Whether you’ve got an office space, a retail location, or a business park, planters for commercial buildings can take your space from looking good to looking great.

While they might not be the first things that come to mind when you think about commercial properties’ visual appeal, planters for commercial buildings can make the difference between them looking good or looking incredible.

Why? Because not only are the planters themselves dynamic in the styles, colors, and materials you can choose from, there are also a ton of applications for planters for commercial buildings.

If you want to learn to pick the right planters for your building, you first need to understand all the ways they can be used. Then, you can set out to choose the planters you want to feature.

Why Use Planters for Your Commercial Building?

It’s a common misconception that commercial planters are just add-ons for buildings. But in reality, planters shouldn’t simply be things you just add as an afterthought or as one of your last design elements.

Thoughtfully incorporating your commercial planters into your building’s design can greatly impact the look, feel, and perception of your building and your business.

With such a diverse range of applications and uses, planters for commercial buildings can help with everything from guiding traffic to tying your design aesthetic together.

Here’s how.

Mark an Entry

You’ve probably heard the expression, “you only get one chance at a first impression,” right?

Well, in many cases, your building’s entryway acts as exactly that.

And with planters for commercial buildings, you can make sure this impression feels hospitable, welcoming, and appealing.

For example, if you’re a retailer, you could consider a freestanding planter as an eye-catcher to draw customers in.

Or, if you have a corporate office, you can use larger planters filled with colorful greenery to give your building some extra personality.

Add Color to Your Building

Whether your building is a brand-new development or an older building with a less modern design, adding a touch of color can elevate its visual appeal and give it more vibrancy.

Are you wondering why this matters?

Studies have suggested that color has a direct subconscious impact on emotion and mood. The right ones can even make you feel happier and more optimistic. Specifically, bright, warm colors like orange, pink, yellow, and red have been speculated to increase happiness levels.

By infusing plant life into your space using planters for commercial buildings, you could theoretically help create a positive sentiment about your building for your guests and employees.

Complement Changing Seasons

In many regions, changing seasons bring with them a dramatic shift in colors. And in others, the change of season is more psychological than physical.

Where seasonal changes are dramatic, there’s an opportunity for you to include seasonal plant life around your building so that it can benefit from these beautiful changes.

And in regions where seasonal change is less noticeable, you can use planters for commercial buildings to indicate the change of seasons even if it's less visibly obvious. For example, you can consider using plants boasting red, orange, and yellow to signify fall; red poinsettias and white sweet alyssums for winter; tropical flowers for the summer; and pastel blooms for the springtime.

Increase Curb Appeal

Whether it’s a business park, a retail store, or an office, one thing’s for certain: the way your building looks to guests, staff, and passersby is a direct reflection of your business.

It will undoubtedly have an impact on the way people perceive it.

With that in mind, don’t you want to make sure you’re boosting your building’s curb appeal and making it look appealing and tended to?

With intelligently selected greenery and some dedicated maintenance, well-kept planters for commercial buildings can elevate your building’s exterior visual appeal.

Whatever your business, doing this well will show everyone who comes into contact with your building that you take pride in your space and take the time to look after it – in turn conveying the impression that you treat your business the same way.

Grow Edible Plants and Herbs

Commercial planters aren’t just great for holding visually appealing plants. They’re also great for some unexpected practical purposes as well — including growing your own edible plants and herbs.

Believe it or not, more and more restaurants are adding planters for commercial buildings, which they use to grow herbs as well as vegetables like lettuce, tomatoes, and more.

We’re proud to say that we’ve been able to provide a number of our clients with commercial planters for this purpose, including a full restaurant client as well as a chef who did this at his own home.

Amplify Rooftop Space

Gone are the days of wasted rooftop space. One of the biggest new trends we see right now is buildings using commercial planters to make better use of their rooftops.

This is being done in a few ways.

First, commercial planters are frequently being added to rooftop spaces to decrease water run-off.

And second, many business owners and landlords are using planters for commercial buildings to create rooftop greenspaces where there previously weren’t any before.

Create a Barrier

By now, you’ve heard a lot about the aesthetic benefits of planters for commercial buildings, right?

But they also offer a functional benefit as well: creating barriers that help with a number of practical functions, like directing traffic, reducing noise, or creating entirely new spaces.

For instance, planters for commercial buildings can guide foot traffic towards or away from areas where you need to do so. You can use them to line the entryway into the front of your building and direct customers to your front door.

If you’re in a high-traffic area and you want to reduce noise levels in your place of business, many plants offer sound-absorbing properties that can literally turn down the volume of outside vehicles and passersby.

You can even use planters for commercial buildings to create new spaces like a private courtyard where people can sit down, have a coffee or lunch, and relax. Using the right plants, like bamboo or broad-leaved trees or bushes, in these planters can provide a ton of privacy.

Tips for Choosing Planters for Commercial Buildings

Once you’ve decided on how you’ll use planters for commercial buildings in your space, the next step is to pick the right ones.

But with so many possible uses for commercial planters – and even more possible options when it comes to planters – it can be tough to know how to even get started.

Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed by the idea of choosing the perfect commercial planters?

If so, don’t worry. Here are the five steps you need to follow.

1. Make a Plan

There’s one cardinal rule when it comes to choosing the right planters for commercial planters: always have a plan.

Wondering what we mean by that?

You need to strategically map out a number of important factors before you purchase any planters – or plants, for that matter.

These include:

The location of your commercial planters
How many you need
What size and shape you want
The type of commercial planter material that will best fit your needs
Which kind of plants you’ll use in each
What styles and colors of commercial planter will fit each area of your building
What will be used to fill the planter, especially void spaces

Once you’ve mapped that out, you can start shopping around for the right planters for commercial buildings.

2. Make Durability and Longevity Two of Your Key Criteria

Material durability is the first and most important technical consideration to make when picking planters for commercial buildings.

These commercial planters will be subject to significant abuse, including harsh outdoor weather as well as accidental bumps and damage from passersby.

The most common planter materials include:

Powder-Coated Aluminum: Our aluminum planters are comprised of the most durable planter material on the market: heavy gauge 5052 marine-grade aluminum alloy. It’s commonly used in high-end commercial grade outdoor site furnishings, shipbuilding, and aircraft fabrication. These planters are also powder-coated using TIGER Drylac(r) Series 38 powder coating, which is VOC-free and made for industrial applications such as military equipment and communication towers. It’s also proven to be weather and UV-ray resistant. Our powder-coated aluminum planters can withstand the elements with little to no maintenance. And if you’re interested in the fascinating fabrication process we use for these planters, check out this blog post.

COR-TEN Weathering Steel: If you’re looking for beautiful and unique planters for commercial buildings, you’ll love COR-TEN Steel. It offers a stunning modern industrial aesthetic due to a unique characteristic: this group of steel alloys develops a mesmerizing orange-brown patina after being exposed to the climate. This patina looks great, and it protects the planter from further corrosion.

Fiberglass: Ultra-lightweight and durable, our fiberglass planters are resistant to corrosion, frost, and UV-rays. They require very little maintenance and upkeep and can handle the bumps and knocks that come with a high-traffic area without worry of damage or scuffing.

If you want to learn about each of these materials in greater depth, read through our blog post on the topic.

3. Use Colors That Pop

We previously mentioned the mood-boosting benefits offered by certain colors and how you could use plants, flowers, and greenery to help stimulate those feelings in people passing by your building.

But you can also use your commercial planters themselves to have that similar effect.

We make it easy for you to get the perfectly colored planters for commercial buildings. When you order planters from us, you can completely personalize yours to boast almost any color using our Design Your Own Planter interactive software tool.

To learn more about this process, check out this blog post we wrote.

4. Use Planters That Complement Your Building

Consider looking for planters that will complement the vibe and esthetic of your building. For example, if your building is ultra-modern, you’d probably be better off with a sleek, minimalist style of planter than something more contemporary.

On the other hand, make sure you consider the size of commercial planter that will best fit your needs. You want to ensure it’s big enough to make an impact without overwhelming your space. But you also want to make sure it’s not too small to properly complement your space.

For more on this, read this blog post we wrote on the subject.

5. Pick the Right Plants

The last step is to pick the right plants for your commercial planters.
We’ve already talked about color and seasonality options, but there are a few more things that are critical to consider, including:

Hardiness: This term refers to the climate in which plants can survive based on the temperature range. To simplify the process of finding the right trees based on their hardiness, The United States Department of Agriculture offers a Plant Hardiness Zone Map for North America.

Water and Light Requirements: When picking plants, consider how much light they’ll require. For instance, if your commercial planters will be in the full-on sun, you’ll want to pick flowers that can handle it, such as many types of perennials. If your commercial planters will be in a shady area, pick low-light plants. You need to understand the environment where you’ll be placing your commercial planters so that you can plan for success when selecting plants.

You’ll also want to consider your plants’ watering requirements and ensure you’re set up to handle that. Do you have an irrigation system in place? If not, how will you keep your plants watered? In this case, you can consider alternative watering options like the Ollie Plant Sipper, an easy-to-install planter water irrigation system that reduces watering frequency requirements and maintenance costs.

Potential for Litter: Remember how we said that your building’s aesthetic could be perceived as a direct reflection of your building? That’s why it’s important to keep it tidy. When picking the greenery that you’ll be putting in planters for commercial buildings, consider how much mess they’ll make. Will they drop a lot of petals? Will they give off a lot of pollen? Make sure you’re picking plants that give off as little litter as possible or ensure you’re around to clean it up as required.

With the right planters for commercial buildings, you can elevate your space’s vibe and aesthetic from good to great, making it even more appealing to customers, guests, employees, and passersby.

Does picking the right planters for commercial buildings sound like a daunting task? If so, don’t worry. If you have questions or are unsure of the best options, contact us to speak with one of our experts. We’re here to help make this process easy and enjoyable for you.