Theresa’s Fall Front Porch

I love beautifully decorated fall porches, particularly ones with pumpkins and mums oozing down the front steps. Unfortunately, I don’t have a wide porch staircase or the grace to safely navigate one filled with plants. Plus, buying dozens of pumpkins and mums can get downright pricey.

So, I devised a plan to compensate for these shortcomings. If I couldn’t have masses of fall decorations, I would focus on scale to make it look full and lush.

The first step was to come up with a color scheme. Last year it was peach and green. I scored some orange and purple decorations post-Halloween last year, so that seemed like a solid choice.

Step two was deciding how to plan for a bounty of cost-conscious porch decorations. Since Mom and I are gardeners that would be easy. I picked up packets of Big Max, Jack Be Little, and Jack O’ Lantern pumpkins seeds to grow ourselves. These would supplement whatever we selected on our annual pumpkin farm excursion. Mom was delighted to help.

Additionally, I made a list of purple and orange plants I could use as live décor and stored it on my cellphone. Whenever I was at a garden center or nursery, I’d check my list. This allowed me to buy the majority of the plants on clearance or sale.

We had never grown the heirloom Big Max variety before. I expected it to be about as large as a standard-size carving pumpkin. Mom kept warning me about how large they were getting. I thought she was exaggerating. She was NOT. When they were ready for harvest, I was stunned to see how huge they were. Particularly since we only fertilized them with compost and compost tea.

The two extra-large pumpkins Mom and I grew weighed in at more than 30 pounds each. I paired two of them with Amazon Mist Sedge, Sugar Baby and Jack Be Little pumpkins, and mums for the staircase. I achieved the lush look I wanted and left plenty of clearance for walking.

Two Purple Fountain Grass plants flank the doorway. These plants are gorgeous and low maintenance. They will do double duty as I plan to plant them in the backyard later this fall. Check out this post for more green disposal options for pumpkins and fall decorations.

Here’s a shot of the large purple mum I purchased at The Mum Farm earlier this month. You can see the orange one I purchased there in the photo below.

To finish off the porch, here’s two coleus plants I purchased in July in beautiful autumnal colors. They were a little leggy when I brought them. After some careful pruning, they’re ready for a closeup.

I finished off this vignette with the two large pumpkins, three wire corn stalks from the Dollar Tree, and two decoupaged gourds that were leftover from an unfinished project last year.

I love how it turned out! Actually, it’s my favorite fall porch in years. Let me know what you think.