Tips on how to host a garden potting party! Grab inspiration to throw your own potting party this summer for your best gal pals!
April showers bring May flowers. However this year, May brought a lot of rain as well. Therefore, June is taking place of May – so let’s bring on the flowers! Today, I am so excited to be partnering with Wave to share a recent potting party I hosted for a few of my girl friends. We each created a beautiful pot full of Wave Petunias in several pink shades. As well as a few additional plants and flowers to provide our pots with dimension, texture, and a variety of colors. My favorite part of creating these pots was seeing what each gal choose to include in their pot and how they designed it. Each flower pot perfectly reflected each gal’s personality!
A garden potting party is a great way to spend an afternoon or evening with your girl friends, doing something crafty! Not to mention, you get to go home with a beautiful new floral arrangement to show off on your front porch or back deck. A fun time with girl friends AND a new piece of decor – a total win!
Keep reading for my tips on on how to create the perfect flower pot and host a garden potting party! But before I do that, let me introduce you to the gals that took party in my Wave Potting Party!
MORGAN OF HOW 2 WEAR IT
TAYLOR OF REESE’S HARDWARE
HEATHER OF HEATHER LINGERFELT
PHOTOS BY DEEANNA KOURTNEY PHOTOGRAPHY
Potting Supplies + Tips
Flowers
Most importantly, you need flowers! A must have, Wave Petunias. They offer a dramatic spread of color, an exceptionally long bloom time, and superior weather resistance. A great choice for those just getting started in the gardening world as well as seasoned gardeners. As Wave‘s flowers are easy to maintain and surprisingly hearty. They also come in a variety of colors and the Wave Family includes several different series. These include Tidal Wave®, Double Wave®, Easy Wave®, Shock Wave®, and Cool Wave® Pansies. You can read about each on Wave’s website and find the right series for your project.
For our pots I purchased, Wave® in Pink and and Shock Wave® in Rose. They provided the perfect pop of color for our pots!
Wave Petunias are to be placed in direct sun, watered often to keep the soil moist and to be enjoyed all season long!
Plants
Beautiful pots have dimension, texture and a variety of colors. Which means you need “thrillers, fillers, and spillers.” Thrillers add height and drama to the container. Think grasses and other tall flowers to be used as your thriller. They will provide the perfect focal point to pull your container together. Fillers are plants that fluff up and fill in the gaps of the container to give a full, lush appearance. These are typically medium-height plants, they are in between the spiller and thriller. Finally, spillers gracefully flow over the container edges and add attractive color. They soften the edges and drape down, sometimes to the ground. Wave Petunias are perfect spillers!Soil
Not too much to say here other than be sure you’re choosing soil that is meant for potting.
Gardening Tools
Thanks to Wave we were perfectly prepared for our potting party with a full gardening tool set. While a full gardening tool set isn’t a must when potting, trowel and fork can come in handy. My personal favorite gardening “tools” Wave supplied were these adorable gardening gloves from Target (also available in blue) and our Wave aprons. The gardening gloves and aprons made the perfect guest gifts for the gals to take home. I would definitely recommend purchasing gloves and/or aprons for your girl friends when hosting a potting party! Not only are they great gifts (and extremely helpful while potting) but they also create an adorable Instagram photo opportunity. Use hashtag #WavePottingParty and tag @wavegardening.
Pots/Containers
Choosing your pot(s) is almost as fun as choosing your flowers! You can keep things simple with terra cotta pots OR have a little fun with a ceramic pot in your favorite color. If you’re filling multiple pots, I would recommend mixing the styles of your pots – a few terra cotta and a couple ceramic. There’s also the option of going with plastic – these pots are super budget-friendly and ultra durable. I personally love the natural look and feel of the terra cotta pots. Therefore, that is what I choose for our potting party. They are also very budget-friendly and terra cotta allows air and water to pass through the walls of the pot; which helps to promote healthy plants by warding off root rot and disease caused by overwatering. However, this can also lead to the soil drying out quickly, which means you may need to water more often.
My recommendation, go with the style you like best and figure out what it may require more or less of so you’re well prepared and taking proper care of your flowers + plants! Also, be sure to choose a pot with at least one drainage hole.
The Attire
While potting, I opted for my favorite pair of overalls, an easy crop tee, and a straw hat. This combination was comfortable, easy, and let’s be honest, overalls go hand in hand with outdoor work. I really couldn’t pass up an opportunity to wear my overalls! Since we were in the backyard, I decided to skip the shoes. Otherwise, I would have pulled on a pair of hunter boots or casual sneakers.
If you’re throwing your own potting party or attending one, I would reach for your favorite pair of denim – whether that’s shorts, overalls, or jeans and an easy tee shirt or top. This is the perfect occasion to wear your favorite comfortable pieces and not stress about getting them dirty – because they will get dirty! Even with a cute Wave apron on!
The Decor
Not that decor is truly needed at a potting party. As your flowers, plants, and pots will provide quite the beautiful scene. However, if you’re interested in adding some, my recommendation is to play with colors and play into the flower theme. Example, the Coterie party set used for our mini table-scape. The set offered an array of floral-patterned plates, and balanced them out with touches of white and gold. The additional decor I included complimented the colors and patterns included in the set. Which then provided a playful, floral potting party!
I added in pillows for comfort and garden stools to again, play up the garden theme. Both were easy additions that added a lot to our party!
Potting flowers and plants works up quite the appetite. Not to mention Carolina humidity has officially arrived and cooling down with a refreshing beverage is a must. Therefore, serving classic lemonade is a great option to help keep your guests cool while creating their floral arrangements. If you want to have a little extra fun, create a lemonade bar with a variety of flavors. Don’t forget light bites for nibbling on prior to and after you’ve finished potting.
As far as light bites, fresh vegetables are a wonderful healthy choice that also align perfectly with the garden theme! Especially when placed in mini terra cotta pots lined with parchment paper. Tea sandwiches are also a fun and easy menu item to include. My recommendation is to offer a healthier option and a more indulgent option. Also, don’t forget a sweet treat or two! Cheryl’s Buttercream Frosted Cut Out Cookies make the ideal sugary treat for a potting party as they look very similar to Wave’s Petunias.
THE MENU
Risata Wines Moscato
Classic Lemonade
Tea Sandwiches – Chicken Salad and PB&J
Hummus with Fresh Vegetables & Vegetable Straws
Cheryl’s Buttercream Frosted Cut Out Cookies
This post is in partnership with Wave Petunias however, all views and opinions are of course, my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that make Louella Reese happen!
Could not have had a better time with y’all that night! This was such a fun activity to do with friends!
-Morgan
How 2 Wear It [] http://how2wearit.com
Back at you! Thank you for coming 🙂
xo Laura Leigh
Oh such cute ideas girl!
x Lisa | lisaautumn.com
Thank you so much gal!
xo Laura Leigh
A garden potting party is such a great idea! It is a unique and fun way to get everyone together and like you said, you get to take home a beautiful pot of flowers!
http://www.rdsobsessions.com
Thank you Rach! Yes, completely agree.
xo Laura Leigh
Girl this is suuuuch inspiration! from the planting party itself, to your backyard decor! You are basically the epitome of what I think of when I think of southern charm! <3
Stop it right now! You are the sweetest thing ever! Thank you so much Lee 🙂
xo Laura Leigh
Oh my gosh, what a fun idea for a girls get together! I love the bright colors of those petunias! I have a few Wave flowers at our house & love them!
Thank you gal – we had such a great time! Aren’t Wave flowers the best? Add so much color to your space.
xo Laura Leigh
The title of this post made me think you were hosting a party in your garden, but I loved that it was about actually gardening with loved ones! I’ve been on such a gardening kick lately – I’m going to try this!
Aw well we did host the party in the garden and had some yummy eats + cute decor – so you were right! You definitely need to pick up a few Wave flowers!
xo Laura Leigh
Oh my gosh, this looks like so much fun! I want to plan my own potting party!
Lizzie
http://www.lizzieinlace.com
You absolutely should gal! Such a fun girls day/evening activity!
xo Laura Leigh
Ok y’all are just the cutest!! Now I definitely want to have a potting party!!
🙂 thank you Hillary! You definitely should host one!
xo Laura Leigh
Such a fun and cute idea to do with the girls! All you need is a little rosé!
xoxox Sarah
Thank you so much Sarah! We did enjoy some wine 😉
xo Laura Leigh
I was reading Morgan’s recap of this yesterday and I said how fun it looks and that I want to do something similar with my friends. It’s seriously such a great idea for a summer get-together!
Aw thank you gal! You absolutely should host one – we had so much fun!
xo Laura Leigh
Love it, coolest idea ever!
Aw you are too sweet! Thank you!
xo Laura Leigh
What a fun way to gather with friends! I’ve only tried gardening once and wasn’t too good at it. I’ll have to try again this spring for flowers 🙂
-xo, Azanique | https://www.lotsofsass.com
It really was! Aw yes, you must! I am sure your green thumb will show up 🙂
xo Laura Leigh
When I have a house, I am going to do this. I love potting plants/flowers but I live in an apartment. So I can only do small ones for my balcony.
Yayyy! You will have so much fun! I love balcony’s filled with flowers and plants though – they look so sweet and charming.
xo Laura Leigh
This is such a cute idea for a party with your friends! Love that you can have some fun and also bring home a nice update for your front porch or garden!
xo, Laura
Aw thank you Laura! With you on that – having something to take fun is pretty exciting!
xo Laura Leigh