Let's Keep Your Cute Flower Pots, Cute.
So you bought some cute flower pots (maybe even from us) and are ready to ship it to a friend. You're even bold enough to ship it to your friend already potted. Woah, you're a rebel. Let's talk about how to gift wrap a potted plant.
Step 1: Tissues, Paper Towels, and Packing Paper
The most important thing is that the potted plant doesn't come out of its decorative pot. If you're sending this cute potted plant as a gift, having it arrive in a messy box of potting soil isn't a good look. So grab tissues, paper towels, or packing paper and pack them into the pot to completely cover the potting soil. If you want to do it in a way that looks nice, at WP we use packing paper similar to this. Make sure you use enough to really pack the soil in well, and use multiple layers if need be.
Step 2: Tape or String
Now that you've packed the top of your decorative plant pot with packing paper, it's time to hold it all in place and keep your potting soil where it should be. If aesthetics do not matter, you can use shipping tape to cover the entire top of the planter. You'll need to tape around the stem of your plant. Be careful as you tape your plant pot so that you do not damage your precious indoor plant.
If aesthetics are a concern for you, you can use jute twine and wrap it all around. If you pair this look up with the brown packing paper, it has a very nice look to it. You can be a bit generous as you do this, it's better to use a decent amount and keep your potted plant inside your decorative pot, versus having a mess of potting soil upon arrival of your potted plant and plant pot.
Step 3: Shake Your Potted Indoor Plant
Once your decorative pot and plant is all bundled up, it's time to give it a test spin. Go ahead and shake your potted plant and see if everything is held in place. We'd recommend doing this with a bit of backbone. A shipped package usually goes through a lot of tumbles and road bumps, so you'll want to recreate this.
If your potted planter stood the shake test, you're all good to go! Congratulations, you've successfully gift wrapped your potted plant. If you've noticed you've had some potting soil escape your packaged planter, its time to repeat step one and give it another go. You got this!
Step 4: Nicely Package your Planter
Now that your potted plant is nicely bundled up, it's time to package it. Ultimately, the effectiveness of this step depends on if you have a well-fitted shipment box to ship your cute plant pots, but there are still a few things you can do i not.
If you're limited on supplies, you can tape the entire decorative planter to the box. Usually this means using long pieces of tape in the horizontal direction and taping the planter down face forward. Use multiple pieces of tape and tape down the cute indoor plant pot around its "waist" and to the back of the cardboard box. Here's a photo of how I used to do it when I shipped plants as a hobbyist:
Step 5: Give it a Final Shake Test in its Packaging
You're almost done! Now to ensure your potted plant is secure in its decorative pot, give it a final shake test in its sealed box. I'd personally suggest being a bit rough with it. If you don't, the delivery workers will have no issue doing so, so it's best you do that now. If you hear the dreaded sound of potting soil coming loose, unfortunately, you'll have to repeat from Step 1. However, this shouldn't be the case if you've done the shake test properly in Step 3. If all is well, congratulations, you successfully learned how to gift wrap a potted plant!
