Add curb appeal to your home’s landscape and brighten up your garden area with a rainbow themed planter. My kids enjoyed talking about the colors of a rainbow and helping me find the perfect flowers to create our rainbow planter as we made this together.
This rainbow themed planter is my challenge with Lowe’s Creative Ideas Influencer team for this month and I love how it turned out.
Selecting Flowers for a Rainbow Porch Planter
Of course, the first trick is to find a flower for each color of the rainbow – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet.
We had a pretty in-depth discussion with the kids about how rainbow colors we choose are really approximations because the rainbow colors in real life change gradually from color to color.
Red Flowers for the Rainbow Planter
We picked a classic Petunia with bright, cheerful red blooms for our planter. I like the continual blooming that this plant will provide, and the softly trailing nature of the growth habit. It contrasts nicely with some of the other plants we chose.
Other red flowers you might choose include: geranium, impatiens, and celosia in red varieties.
Orange Flowers for a Colorful Rainbow Garden
The kids loved the feathery blooms of these celosia, and I loved the happy orange color that would brighten the entire planter. Like Petunias, celosia like plenty of sun shine and are annuals that will bloom throughout the growing season.
Other orange flowers you might choose include: marigolds, zinnias, gerbera daisies, or nasturtiums.
Yellow Flowers for the Rainbow Planter
We loved the bright yellow flowers of these marigolds. Marigolds also attract beneficial pollinators to a garden area, so they are fabulous to tuck in near herbs, vegetables, or fruit plants.
Other yellow flowers to consider include: calendula, portulaca, zinnias, and many types of daisies.
Green Flowers for the Planter
Creeping jenny was the plant of choice here, which I purchased because of the bright green color and beautiful cascading growth habit. It is considered an invasive plant in some areas, so keeping it up high in a porch rail planter where it will be contained is perfect.
Other green plants to consider include: foliage plants like ferns, coralbells, or hostas.
Blue Flowers for Your Rainbow Garden
Blue flowers can be trickier to find, but there are several options available. Lowe’s had two blooming blue flowers to choose from, and I picked out the Lobelia. I think the flowers look so charming and have that cottage-garden appeal.
Other blue flowers for your garden could include: some violets, delphinium, and balloon flowers.
Indigo Flowers for a Rainbow Garden
We talked with the kids about how indigo was similar to blue-violet together which led the kids to choose a variegated flower more pale than I would have selected personally. But that’s the cool thing about gardening with kids – they see things with a fresh perspective. They picked out verbena which has a fabulous foliage that contrasts nicely with the other plants in the container.
Other blue-purple flowers to consider include: baptisia, bachelor buttons, and some petunias.
Violet Flowers for a Rainbow Garden
I loved these purple calibrachoa flowers that we found for the rainbow planter. They are a nice counterpoint to the red petunias on the other side of the planter since they have a similarly shaped flower and growth habit.
Other purple flowers to consider: violets, pansies, and catmint.
Putting together a rainbow garden was super simple, and we made the pair of these porch rail planters for right around $50. The contrasting colors and foliage types are really beautiful. They are bright, cheerful, attract butterflies to the porch where the kids can see them from inside the house, and add brilliant color to the front of the house.
What do you think? Be sure to check out all the Lowe’s Creative Inspirations on their Facebook, Pinterest, and iPad App! I received a Gift Card to Lowe’s to buy materials for these posts but the idea, implementation, tutorial, and photos are all my own creations.
Ok, you are a genius! Homeschool lesson and front yard beautification all in one project? Win!
I love those planters. Good to know Lowes has them cause WM doesn’t and I I want some to hand over the ends of the bunk bed to store stuffed animals in. 🙂
Lovely choices, Angela! I love the celosia and the purple calibrachoa best–such beautiful colors. You guys did a wonderful job, I’ll bet it’s such a joy for the kids to know that they helped to put together such a gorgeous rainbow planter!
~Kristi @Let This Mind Be in You
What a GREAT idea!!! We love a colorful environment, and what better way to splash the landscape?
We may just have to follow this lead. Thanks for sharing this!
So pretty! I wish it was warmer here to start the spring gardening!
Beautiful!
So, so pretty. I am a sucker for blue flowers. Love them!
They are few and far between but I think Lobelia is one of those magical flowers that is almost unreal. We had delphiniums in our wedding bouquets but they would need a larger container or planting bed area. 🙂
Lovely ideas. I need to find out what I grow in the mountains.
My kids love rainbow everything, so this would be a big hit at my house! Nice job!
I love the rainbow idea. I really need to learn more about flowers and plants and get to planting.
I’ve lost my green thumb but know where to find it – here! So lovely.
Thank you for this oh, so pretty post and for reminding me to look for some Lobelia plants! They are so beautiful. My eye was drawn to them almost immediately.