Entryway & Planter Bowl Design

A video transcript featuring Scott Cohen, The Green Scene

We're still in construction on this site, but this is our entrance to the front of the home. The client wanted to have a grand entry for entertaining, but they also like to hang out and talk to their neighbors. So we had a big landing at the very bottom of this staircase, and I like to use seasonal color on projects, especially flanking the entrance, but I don't like to use too much color. I don't want to have to change out the front yard plantings every three or four months, so I use planter bowls for that.

Planter drainage
One of my pet peeves with bowls is that when you put the planters on top and you start watering them, you get water passing over the top of the pilaster. When water passes through soil, it picks up the iron and then you get these ugly rust stains down the side. What I do instead is actually epoxy these to the pilaster tops, and these cast concrete bowls are fed with a drip tube to get water to them. There's also a drainage pipe to carry water out, down to the drain system. It's just one of the tricks that we use to keep planters looking nice year-round. You can have a beautiful front entry to your home.