Gardening with-Doors? Add Color and Plants To Your Entrance

Jan. 9, 2012

When I visited Pike Nurseries this past weekend, I was looking for some new houseplants to bring home, to tide me through the dreary winter days.  But here’s what I found instead: 3 displays of brightly-painted doors, arranged with color-coordinated plants.

I’ve been fascinated by doors for some time now. (Is anybody else pinning beautiful doors they’ve found on Pinterest? Love that site.) These appealed to me, in these pretty shades of purple, lime green, and soft blue.

Admittedly, the plants in the display look like houseplants, and they wouldn’t survive outside here, since our temps drop below freezing during the winter.

But I like the concept of matching plants to an eye-catching door color, and I can envision using tropicals, perennials, shrubs, and annuals, in containers and  beds at the front of my house, once spring returns.

I also plant to re-paint our door when better weather arrives. Right now, it matches our shutters, which are medium blue. Not bad, but the door could be a lot livelier.  Maybe I can find a warm, deep red. If we don’t like it, it wouldn’t be much trouble to repaint it, even after one season.

If you decide to experiment with your front door this spring, here’s a great video with DIY guy Carter Oosterhouse: GMC Trade Secrets: How to Paint Your Front Door. I’m going to try his tip about photographing my house, cutting the front door out of the photo, and then sliding different paint chips behind the opening, to see how various colors would work.

If you've got a picture of an entranceway to share, please post it. I'm always looking for inspiration in the garden.

Lynn