Autumn Urn Planter

Fall is upon us and with that seasonal change comes the time to update some of our outdoor plantings. I always like to keep a well planted pot by the front door.  I think it keeps the home inviting, adds some softness and let's you have a little bit of seasonal change right where people will see it up close.  This planter arrangement ends up looking quite impressive and, with a few changes, could get you through most of winter depending on where you live. MATERIALSDecorative Urn (I got mine at Home Depot for $39.00)Water Heater Strapping Kit (the kind without the holes in the straps)Floral WireStyrofoam or Floral Foam BrickCoco Husk Hanging Planter Liner (Roughly the same diameter as the top of your urn)Black Spray Paint (Optional)Landscaping Cloth StaplesPotting SoilFall Plants (I used Kale, Sweet Potato Vine, Colea, and Asparagus Fern)Tin SnipsMoss (Optional)Assorted Small Gourds (Optional)Wood Skewers (Optional) STEPSStart with making your orb.  Open up your strapping kit and you will find four coils of metal for the strapping.  Unwrap them and gently bend them so they are more or less flat.  Using your tin snips, cut them all be the same length. The shortest two in the kit were actually the exact size I wanted for the diameter orb I needed, so I just trimmed the two longer ones down to that size. Gently bend the straps to create a circle and wrap floral wire around the two ends to hold them in place.  I wrapped it quite a few times to get a good look.  Do this with all four straps.  Once you have them all done, place one crossways inside the other and wrap floral wire around the point where they intersect to hold them together.  Repeat on the other side.  Now do the same thing, one at a time, with the other two pieces.  I put the second two at different angles to add some visual interest, but you could also put them evenly around, like the sections of an orange.  Once you're done, spray paint the whole thing if you'd like.  I sprayed mine with a paint that is supposed to make it look like textured metal....it didn't really work.  So I then went over that with black spray paint - the combination of the texture and the black paint actually looked pretty good.  You could, of course, just leave it galvanized, which I think looks great too. Now prepare your coco husk and I apologize that we didn't get any good photos of this part.  Using a pair of scissors just cut large X's all over the husk.  Mine were about 2.5" across.  I did some high and some low to give me plenty of planting options.  Then do one big one right at the bottom.  Fill your urn with potting soil, pressing the dirt lightly as you go, and mound it as high as possible.  Take your piece of foam and place it right in the center of the mound.Take 6 or so landscaping fabric staples and poke them through along the outer edge of your coco husk. Turn the coco husk upside down and place on top of the dirt mound, covering it completely.  Press the staples into the dirt around the rim to hold the husk in place.  Add more dirt through the top X as necessary so the husk dome is full. Take your orb and affix it to the top of the coco husk covered mound using staples that go around the bottom straps of the orb and into the styrofoam. Now add your plants.  Knock off a lot of the extra soil and insert the pants through your pre-cut X's.  Plant your trailing plants around the lower rim with the bushier plants nearer the middle and top.  Any areas remaining where you have exposed coco husk you can cover with pieces of moss. If you'd like to add gourds, pierce each gourds with a wooden skewer.  Then stick the skewer through an opening in the coco husk.  You can even add the gourds now and take them out as winter approaches and replace them with holiday ornaments.  One planter - two seasons.  That's how I like to roll!