Spring is in the air, at least in Austin it is. God I love living in Texas. Down here we are getting ready for spring, by dragging all or plants back out into the world and stocking up on new ones from the nursery. When designing a pretty patio, porch or container garden it is important to think beyond terra cotta. Sure a little here and there is fine, and they are hard to beat price wise. But with a world full of fun planters and cheap paint we should really expand beyond brown. Here are some pots I have made or worked with to spice up my garden.

Penny Pot. Someone at work gave me this ugly brass planter. I saw it's potential. I had seen a bowling ball covered with pennies and stuck off in a garden, and thought I too need this look. Well first of all I took a nail and hammer to the planter and made drainage holes in the bottom. Then from there I got out my trusty super glue and a jar full of pennies. You could glue them in a pattern or all over like I did. Presto you have a lucky planter.

My mother taught me a wonderful trick about paint recently. If you go to where they mix the paint at Home Depot and Lowes there is almost always cans of reject paint at bargain basement prices for sale. Paint someone had mixed, got it home, and decided they hated. Well I stocked up on some off beat colors and purchased some plain terra cota pots to get busy on. You could just paint the lip, like the green trimmed one here holding some Spearmint or coat the whole thing Mediterranean blue like my oregano planter. I went a step further and slathered the trim of this pot in glue then rolled it in sparkly seed beads.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but that baby blue box planter is really a drawer out of an old refrigerator. If it's deep enough to hold dirt, it counts as a planter. I found this old fridge drawer at an antique mall and converted it into a succulent playscape. Again I hammered nails through the bottom for drainage. From there the rest was easy I just filled it with dirt and stuck the plants in. You could use any old drawer.

You could make a pot as a memento, as is the case with this little pony tail palm. My boyfriend and I got matching pony tail palm plants once when we were on a trip to the beach. While there we also hit the junk shops and bought bags of shells. For days we sat and decorated the homes for our little plants with shells. If you look closely mine says J (heart) C. Because I am a sap.
The junker pot. I have been collecting this and that in a bag lately. Old glasses frames, broken key chains, mix matched pieces of costume jewelry. Most of it scary enough, I just had laying around my house. Well I took a terra cotta pot and some serious glue and got busy. I glued everything that wasn't nailed down on that pot, hell I even see one of my beer bottle caps in the picture!
Every good yard needs a pink flamingo, mine just happens to be mosaiced. My mother the plate breaking queen made this one for me. The original flamingos people had in their yards in the 50's were cement, not plastic. She covered this one in shards of pink plates. Speaking of my mother and her garden, here are some other pieces she has made, like this gazing ball stand.
This is a bench that sits out on her patio. She sells this stuff too, you can email me about it!
Did you miss the article last issue about decorating a flower pot with mussel shells? Well just in case, read about it here.

coming soon...making a hanging basket out of an old bird cage!