Adding a little greenery in your life is a great choice, at least if you’ve got a green thumb. Bringing a pop of color and life to your home or workspace gives you much-needed relief to the humdrum. If you’re giving one to someone else, though, how to wrap potted plants as gifts presents a whole new challenge.
Plants are, in fact, one of my favorite gifts to give for housewarming presents and gifts to coworkers. If you’re shopping for the work family, check out our best office desk plants for some recommendations on what to get.
Once your plant is in hand, I’m going to teach you 3 easy ways how to wrap potted plants as gifts depending on the size of your plant in this helpful, easy guide.
Sealing the Bottom of Your Potted Plant for Wrapping
If you’re planning to wrap a potted plant as a gift, you’re going to first want to seal the bottom of the planter pot. This will prevent leaks during transport, keeping your paper from turning mushy.
The best methods to seal your plant pot before wrapping are:
- Placing the pot inside a decorative pot with no drain hole
- Adding a drain plug to the pot hole
- Wrapping the bottom of the pot in foil, plastic wrap, wax paper, or a similar material
Once the bottom is secured to prevent moisture from leaking out, you’re then ready to proceed with wrapping.
How do you foil wrap a potted plant?
1. Measure the diameter of the base of the pot plus the length of one side
2. Cut a piece of foil as long as your measurement total
3. Place the potted plant in the middle of the square of foil
4. Wrap each side of the foil up around the pot, pressing with your hands to secure it
This is how to secure a plant base using standard kitchen foil. The foil should reach about halfway up your planter. If you’re using decorative metallic or foil paper, continue to the next section for how to wrap potted plants as gifts with it.
Wrapping Your Short Potted Plant in Paper or Cellophane
1. Cut a piece of material twice as high as your plant and as wide as the circumference of your pot, adding 2-3” of overlap
2. Turn the paper so that a corner is at the top and bottom (creating a diamond shape)
3. Fold the bottom half of the paper up to create a triangle, leaving a couple inches of overhang along the top
4. Lay the plant along the straight bottom edge
5. Fold the paper around the plant pot, one side at a time and secure in the middle with tape
6. Set wrapped plant upright
7. Add ribbon or a bow for finishing touches
If you have a tapered pot like mine, you’ll end up with a small triangular gap at the bottom and that’s totally fine! If it really bothers you, cover it with a wide ribbon or a little scrap of paper.
This method is ideal for smaller plants (generally I recommend 12” or less) so that they’re relatively concealed. However, this also ensures your plant still has access to light and humidity while it’s waiting to go to its new home.
You can use nearly any kind of paper for this wrapping process. Craft paper, wrapping paper, deli paper, metallic foil paper or even tissue paper all make great options for gift wrapping your potted plant.
I personally like a slightly stiffer paper so it stands up nicely, so I tend to grab thick wrapping paper or shiny foil paper myself. I also recommend using double sided paper (or ungridded). As you’ll see in the photo, the gridlines will otherwise show.
This wrapping method is an ideal way to gift wrap a succulent, poinsettia for the holidays, and many other flowers, herbs, and other small potted plants.
How to Gift Wrap a Large Potted Plant
1. Measure the size of the pot (each side plus the base)
2. Lay out enough tissue paper or fabric to cover pot measurement, taping pieces together if necessary
3. If using more than one color, rotate second color perpendicular to first to create a plus sign shape (or offset squares if your paper is a perfect square)
4. Place potted plant in center of the tissue paper sections
5. Pull tissue paper up on one side, parallel to the pot
6. Add creases or folds into the paper if desired, and tuck gently into the top of the pot with your fingers
7. Repeat all the way around the pot
8. Secure paper around the base of the plant using ribbon, twine, or similar
I find this method works well with tissue paper if you want to have the top excess stand up. However, fabric or burlap is a beautiful alternative and while it won’t stand up crisply, it comes in a wider variety of patterns and colors that will look great.
Since we’re focusing mainly on wrapping the pot here, this is the preferred method for wrapping taller potted plants as gifts. I recommend this wrapping method for small trees, Orchids, rose bushes, Ficus or anything else with some height.
Gift Wrapping Very Small or Multiples of Plants
1. Find a decorative box or crate that all your plants will fit into
2. Seal the plant pot bottoms using foil or plastic wrap
3. Place pots into the box or crate
4. Add decorative fill around them, such as snow-like cotton, ornaments, burlap, tissue paper or really anything to take up the space
5. Wrap a bow around the box if desired
If you have a bunch of very small pots or several plants you don’t want to individually wrap, consider creating a gift box! This way you’ll have an easy way to carry and transport your gift, and it looks great too.
How Long Can a Plant Stay Wrapped?
A plant should stay wrapped on average no more than 7 days.
As long as the plant has ready access to water, light, and air, it should be fine. While technically totally possible to stay wrapped for longer amounts of time, you won’t want to restrict it within the wrapping for too long. Plus you’ll probably end up dampening or ruining your paper if you leave it like that.
If you plan to seal the top (with cellophane a la gift basket style) then the plant should be unwrapped within 24 hours, but preferably no more than a few hours. You don’t want to restrict its access to air and trap moisture for too long.
Conclusion
We’ve explored 3 easy ways for how to wrap potted plants as gifts. No matter what size plant you’ve selected, we’ve got you covered. From the holiday poinsettia to the Easter Lily, and that small succulent for your coworker, well, that’s a wrap!
Related Items
Here are some of our other favorite plant related items you might want to check out!
Need a pot? This shark planter is totally awesome. Though, it might present some wrapping challenges!
Grow your own unique plants to gift with a packet of Zombie plant seeds
A self watering plant globe is a great add-on gift to give with larger plants. Never worry about keeping your greenery hydrated while you’re away!
One of the worst problems with small plants is getting water everywhere when you try to give them some. These handy plant watering funnels cure that problem and they’re adorable too!
