middle of the pot with your "thriller."  There are three elements you put in your pot - your thriller, your filler, and your spiller.  The thriller is really tall.  It can be spray-painted (or plain) long twigs, an old tall birdhouse, some ironey yard decorating thing...  Something tall.  Right in the center.  The gal that did the demonstration was just using twigs she snapped off her trees at her house.

Then you use evergreen branches (real ones) as your filler.  No, they don't turn brown and die through the winter, surprisingly.  She says it stays humid and cold enough that they will stay green even if you've snipped them to put in your pot.  She would get three to four different kinds of evergreen to use as her filler, sticking them into the dirt and arranging them.

Once you've chosen your evergreens, you can choose some other fun elements to put in as your filler.  Spray-painted pine cones, fake lotus pods that you can buy at a craft store, yarrow you've picked from a ditch bank and spray-painted, etc.  She would pick the fun elements based on the colors of her evergreens.  Like, those evergreens that have those weird looking blue-ish berry things on them - she would make her fun elements blueish.  In her in-class demonstration, she had some evergreen branches with yellow-tinged needles, so she did a golden theme.

Lastly is your spiller.  This can be more evergreens that you arrange to kind of spill over the pot, or it can be a big dangly bow, some big jingle bells or hanging ornaments, etc.

As soon as I have time (seriously don't know when that will happen, since I'm moving and all), I'm going to procure some pots and do this thing.  I have a cute little porch in my new place to use, and I'm excited.  I'll post a pic when I do it.