I May Have Found The Perfect Idea For The Area In Front Of Our Breakfast Room Windows
This past Sunday, I met my family at Terry Black’s Barbecue for an early lunch as my bonus sister and her husband were passing through town. I had never been there before, although I’ve heard the rave reviews about their food for a long time now. As a side note, the food lived up to the hype, so I highly recommend it. It’s the best and most tender barbecue I’ve ever had, and their sides are amazing! But the last thing I expected was to walk into the courtyard area and see landscaping ideas for the front of my house.
I was immediately struck by this arrangement of really large planters all bunched together and overflowing with colorful plants.
As I’m out and about in town, I’m trying to keep an eye out for landscaping ideas, arrangements that catch my eye, and most importantly, which plants seem like they can survive and thrive through our hot summers. And we just got through a really hot August, but these potted plants seem to be thriving. And since I’m so out of my element with plants and landscaping, But what makes this arrangement so eye-catching to me is the variation in heights of the plants and the variation of colors. So I’ve made a mental note that I want to be sure to add some large planters grouped together with height and color variation mixed in with the plants that are actually planted in the ground. I think that can really add a lot of interest in a planting bed.
But then I saw these large wood planters packed full of colorful flowers with one tall tree (topiary?) in the center. As soon as I saw this, I thought this might be a perfect idea for that area in front of the dining room windows.
I’ve been trying to decide what to put in that area in front of our dining room windows for a very long time now, and I always seem to drift towards some sort of water feature. In fact, that’s what I told the landscape designer who did our landscape design, so that’s what he added. But I really like the idea of something simple like a large planter like this one.
Another thing that caught my eye was this fence-planter combination. It serves as both a fence and a planter. I couldn’t see how deep the planter is (i.e., how deep the soil), but they had some really large, tall plants inside there. And I would estimate that it’s about 14 inches wide. Both sides of it look like a low fence.
I made a note of that because when I build the small deck off of the back of our master bathroom, I’m going to want to add something around it that will provide privacy to that little deck without making it feel too closed off from the rest of the back yard. I think something like this fence-planter combo would be an interesting option.
And then as I was on my way out, I took a picture of this plant (tree?) so that I could find out what it is because I definitely want one of these! My google search says that it’s a Japanese Yew. I absolutely love how this looks.
So with my new ideas and inspiration in hand, I uploaded a picture of the front of our house to ChatGPT, along with two of the pictures that I took at the restaurant, and told it to add those ideas to the area in front of the dining room windows. The first one I tried was the arrangement of the flower pots in various sizes. I think ChatGPT went a little overboard with the idea, but this is what it gave me.
And then I had it try out the large, square, wood planter in that area. And oh my gosh, I absolutely LOVE THIS!!!
I genuinely believe that of all of the ideas I’ve tried for this area, this is my favorite. And, of course, there will be more added. I’ll have a planting bed in front of the porch, a planting bed in front of the studio, a walkway leading from the sidewalk to the driveway, etc. But this is my favorite idea so far for the area in front of those windows. And the best thing about it is that it would be easy to build. I think I may have found the perfect idea in a very unexpected place.
On another note, I’ve found myself using both “dining room” and “breakfast room” for the same room. I’ve called that room the breakfast room for a decade now, but now I’m trying to turn it into a more proper dining room, so I’m trying to retrain myself to call it the dining room. But old habits are hard to break! So if you’re kind of new around here, we only have one room for dining in our home, and it sits behind those three windows to the right of our front porch. I’ll try to be more consistent in the future and only call it the “dining room”.
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Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
Check out a plant called “Lemon Coral Sedum”. I think it would look amazing mass planted in the ground around the large planter. I think you would really like the very bright color and it’s super duper easy. Low water needs, very heat tolerant and I suspect it’s probably a perennial for you. I’m imagining a carpet of chartreuse under the planter in that nook and think it would be incredible!
That is beautiful!!! I’ve made a note to look for it when I go plant shopping.
The big square planter is perfect for outside the dining room. I love it too. I would caution you against putting plants too close to the house like the Japanese Yew is to the building. Roots can do a lot of foundation damage and you don’t want the foliage to touch the house and possibly stain the siding.
I do like the idea of a fountain in that area but I’m sure it would be more expensive than either the grouping of plants or a planter. I like the planters with plants in various heights, textures and colors, but smaller than the ChatGPT design. The only problem with planters is that they need to be watered more often than plants in the ground so they require more maintenance. The square planter with one accent tree/shrub is eye catching and would stand out from shrubs that would be planted between the walkway and house. I would select a tree that will not grow so large it totally blocks the view from the window.
Hi Kristi – Glad you had a nice outing with your family. I’m just curious but whenever you say you meet up either family does Matt ever go with you? You very rarely mention if he goes with. Just wondering if Matt ever gets out.
No, he doesn’t go out to eat, but he does get out of the house for other things.
That is indeed a Japanese Yew, a very pretty and low maintenance shrub. There’s also a low growing horizontal form (Cephalotaxus harringtonia ‘Prostrata’) if you need a lower ground cover type thing. Also check out ‘Mood Ring’ Podocarpus, a yew with pink new growth tips!