Of course, I always purchase a few fall mums to decorate my porches with. I usually place them in bushel baskets or urns on the porch and add in some pumpkins and cornstalks. A perfectly traditional no-fail fall look!
But it's fun to mix it up a bit with less obvious fall plants in your porch containers, too, for added interest.
So, if you're tired of the same old look on your porch and want to try something new, use Celosia and other unexpected seasonal plants in your autumn container garden this year!
Table Of Contents
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How To Plant Celosia In Containers
Container
This fall planter "recipe" fits well in a 16-18" diameter planter or urn.
I'm planting in a pressed pulp planter and will be setting the container down into a metal washtub. I bought the washtub at Walmart a few years ago, but they no longer sell them, although Amazon sells a similar one.
Feel free to use any existing porch urn or planter you already have on hand as long as it's roughly the same size (less than 16" in diameter will make for a VERY crowded planter, and the plants most likely will be fighting to get enough water).
Soil
Fill your planter with potting soil. I normally use either Miracle Grow Potting Mix or Espoma Organic Potting Mix.
Keep in mind that these will be planted in here for only a couple of months, so it would be perfectly fine to purchase lower-end potting soil or re-use the soil from your earlier summer planters.
Preparing Your Plants
You want to remove your plants from their nursery pots. Chances are they will be fairly root-bound at this point of the year.
Take a knife or box cutter and cut 3-4 slits through the sides of the plants to open up the root area. This gives the plant a chance to spread its roots out in the planter.
And no, you aren't going to harm the plant.
Dig a hole for each plant and place the plant inside. Cover it back up with soil. The plant should sit at roughly the same depth as in the nursery pot.
Repeat with all four plants.
Diagram For Planting
Planter Care
Watering Your Planter
Water when the top inch of soil is dry to the touch. The plants like moist but not soggy soil. Do not let the planter dry out completely, as the pepper plant, in particular, will wilt quickly without enough water.
Water more frequently during extremely hot weather. Cut that back down to once or twice a week once it gets cooler.
If your pepper plant gets yellow leaves, it is a sign of too much water. If the leaves of your pepper plant or celosias start to wilt it is a sign the planter is not getting enough water. It's sort of hard to kill the millet though, so it isn't a good indicator of how the other plants are doing.
Light Requirements
All the plants in the container do well in full sun to part sun locations. On my back porch, it gets roughly 8 hours of full sun and is shaded the rest of the day. This is not an ideal planter for full-shade areas.
🍂 Our Other Fall Planter Guides:
- Fabulous Fall Planter Ideas For Your Porch (inspiring ideas from around the internet)
- Autumn Flower Planters For Beginners
- Making A Fall Foliage Planter With No Mums
- How To Make Fall Outdoor Planters
The Fall Plants I Used
Celosia Plumosa "Flamma" Trio
These dwarf plants grow to 8-10" tall, making them perfect for containers. They have bright, colorful blooms in red, orange, and yellow.
Their gorgeous flowers/plumes will last until frost, and best of all, the colors do not fade as they age. They stay these vibrant shades throughout the entire fall season.
Celosia Cockscomb "Twisted Orange"
The second type of celosia used in this planter is called Cockscomb celosia. It is named after the comb on top of a rooster's head, but I tend to think they look more like brains.
Cockscombs come in all sorts of bright colors, including this Twisted Orange variety, and are perfect for use in your fall planters. This variety has bright orange flowers, blooms until frost, and grows to 16-20" tall.
Santos Orange Ornamental Pepper
This compact pepper plant is perfect for adding unexpected interest to your fall planters. It isn't super hard to find, but certainly not as common as a mum. You should be able to find it at your local nursery or possibly a big box hardware store.
Santos Orange Ornamental Pepper is grown for its clusters of small orange peppers that start off green, move to yellow, and then to bright orange. It produces the peppers from mid-summer through mid-fall.
Can you eat ornamental peppers?
Most ornamental peppers are grown for their looks, not their taste. Technically, you could eat them, but they tend to either be extremely HOT or very bland.
The second thing I would caution you about is that these are grown for ornamental use, so you can't be sure what pesticides and such were used by the growers. There are different federal requirements for pesticides for food crops vs. ornamental/flower crops. Food crops are under much stricter regulations for obvious reasons. Taste at your own risk.
Purple Baron Ornamental Millet
I don't think the photos do this millet justice; it has beautiful burgundy-colored seed spikes and light green maturing to dark purple leaves.
Purple Baron Ornamental Millet is an annual that grows to about 3 ft tall and is the perfect size to be used as a thriller in your fall planters. The seed/flower spikes are similar to cattails, and the broad, strappy leaves remind me of a corn plant.
There is a taller version of ornamental millet called Purple Majesty, which grows to 4-5 feet and is an excellent choice for flower beds.
Millet is extremely easy to grow from seed - you can find out how to grow it yourself from seed (I never tried it myself, but it is supposedly very easy to do) in this article from Wisconsin Horticulture.
Additional Fall Plants To Use In Containers
- Mums
- Asters
- Pansies
- Ornamental Cabbage or Kale
- Purple Fountain Grass
Are you ready to kick your fall planters up a notch this year?
Nana Diana
That looks lovely, Pam. I have a couple of big mums out front but nothing that I planted myself. Great job and choice in mixture of plants.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend and that you and your son and hubby are all well. xo Diana