DIY Fall & Thanksgiving Decorations Planter {So Easy!}

Fall is here, can you feel it? Let’s make a beautiful outdoor fall & Thanksgiving Decorations planter to celebrate this glorious season!

This planter / arrangement is super easy to make: it takes only 30 minutes. Made from materials that are mostly free or low-cost, it is also quite long lasting- I will share lots of tips in today’s detailed step by step tutorial and video, so you can confidently design and create your own planter for outdoor fall & Thanksgiving Decorations, no matter where you live.

Are you ready for the big secret? To make a beautiful and long-lasting planter or arrangement, it is all about selecting the best elements…

Check out the video tutorial below, or skip to step by step written tutorial.

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Step 1: Choosing the right pot for your fall & Thanksgiving decorations planter

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The location of your outdoor fall & Thanksgiving decorations planter will determine its size and color. For example, a wood planter will look great against a brick wall, while a terracotta planter may disappear into the background.  If you live in a very cold climate, some terracotta pots may not be durable enough for the rain and freeze.

Our pot is 20″ at the top, which gives a lot of room to get creative. Although it looks like terracotta, it is actually made of plastic, which is light-weight and durable. I rubbed some paint on it to make it look a bit more aged. Here are a few similar large planters: an 18″ classic urn, a faux stone planter, and a faux terracotta planter.

How to Fill the planter:

You can filled the pot with mulch, gravel, soil, floral foam, or combinations of similar materials. We used some empty plastic water bottles at the bottom, and soil at the top.

This way the pot is not too heavy, yet sturdy enough that our outdoor fall & Thanksgiving decorations planter will not fall over in the wind. The moist soil will also act like floral foam that provides moisture to the cuttings. ( I have read that floral foam contains harmful chemicals, it also becomes a waste, which isn’t good for our environment.)

In these DIY Christmas planters and outdoor decorations, you can also use bottles and soil instead of floral foam.

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24 colorful winter planters & Christmas pots for  outdoor decorations.

Step 2: Start with vertical accents

There are so many vertical elements you can use in a fall & Thanksgiving decorations planter to celebrate the season of abundance : corn stalks, grasses, wheat stalks….

We started with a mixture of tall grasses and branches at the center of the arrangement. The Pampas grass and purple fountain grass look so pretty in the gentle breeze, and they last a long time as cuttings.

Step 3: Add foliage

When choosing foliage for your outdoor fall & Thanksgiving decorations planter, use a mixture of different colors and textures. Here’s a secret: the thicker and more leathery the leaves, the longer they will last in the pot.

It is hard to find those gorgeous fall leaves here in Southern California in September. If you can find some beautiful fall foliage and branches, use them! They will dry to gorgeous shades of browns and golds.

Step 4: Finish with fall flowers ( fake or real?)

You can use either real or fake flowers here. Although I always love real plants and almost never use fake ones, there are lots of good reasons which made me use faux flowers here.

Because I want this project to be accessible to everyone, and it can get super cold around Thanksgiving in many places, which means fresh flowers may not last through the freezing nights.

Even in warm climate, I know how unpredictable a plant can be! A potted flowers plant might be in full bloom a week before Thanksgiving, and no bloom on Thanksgiving day, how disappointing that would be?!?

Faux flowers are 100% reliable here in a Thanksgiving decorations planter arrangement! Can you believe just four $1 flowers would make such an impact?

Can’t get enough planters? Check out these 22 beautiful fall planters for outdoor decorations.

22 gorgeous fall planters for Thanksgiving & fall decorations: best fall flowers for pots, & great autumn planter ideas with mums, pumpkins, kale, & more! - A Piece of Rainbow

22 beautiful fall planters for outdoor decorations

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Happy creating, and enjoy the beautiful fall season!

16 Comments

  1. I adore reading your blog, and it is a tremendous resource for home decor. It also makes excellent environmental sense. Awaiting the subsequent thought!

  2. I love love love this planter! What a great idea. I need to make sure to add this to my Fall porch decor this year.

  3. i love the tips you included, i would never have guessed that the planter was plastic, and waterbottles inside? -genius! who says it costs a lot to decorate? way to show its possible to be cheap, resourceful and have a gorgeous outcome!

  4. That planter is a gorgeous combination of all the seasonal colors! I don’t know if I would want plastic in the bottom of it, but that does help to take up some of the space without making it heavy. We get a lot of rain and wind, so we usually put bricks at the bottom of our planters once we have them in place.

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