Vintage Garden Accents

Written on January 24, 2011 at 7:56 am , by Katie A Ketelsen

For years flowers have grown around a plethora of garden accents–from the gazing ball…to trellis…to statues for whatever mood fits you.

But for me I prefer highlighting my garden with vintage finds.

Small chicken feeder filled with begonia, coleus in navy blue planter

Purple fountaingrass planted in galvanized bucket, foxtail fern planted in brown pot

It’s a true extension of my interior space. And that’s what I think gardening should be about–revealing your style throughout the spaces that you enjoy the most. Take a look around your home…find what makes you the happiest, the most comfortable, and see if you can incorporate that into your own garden.

Large chicken feeder filled with geranium, sweet potato vine, fiber-optic grass, and calibrachoa

Here’s a quick glance at the chicken feeder…before the plants took over. This summer I was going with “more is better” philosophy….I might have learned my lesson.

Keg barrel with galvanized tub filled with salvia, sweet potato vine, and Wave petunias

Galvanized tub filled with fiber-optic grass, salvia, ivy geranium, and sweet potato vine,

As you may have figured out….I love weathered galvanized metal and have a chicken feeder fetish. Recently, Deborah Silver on Dirt Simple rounded up a fantastic lineup of containers that I’d love to have in my garden. There’s more to these obsessions,  but I’ll save that for another story-time. Do you have a fetish? One that you carry on into the garden? Tell me about it! I don’t want to be the only one!!

Baked Earth

Written on November 19, 2009 at 3:00 pm , by James A. Baggett

Putting away my terra cotta pots is my final chore of the season. Terra cotta is my material of choice when it comes to the containers that grace my garden and front porch. I love the natural look of terra cotta (Italian for “baked earth”) and have amassed quite a collection of cool clay containers over the years. But like all crockery, terra cotta breaks when dropped and often cracks or flakes when exposed to repeated freeze-that cycles in the winter. So I keep mine stacked in a lopsided shed attached to the rear of my nearly hundred-year-old house.  Every year at this time I empty my spent containers in the compost bin, I make sure to remove all the loose debris and dirt from the pots. I spray them down with the hose and scrub them clean with a stiff brush before carting them to the shed. Cleaning your pots from year to year prevents passing fungi, bacteria, or viruses. And because clay is porous, salts in fertilizers pass through the pots walls and accumulate on the outside. That’s what that hard white crust is. Clean it off with a baking soda paste and a soft brush. Nothing looks nicer than stacks and stacks of clean terra cotta pots waiting for warmer weather.