Friday, May 13, 2011

re-purposed planters


i have a plethera of pots and planters in the garden. some from the nursery. some from garage sales and thrifts stores. and some from my neighbor's trash. but my favorites are the ones that have come from the recycling bin, debris piles, and even from the woods. simple yet beautiful, i thought i would share with you a few of my favorite ways to re-purpose objects into unique vessels for some of your favorite plants.

last year a neighbor was having a tree cut down. as they piled up what had been cut i spied the hollowed out logs and made a bee line for them with my wagon. the arborists thought i was a bit nuts, but hey i was lightening their load and bringing a touch of the woods right into my backyard. i have many of them scattered around full of coleus, elephants ears, begonias, succulents and herbs.


instead of throwing this olive oil tin in the recycling bin i planted it with sage. i like the pop of color it brings into the garden.

i love succulents. i have quite a collection of them. i am always drooling over the concrete planters displayed at the nursery full of all different kinds of succulents. i found this cinder block at a friends house who was looking to get rid of a large pile. it makes a great container for the heat and dry loving plants.

even bricks make a beautiful planter for succulents. i found these in a debris pile at our csa farm.

old wooden crates make great planters. i am using mine as salad boxes. they are transportable allowing me to move them around to follow the sun.

so look around, keep your eye out and remember one man's trash is another gardener's treasure.

9 comments:

  1. These are such great ideas Amy! I really want to try the plant logs, since we have a surplus of those. It never dawned on me to plant something in them! Thank you for sharing more peeks of your garden.

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  2. so awesome! i just got some large tomato cans from a neighborhood cafe that i spray painted and am going to use for containers. i LOVE the log idea, and the bricks (i have tons of those) and i'm totally saving my olive oil container when it's empty. brilliant!

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  3. do you put something on the bottom of the cinderblocks? will any succulents work in a cinder block? will succulents grow outdoors in a warm/dry climate?

    I love these ideas! Thank you. I have a few cinderblocks in the yard right now that I can't wait to plant in.

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  4. I have been looking for some such trash myself! I love the big wooden crate for salad - perfect. And the succulents in a cinder box.

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  5. We've (and by that I mean 'i've') gone for container gardening this year - our garden isn't quite as lovely as yours, though.

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  6. this has me so inspired. but i have one basic question since i am a very new gardener - does each container need some type of hole in it's bottom? like the tin, for instance?

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