While I love the outside of our home in the summertime, with the flowers in full bloom, I think I prefer our fall front porch covered with mums, pumpkins, and gourds. I know the kids love it too. A few weeks ago, I took some time to get the front porch looking festive. We’re not ones to go wild with Halloween decor (although we love perusing the neighborhood for the best decorations!), but I do enjoy scattering the porch with fall goodies!

Side Note: Getting a family picture out here was a different story. Rory is little Miss Independent, so sitting still and smiling was just not in the cards on this day. We did still get a few funny shots though.

Today, I want to talk about my formula for creating a pretty fall front porch, plus a little craft I tried creating a faux mums planter for our stairs. Can you spot it up there?!

Our Fall Planters

First, let’s take a look at how freakin’ amazing my fall planters are doing!!! I can hardly believe it. I planted these in late August and they’ve been growing like crazy. You can read all about the plants we chose over in this blog post. I’ll definitely use some of these same plants again next year because they love it out here!

Gathering Goodies for Our Fall Front Porch

I love going outdoor plant shopping with my mom because she has such a good eye for this kind of thing. Jan, Ellis, and I visited a local nursery (Farmers Market) to gather all of our mums, pumpkins, and gourds.

It’s easy to go a bit overboard and end up with a $300 bill just for pumpkins, so we tried our best to keep the fall goodies to a minimum. I think I spent about $100 total, with all of the pumpkins, gourds, mums, and new planters for our own porch. It adds up fast! But, we now have two huge pumpkins that we’ll be able to carve over the next week. Plus, Rory brought in a few of the smaller pumpkins to school for painting!

I change things up on our porch every year, but this time around I chose a mixture of white and orange pumpkins and I threw a few fun gourds in the mix too. I also have four medium planters – I got these planters for a steal at Home Depot – on the steps and the big ones up top. In years past, I’ve used hay bails, but we just didn’t have enough room this year.

How to Create a Faux Mums Planter

Okay, so now let’s talk about my faux mums planter. Every year, I optimistically buy mums thinking that this will be the year that I keep them looking amazing. I water, I follow directions, and I try my very best. But, without fail, they die a crispy death a few weeks later.

I thought it might be interesting to try my hand at doing a faux mums planter this year. I have no problem using artificial plants on the inside of our home, so why not add some near our front door?

I picked up three of these faux mums bouquets (they come in a variety of colors!), some foam bricks, and a planter and got to work on this DIY.

Honestly, I had no idea if it would even be presentable, but I figured why not try? I placed the styrofoam into the base of the planter and my mom helped me use shears to cut the faux flowers off of the individual stems. I then stuck each individual flower stem into the foam bricks, doing my best to make it look like a rounded ball. The result…

Does It Look Like A Real Mum?

Hmmm, I think I would give it a grade of a C+? I found the faux mums stems off of Amazon and didn’t know what to expect. The flower itself is pretty big and larger than the other mums I have.

I think if you could find realistic-looking stems, then this would be an A+ project! I’m gonna peruse Hobby Lobby and Michaels and look for some better faux mums stems, in person, so I can just create a few of these to use year after year. I do love the gold yellow color and think it pairs nicely with the outdoor plants on our front porch.

From afar, and surrounded by real mums, it doesn’t look too horrible. Right?

My Favorite Artificial Mums For Your Fall Front Porch

They do sell some pre-made artificial mums planters, online, that look very promising. But, they come with a high price tag.

Cream Bush // Purple Mums // Yellow Potted Mums // Floral Arrangement in Wood Planter // Orange Mum in Blue Planter

This one looks pretty great, as does this one, if you’re in the market! Let me know if you own any of them. I’d love to know if they’re worth the buy and if they last season after season.

This black thumb of mine makes me sad come fall time! I would love to try these zero-maintenance options.

My 2023 Fall Planters & Backyard

Want to see what I planted for the 2023 fall season? This blog post outlines all of my favorite fall plants and gives you a peek at our cozy backyard.

Casey