How to pot your plants, according to Atlanta landscape designer Brendan Butler

And don't make this amateur mistake

July 13, 2018

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The pot
A Cor-Ten steel container or high-quality ceramic pottery. His go-to is the handmade FX-S2 planter by VesseL USA ($428, lumens.com).

A common mistake
Skip potting soil full of Styrofoam. Start with up to four inches of gravel, then top with compost blended with gravel, manure, and topsoil.

Go-to composition
Round-leafed Farfugium gigantium (aka Giant Leopard Plant) in the middle, longleaf Aspidistra “Milky Way” as a taller counterpoint, and Dixie Wood Fern and Carex “Frosted Curls” spilling over the edge.

This article appears in our Summer 2018 issue of Atlanta Magazine’s HOME.