B.B. Barns, my place of employment, has a container specialist. Her job is designing and installing containers for clients. Of course, everyone wants that job because it sounds so cool (it is). I’m the garden coach. I help people with their landscapes, everything from what is in it (plant identification) to how to take care of it (a lot of pruning lessons) to plant diagnostics (Japanese beetles or voles almost always) to small designs (limited to the front foundation or perennial borders mostly). I don’t help with containers. Instead, I ask our container designer for tips. She really is the best.

But once in a blue moon, a client will ask me, “What about my porch?” They mean, of course, what should I do to make my porch more inviting?

I’m not our container specialist, but I do know the number one reason a porch doesn’t typically “work.” She told me.

Bigger, I say.

Huh?

Bigger. The scale is off. You’ve got a million dollar porch with a bunch of tiny plants from Lowe’s on even tinier plant stands. Pretend you’re in Florida.

I don’t know why, but the minute I say pretend you’re in Florida, folks know what I mean. Big plants, big pillows, big pots, even if your furniture is small. Forget tiny plant stands filled with 6″ pots of bromeliads. Get giant elephant ears potted in giant pots and placed behind your furniture. Just do everything bigger. When none of the plants or furniture come above the 3.5′ porch railing, and the ceilings are 10′ high, the scale is off.

Stand back and look at your porch. The first thing you’ll notice is all the blank air above the railing and how dwarfed the furniture looks. Now imagine big tall plants behind the furniture. Or imagine those hanging Boston ferns hanging much lower (instead of almost touching the ceiling) and filling up the airspace. See? That’s what’s missing.

My neighbors have a plantain style porch with at least 18′ ceilings, wicker furniture and dinkiest black, rod iron plant stands covered in tiny pots of geraniums. Small pots of ivy line the porch railing. I am tempted, every time I walk Aggie by their house and they are sitting on their porch, to holler, “Go bigger!” I’m betting she knows something is off because even when you don’t “know,” you “know.”

My own back porch is the reason I haven’t moved from this house, though my children keep having children so the probability is high that I’ll move if I ever want all my grandchildren in my house at the same time. Although, yesterday I contemplated turning the screen porch into a sleeping porch, as much for me as for them. I think they would love sleeping out there at night surrounded by a canopy of cherry trees and that would solve the space issue.

I use my porch year round. As noted, it is screened and quiet even though my house sits on a corner lot at a four-way stop. I am purposeful about how I decorate it because it’s my favorite place to be. Aggie likes it too, and we’ve spent hours at night sitting in the dark letting the air and the quiet calm us down before bed-time or my favorite, drinking early morning coffee before the world starts moving.

I don’t know if it means the same thing in other parts of the country, but in the South the word porch and sit are synonyms. I’m old enough to remember the phrase “sit a spell,” and I don’t mind if I do. But, the best thing about any porch is how they ease anxiety in an anxiety-ridden world. What is it about a space where permission is given to do nothing but sit, and rocking chairs and gliders calm jangled nerves of adults and fussy babies? It’s magic, of course. Porches are magic spaces, at least mine is.

 

Final thought: Be sure to add lanterns with candles in them. You’ll be so glad you did.