A beautiful potted tree can transform the look and feel of your front porch. The right tree adds natural beauty, greenery, and often flowers or fruit. Potted porch trees also provide shelter, fragrance, wildlife appeal, and seasonal interest.
In this article, we will look at 15 of the best trees to grow in containers specifically for decorating your front porch or entryway. We’ll cover the benefits of potted porch trees and provide tips for choosing the right tree and caring for it Read on to get inspired to welcome guests with the beauty of potted trees!
Why Add Potted Trees to Your Front Porch?
Potted trees offer many benefits that make them ideal for sprucing up front porches and entryways:
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Curb appeal A well-chosen potted tree is an easy way to boost your home’s visual appeal Trees add height, greenery, and often flowers to your exterior.
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Seasonal interest: Many potted trees provide multi-season interest with spring blooms, fall foliage, and winter structure from bare branches.
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Fragrance: Trees like gardenias, citrus, and jasmine will perfume your porch when in bloom.
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Privacy The right tree can create a tall full screen to separate your porch from the street.
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Shade: Trees cast dappled shade, cooling your porch on hot days. Deciduous trees allow sun in winter.
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Wildlife appeal: Flowering and fruiting trees attract pollinators like butterflies and hummingbirds.
How to Choose the Best Front Porch Potted Tree
Keep these tips in mind when selecting a potted tree for your entryway:
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Deciduous or evergreen: Choose based on your climate and preferences. Evergreens hold their leaves year-round while deciduous trees drop leaves in fall and winter.
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Mature size: Look at the tree’s expected height and width at maturity and make sure it suits your porch dimensions and container size.
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Sun exposure: Select a tree suited to the sunlight exposure in your entryway – some require full sun while others accept partial shade.
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Hardiness: Choose a tree rated for your USDA zone so it can handle winter lows in your area.
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Soil and watering needs: Lower maintenance options like natives and drought-tolerant choices are best if watering access is limited.
15 Beautiful Potted Trees for Front Porches
Here are my top recommendations for container trees to adorn front porches with natural elegance:
1. Crape Myrtle
Known for vibrant summer blooms in shades of pink, red, and purple, crape myrtles have gorgeous exfoliating bark and elegant shapes perfect for pots. Select smaller, dwarf varieties.
2. Japanese Maple
Japanese maples provide brilliant fall leaf color and delicate, lace-like foliage. Small, slow-growing dwarf cultivars are ideal for container culture.
3. Citrus Trees
Dwarf citrus trees like Meyer lemon, lime, satsuma orange, or kumquat fruit well in containers. The glossy leaves and citrus blossoms are an added bonus.
4. Flowering Dogwood
A native treasure, dogwoods are loved for abundant spring blooms and red fall color. Seek out disease-resistant cultivars suited to your climate.
5. Gardenia
This Southern classic has extremely fragrant white summer blooms. Compact dwarf varieties are best for smaller pots.
6. Magnolia
Magnolias dazzle with huge, fragrant blooms in shades of pink, white or purple. Little gem or teddy bear magnolias are compact choices.
7. Japanese Snowbell
Snowbell trees produce elegant, dangling clusters of white bell-shaped summer flowers with a graceful branching habit perfect for containers.
8. Fruit Trees
For small harvests, dwarf apple, peach, cherry, and plum trees can fruit nicely in pots. Provide adequate sunlight.
9. Podocarpus
This hardy evergreen has dense green needles and can be pruned into shapely forms. It handles shade, heat, and wind well.
10. Olive Tree
Olive trees offer silver-green foliage and gnarled branches with Old World charm. Seek out self-fruiting, non-staining varieties.
11. Star Magnolia
Star magnolias bloom very early spring before leaves emerge, with abundant cup-shaped white blossoms covering bare branches.
12. Birch
Much loved for peeling white, cream, or cinnamon bark, select slow-growing birch varieties suited to your climate.
13. Holly
Yaupon and dwarf Burford hollies keep their leaves in winter, sometimes with festive red berries. They work well in pots.
14. Flowering Almond
Flowering almonds burst into bloom early, often in late winter, cloaking themselves in pink or white blossoms along bare branches.
15. Rhododendron
Available in tree form, rhododendrons are slow-growing broadleaf evergreens with large clusters of spring blooms in white, pink or red.
Tips for Decorating with Potted Trees on Your Porch
When decorating your front porch with potted trees, consider these ideas:
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Use matching planters flanking the entry to create a formal, symmetrical look.
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Elevate smaller trees on pedestals to take center stage.
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Underplant with flowers, herbs or trailing greenery for added interest.
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Weave fairy lights through branches for magical evening ambiance.
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Let your tree shine against a simple backdrop of white walls and minimal furniture.
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Or make it the focal point of a more eclectic, layered decor scheme.
With the right selection, planting, and creative display, potted trees can take your front porch or entryway from drab to fab. They bring life, beauty, and curb appeal to outdoor living spaces. Add a potted specimen or two this season to welcome guests in style.
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Whether they are indoor plants, outdoor plants, or patio plants, our Perfect for Pots collection grows well in containers. These plants stay small in pots and look great. We have small fruit trees, herbs, berry bushes, evergreens, and indoor plants. Our expertly selected plants for pots will thrive in planters and add life, color, beauty, and texture around your home and landscape.
Top 5 Best Shrubs for Pots and Containers | Garden Trends
FAQ
What are the best potted plants for shady front porch?
Try impatiens, coleus, sweet potato vines, violas, petunias, pansies, hostas, astilbes, and trilliums. They look great and will thrive in full to partial shade. And don’t forget to think vertically when designing your containers. A hanging basket takes advantage of any vertical space.
What kind of tree grows well in a container?
Best Small Trees For Pots
Most dwarf varieties of common outdoor trees are well suited to grow indoors. Other popular small trees to grow include: Fiddle Leaf Fig (Ficus lyrata) Yucca (Yucca elephantipes)
What are the disadvantages of container trees?
All too often, container trees, otherwise known as potted trees, are grown in a container until they get planted, and in turn, they’re already root bound by the time they get to your yard, and it’s one BAD habit the tree won’t be able to break. Your tree will be suffering from the get-go.
What shade loving trees will grow in a container?
The following trees are the best choices for small shade trees to grow in containers: Citrus (A top choice. Withstands high heat in containers in Italy and France), Hibiscus ‘Agnes Galt’ or ‘Angel Wing’ trained as a tree, Wisteria trained as a tree, Rhaphiolepis ‘Majestic Beauty’ (my personal top choice.
Are potted trees good for a front porch?
Potted trees are a wonderful way to bring life and greenery to welcome guests. From flowering varieties that pop with color to evergreens for year-round interest, trees in planters lend charm and personality to porch decor. Read on for our top picks for the best potted trees to grace your front porch or entryway.
How do you choose a potted porch tree?
Fragrance – Trees like gardenias, jasmine, and citrus blossom and perfume the air. Shade – Trees in planters cast dappled shade, cooling your porch Deciduous trees allow sun in winter. Wildlife appeal – Flowering and fruiting trees attract pollinators like butterflies and hummingbirds. Keep these tips in mind when selecting a potted porch tree:
How do I choose plants for a front porch?
Choosing plants for a front porch can be tricky. A porch is at least partially shaded, and the plants you choose need to be able to thrive in containers. Then you’ve got to decide which plants work best for the type of container—a simple pot, a planter box on your railing, or hanging baskets.
What plants hang on a front porch?
If your home or front porch is well-suited to hanging plants, tradescantia zebrina is a great pick. Its variegated foliage with stripes of purple, green, and silvery white make a memorable impression on any passersby—and the trailing vines will add drama and intrigue to the front of your home.
How do you decorate a potted porch?
Weave fairy lights through branches to create a magical glow during evening hours on the porch. Add a trellis next to your potted tree for vines like clematis to climb and mingle. Let your potted porch tree shine against a simple backdrop of white walls and minimal furniture. Or make it the focal point of a more layered, eclectic decor scheme.
How do you decorate a porch with a tree?
Use your tree as the anchor to a container garden by underplanting with flowers and greens. Elevate smaller trees on plant stands or pedestals so they can take center stage. Weave fairy lights through branches to create a magical glow during evening hours on the porch.