Gardening may be one of the world’s longest-serving hobbies, but it is far from stagnant in terms of innovation. More than ever, most homeowners dabble in a little container gardening, businesses recognize the importance of plants, and outdoor spaces are booming with bloom. This general trend towards enhanced greenery is pushed forward by a community full of ideas and new concepts.
What is container gardening?
In the not-so-distant past, as more people moved to cities in search of a better life, they had to find a way to express their gardening desires without actually owning a garden. With container gardening, you don’t need a garden. With only a handful of containers, flower pots, planters, or whatever you call them, and a little sunlight, we can now have trendy ornamental plants in our home. We can have botanic pieces of modern art in the garden. We can introduce plants into a workspace as a mood enhancer, and impress guests with our cunning gardening creativity. So what are the biggest trends for the simple flower pot? Well, there are a lot.
Outside container gardening
Using containers outside is an easy way to extend the design and the architecture of your house into the garden, onto the patio, and beyond. A theme that you started inside can finally be unified by using the right containers outside. But how do you make your exterior both fashionable and unique? Here are some of the most trending ways to use your flower pots.
Use what you have
Flower pots don’t have to be created in a factory. Any object that can hold water could be deemed a plant pot with a little creativity. An old barrel, a used tire, a suitcase, all these things are at your disposal as planter precursors. Though the range of traditional planter shapes is wide, a mass-produced pot may never hit the cottage style on the head as a vintage wheelbarrow would. With this trend in mind, you will never look at a garage sale the same again.
Let it rust
A trend for the outdoors. Letting your plant pots go rusty is a step towards a rustic-looking garden. Rust from plant pots doesn’t affect the health of your plants but it does look textured, colorful, and natural. To achieve this effect, you need to choose an iron or steel planter that isn’t coated in a waterproofing material. Next, encourage a little rust by leaving your metal containers outside in the rain or high humidity. The oxidation process will take its course and leave you with a unique and natural planter design.
Cachepots
Though many exciting and experimental container styles are available, these might not necessarily be the best planter for your plants. A large concrete planter, for example, looks fantastic in the garden but is so heavy that come winter, you won’t be able to retreat your plants into the house. This is where the concept of a cachepot comes in. A cachepot is essentially a facade: a pot that’s just for show while the real plant pot sits inside. This inside container can be lighter, less fancy, and cheaper. It is out of sight but protecting your plants nevertheless.
Avant-garde
In direct defiance of sleek and flat surfaces, and aided by modern molding practices is the trend of 3D design and modern molding methods. gardens are seeing an increase in fun and novel flower pots that include Renaissance-inspired sculptures that stand on the floor to figurine gnomes that hold herbs and sit in the flower bed.
For the garden hobbyist with a bit of tech know-how and a 3D printer: anything is possible. Alternatively, interesting and ready-to-ship products are available to commercial markets too.
Jay Scotts have several modern designs that characterize the 3D movement, for instance, the Spiral Modern Globe Planter which features stacked concave layers wrapped around to form a globe – great for adding intrigue to a space!
Concrete jungle
If industrial design is your cup of tea, look no further than the wonder of uncoated concrete. The fresh face of a concrete container calmly exudes a neutral sophistication, and its soft gray exterior goes well with any minimalist design. The inherent weight of concrete planters also has its benefits.
Concrete flower pots are hard to accidentally knock over, and stay their ground in heavy winds. Concrete is also a great material for less conservative planter shapes as the molding process can create any style or pattern you can imagine.
Indoor container gardening
The rise of modern interior design began around 100 years ago and created the exciting prospect of actually improving your interior through the means of color, texture, and form. Nowadays we are looking at innovative ways to achieve our stylistic goals. One solution is through the humble plant pot.
Lightweight
As indoor gardeners build up their arsenal of planters, the idea of arranging, adding, and subtracting plant pots from their living space to create a particular style is an emerging trend. In correlation, planter materials have become more lightweight to accommodate consumer trends.
A great example is the environmentally-friendly material fiberglass.
At Jay Scotts, fiberglass is our favorite. This material is strong, light, and perfect for houseplants that need to be moved around from time to time.
Learn more about the best planter material for your home or commercial project.
See-all with glass
Glass is a wonderful material to create pretty pots that display nature from top to bottom. Choose plants that are well-equipped to live without soil, such as English Ivy, and enjoy watching the grass grow and the roots sprout in total transparency. Glass prisms that hang from the ceiling are wonderfully elegant. A recent trend is to pop in a few fish with the roots of the plant, but this only works with plants that are non-toxic to the fish.
Hanging planters
Using every surface to display planters is nothing new, but creating new surfaces is. Container gardening trailblazers are using hanging planters to utilize the vertical space in their homes. Hanging planters come in a range of materials but look especially good in a rattan cachepot hung with rope for a boho style.
Bigger and better
Better design, production techniques, and delivery channels expedite the trend-setting process. One trend is towards bigger and bolder planters. In 2020, The Royal Horticultural Society’s gardening trends report found that houseplants, and therefore the containers too, are getting larger. Indoor plants are becoming more of a centerpiece in the design landscape to make bold statements, compared to using plants as an afterthought.
Plant pot stands
Both gardening engineers and Interior designers have been tinkering for years with ways to elevate the flower pot into eye-catching positions and make use of the vertical space available in our homes. Incoming trends, such as the plant pot stand, address this desire with beauty and style. Plant pot stands are available in a range of materials, from bohemian rattan to sleek copper, and they work with a wide selection of container sizes and styles too.
Commercial container gardening
Flower pots are increasingly entering our commercial spaces as the trend towards a greener future continues. There is no question that plants are mood enhancers and play a major role in our relaxation and productivity at home. So why not at work, at the showroom, or in the restaurant? Well, flower pot trailblazers are already setting the trends in this field.
Grow your own ingredients
This one applies to restaurants. In the age of ethical consumerism, growing your own ingredients plays a big part in both reducing variable costs and building brand identity. The statement: we grow our own food because we want to give you the freshest locally sourced ingredients possible. The effect is maximized when restaurants display the planters for growing food in public view. Dubbed ‘hyperlocal sourcing’ by The American Culinary Federation, it is recognized as a substantial shift in consumer demand and supports the farm-to-table philosophy that is so hot in the food & beverage industry right now.
Accented panels
As planters are making their way into our businesses, offices, and public spaces alike. Interior designers are forever thinking of ways to use these props to forward their own agenda. One emerging trend is to install a panel across the planter to display company logos, or just simply to introduce an accented color.
The panel is made of stainless steel or concrete and then finished with a waterproof color coating. This is a unique way to squeeze in a little more color into your ensemble and looks great indoors or outdoors to signpost walkways and queuing areas.
Patio displays
Customers and clients pay particular attention to the storefront. This is the first impression and a major factor in continuing or retreating. Place planters here that express the sentiment of your business. Think about color: certain colors have special meanings, whether we consciously know it or not.
Take a bank, for example, most banks will use gray-colored plant pots to establish a professional and corporate appearance. On the other hand, your business may be better suited to bright, warm colors if you sell women’s clothes.
Be aware of the spring and winter seasons where you might want to freshen up your display with something new.
By keeping up with the latest planter trends and displaying them on your front porch you’ll ensure eye-catching first impressions every time.
Looking for real-world examples of how our planters transformed a patio just like yours?
Here is just one of our local Florida projects featuring fiberglass planters.
Pura Vida Las Olas, Miami
Creating a commercial space like this is challenging for clients as their customers often want privacy from the street while also having both an open and refreshing experience once inside. Our planters were the perfect solution!
View ProjectPlants on tables
Displaying plants outside is one thing, but to get them inside in a fashionable and ergonomic way that doesn’t distract or hinder is a challenge that many manufacturers have put their minds to. Jay Scotts has several answers to this question.
Take the River Rock planter for example. With a natural design inspired by the gentle curves and lines formed by river erosion, the River Rock Planter sits harmoniously on a reception desk or coffee table.
Plants are a wonderful ambience tool and no longer have to stay outside.
Variety is the key
As we all know, from years on this earth, trends come and go. That’s why variety wins out in the end. Having a wide range of containers that match various areas of your business will keep customers interested. This versatility in your container arrangement will look cool and fresh, while more rigid styles go out of fashion.
Having a shop or a manufacturer with a large catalog of planters saves time when purchasing. At Jay Scotts, we stock containers of every size, shape, and design so you can get exactly what you want.
Talk to our team today and we can help you with any project, big or small!
Last words on flower pot trends
That concludes our analysis of the most trending flower pot concepts and designs. As you can see, the world of gardening is far from stagnant. Trends in this field will continue to govern how you decorate your home, and how you experience the outside world too.
If you want to know more detail about planter fashion, then take a look at our useful list of the most common planter shapes and their application in the garden and in interior design projects.