If you are, this guide will take you through 7 of the best porch plants to showcase your home. The best part? Our suggestions are low maintenance, which means your porch will pretty much take care of itself, with a little love and care from you.
Whether you’re new to the gardening game and looking for a simple place to start, or you’re looking for new inspiration to accompany an already well-decorated porch, there’s a little something for everyone. Just like our homes, outdoor space is incredibly diverse. You may have a lot of space, or you may have little, but we strive to choose plants that thrive in pots, no matter their size.
Why stop there? If you’re looking to bring the outside in, we have it too 7 Best Vegetables to Grow Indoors. Or maybe you’re looking to decorate a different outdoor space, here we have it 7 best plants that can be grown on the balcony also. For now, let’s take a look at the plants that will thrive and grow on your balcony.
Balcony planting tip before we start: While we were careful to choose easy, low-maintenance plants for our list, if you are choosing plants for your balcony, you will need to take into consideration USDA Plant Hardiness Zone. These zones are separated by average annual minimum winter temperature, which determines which plants are best suited to your location.
A quick zip code search is available to determine your area, thus knowing what is best for planting where you are.
1. Japanese maple tree
Japanese Maple, is present in all of our products The best trees to grow in containers And The best plants that can be grown on the balcony Guides are great for adding a vibrant, unique red look to your porch. When selecting your Japanese maple, you will want to choose a small, dwarf variety such as ‘Elizabeth’ or ‘Fireball’ which are commonly selected for growing to only about five feet over a number of years.
A well-draining pot twice the size of the Japanese maple’s root system is essential, as well as regular watering and water fertilizer in the spring. Although these trees are hardy, it is best to place them in a sheltered spot on your balcony to protect them from strong winds. Common red varieties cope best with a little sun, while green ones thrive best in shade.
2. Lavender
In addition to adding a beautiful purple color to your porch, lavender also has the beneficial advantage of eliminating a soothing scent often used as a soothing scent. Help sleep at night. To grow lavender on a balcony, you can start your growth from cuttings or seeds and make sure to place the lavender in full sun with well-drained soil.
Lavender doesn’t need a lot of watering, which makes it drought-tolerant, but it struggles in cold climates. So, you may want to consider bringing your lavender indoors during those winter months. Or at least, move them to a more sheltered area of your porch to protect them from cold, wet weather. To keep your lavender compact and at its best, it is recommended to prune it annually in late summer. Otherwise, you risk your lavender becoming too woody and ruining your carefully landscaped balcony.
3. Marigold
Growing in fiery colors like yellow, orange and bright red, marigolds are a low-maintenance floral option that will add lots of colorful blooms to your porch. Marigold plants don’t require much from you, but you will need to make sure they are placed in full sun for them to thrive. They’re also great at handling a variety of weather conditions, making them an ideal choice for your outdoor space.
An added bonus that marigolds add is their ability to repel insects that might otherwise be a nuisance to your other plants. With marigolds, deadheading is key. You’ll cut back any dead or wilted flowers to make room for new ones until they reach deadhead, ensuring your marigolds continue to bloom all summer long.
4. Juicers
Succulents come in all shapes and sizes making them an ideal choice for filling pockets of space on your porch. Its thick nature also makes it great at storing water to thrive in the sun and means it can survive extreme weather. For example, some succulents have frost tolerance, which means they can cope during the cold of winter, making them an excellent choice of year-round plants for your balcony.
If your chosen succulents don’t like freezing temperatures, you can always put them back inside on a windowsill until the sun starts to shine again. Depending on the space you have available for them on the balcony, they will blend well with your colorful flowers and tall plants.
5. Olive trees
An amazing option for your balcony, found in our products The best trees to grow in containersThese are olive trees. Add a touch of Mediterranean charm to the facade of your home with its silvery green leaves. They are tough as nails, and adapt well to the outdoors as long as they don’t get too cold. You’ll need to make sure you plant them in well-drained soil, preferably in a clay or wood pot, get them in full sun for at least six hours a day, and don’t overwater.
With all the right conditions, olive trees add a unique aesthetic to your balcony, and when it gets cold outside, they can be brought inside to bring a touch of the Mediterranean to your home. If brought indoors, it is best to place olive trees in front of a sunny window so they can continue to bloom while sheltering inside.
6. Hot pepper or tomatoes
If you’re looking to grow from your balcony, there are two great and simple options, depending on the size of your balcony and the vegetables you’re likely to harvest and eat. Hot peppers and tomatoes are popular home-grown vegetables that will add a lot of liveliness and uniqueness to your balcony.
Be sure to choose small pepper and tomato plants, known as patio or shrub varieties, because they do best in containers. You’ll still want to choose a large pot for growing your tomatoes because they have a large root system, keep them well-drained, and use potting mix because regular soil won’t drain as quickly. Both chili peppers and tomatoes need plenty of sunlight to grow and daily watering. If the weather is particularly hot and windy, it is best to water them twice a day.
You can learn How to grow tomatoes from seeds And How to grow tomatoes in pots Using our easy guides, or you can always pick them up as ready-to-repot plants for your balcony.
7. Lemon/citrus trees
Finally, citrus trees are the perfect combination of bright colors, local produce, and an inviting scent that you can add to your porch area. As long as they are given a sunny and protected location, citrus trees can provide lemons, limes, oranges and even kumquats when properly cared for.
The best conditions for citrus trees are full sun, warmer, humid temperatures, well-drained soil, water weekly during the summer months, and using some specialty fertilizer to really help them grow. In the winter months, you’ll need to bring them inside to protect them from the cold. It’s never a bad thing, as you can reap the benefits of a citrus scent and bright yellow or orange notes.
