11 Planter Box Ideas to Boost Your Garden Style as Well as Your Growing Space

A planter box is a beautiful way to add more plants to your garden. It gives near-instant results, and the style of planter you choose will add to your backyard vibe. And there are so many ways to use planter boxes creatively in your garden. Many planter designs are purpose-made to fit a particular spot such as a balcony or windowsill, letting you add color and texture to sparse areas of your plot.

Planter boxes can redefine garden areas, too, turning a forgotten patio corner into a lush sanctuary to relax in, or your front yard into a vegetable patch to grow your own fresh produce. Or do you want to add privacy to your patio, or more personality? A planter box is the simple solution.

Be inspired by these planter box ideas and give your garden a fast upgrade this weekend.

1. Create Patio Zones With Wheeled Planter Boxes

Let's start with one of the most useful as well as stylish patio ideas. Using a wheeled planter to define a temporary zone on a paved area, perhaps to outline a seating area when you’ve invited friends or family over, instantly makes your patio into a more versatile space. Or how about using a wheeled planter to grow herbs so you can move it alongside your barbecue or outdoor table to create a dining zone with fresh pickings when entertaining? With a mobile planter box, you can switch up the look of your patio week after week.

There are practical benefits, too. The wheels raise the base off the ground, improving drainage and, by moving the planter regularly, you won’t be left with stained paving.

A good trick to keep a deep planter as light as possible so it’s easy to move around is to put chunks of polystyrene in the base. This also cuts the cost of filling the planter with potting soil.

2. Add Personality With a Painted Wooden Planter Box

Give an old wooden planter box new life with a bold design based on your garden palette. Even if you don’t consider yourself to be creative, it’s simple to paint a design of undulating lines such as this. You’ll need exterior paint, and this DecoArt Patio Outdoor Paint Set, available from Amazon, has 24 small pots of color for a vibrant design. It’s suitable for metal, plastic, concrete and terracotta as well as wood, so can be used for lots of other garden projects.

3. Bring Color With Windowsill Planter Boxes

Windowsill planter boxes are so charming, bringing a touch of romantic whimsy or cottagecore vibes to any home. And don’t fret if you don’t have huge windowsills. All you need are some metal planter brackets like these from Amazon and you can fix a windowbox pretty much anywhere.

The trick to making these slim planter boxes low maintenance is to use a small evergreen like trailing rosemary for year-round structure, then swap in easy-going bloomers like violas, marigold and petunias.

4. Use Ornamental Grass to Create a Privacy Planter

If your patio is overlooked by nosy neighbors, add welcome privacy with a planter of ornamental grasses. The clever idea behind a grass-only planter is that it will give maximum privacy in summer, when you use your patio most, because the plants will be at their peak. In winter, even if you leave the flowerheads for structure, the planter will let more of that precious sunshine through. This also gives maximum shade in summer, and makes for an extremely low maintenance planter.

5. Grow Herbs & Salad Leaves in a Raised Planter

A raised planter doesn’t just make gardening more comfortable, it keeps plants better protected from slugs and snails. Because you can so easily feed and water in a raised planter, you can also pack plants really close together, reducing the back-splash from soil for cleaner leaves. For these reasons, many gardeners choose to grow herbs and salad greens in a raised planter for easy pest-free pickings.

6. Upcycle an Old Wooden Crate or Drawer

Vintage items will bring an authentic, earthy aesthetic to your patio and old crates such as these, stamped with lettering, make such characterful planters. Wooden drawers from unwanted furniture are another ideal option. A lot of vintage items are made from hardwood such as oak, which is a far more durable material than the softwood pine or cedar used to manufacture many modern wooden planters.

It's important to protect the wood from moisture before planting up your box. Drill several drainage holes in the base and apply an exterior wood sealant such as Garden Box Armor, available from Amazon. Then line with strong plastic to keep the soil away from the wood. An old compost bag turned inside out works well, and can simply be stapled to the wood. with holes poked in the base.

7. Claim Your Vertical Space With a Trellised Planter

A planter with a trellis lets you grow climbing vines to create an attractive wall of foliage and flowers. Choose to cloak it with a fast-growing vine that won’t scramble out of control, or why not try growing vertical veggies such as peas or butternut squash? Use the height of the trellis to disguise an ugly wall or to define a garden space.

8. Fill a Planter With Summer-Flowering Bulbs

There are heaps of summer-flowering bulbs that you can plant in spring, and many are wonderfully colorful. They tend to be tender, however, meaning you need to dig up the bulb (or tuber or corm) and store it in a frost-free space over winter, then replant the following year once the weather has warmed up. Growing these beauties in a planter makes it easy to lift them in fall. Some, like these color-pop oriental lilies, can be left in the planter once the soil has dried, and the container simply moved to a frost-free space.

9. Adorn a Balcony or Railing With Spilling Foliage

It takes seconds to cheer up a balcony or railing with a hooked planter box, and when it needs some TLC, it’s super-easy to hook off again. The elevated position offers the opportunity to grow trailing plants for a cascade of lush leaves, and it’s a quick task to swap low-maintenance annual blooms in and out if you want to add some color.

10. Plant-Block With One Species Per Planter

Garden designers love to create blocks of the same plant for a modern look, and this idea works just as well in planters as in the ground. It's extremely low-maintenance, too. Choose evergreen plants that will look good year-round for some of the planters. Broadleaf evergreens have wide, flat leaves that are often waxy so reflect light, for wonderful texture. Add in a low-maintenance flowering plant that has plenty of petite blooms, such as lavender or Erigeron, for a similar texture treat.

11. Make a Veggie Patch in a Forgotten Corner With a Metal Planter Box

Metal planter boxes without bases are cheap, cheerful, and allow you to create a productive vegetable garden in a small space. They look smart, too, so why not put your front garden to good use, and start growing the freshest veggies with zero air miles? Without a base, these planter boxes are positioned straight onto the ground, meaning plants can access the nutrients and moisture in the soil.

To cut the cost of filling a veggie bed with soil, put a layer of straw in the base. This will also provide plants with a steady supply of nutrients as it slowly rots down.