7 Things You Can Use as a Planter

Posted: August 4, 2012
by Amy -
1 Comment

It’s hard to go wrong when you grow your own greens, vegetables, herbs, or flowers. You get food, beautiful foliage, delicate blooms, or sometimes all of the above. Even if you don’t have a garden plot, you can still grow plants in containers Wooden box planter – and if you do have a garden plot, you can still enjoy the creativity and variety of creative, homemade container planters. Here are some of my favorite things to plant in (plus a few I dream of planting in):

Cinder blocks

Use these to line your raised garden beds, and you can plant flowers or greens right into the holes in the blocks — instant landscaping!

Watering cans

This is a classic DIY planter, right? Just punch or drill a few drainage holes in the bottom, add dirt, plants, and you’re ready to go. But you can do something similar with wide, decorative vases, old coffee cans, or even large mugs that have cracked or seen better days. The best thing about using old cans or mugs is that it’s easy to string them up on a vertical support, making even more space for your garden.

Appliances and utensils

The Micro Gardener has a great collection of creative planter ideas. My favorites are the appliances and utensils I would never have thought to use myself — who knew flowers planted in an old toilet cistern, an abandoned kitchen sink, or a roaster pan could be so cute?

Over-the-door shoe organizers

Various versions of this idea have been floating around the Internet for a while now. The gist is a vertical shoe organizer (the type with an individual pocket for each shoe), with landscaping fabric to line each pocket. Fill the pockets with dirt, plant with greens or something else that thrives in little soil, and voila — your very own vertical garden.

Wooden pallets

Another planter idea that’s approaching meme status. You can place the pallet (open side down) flat on the ground, fill with dirt, and then plant between the slats; once the plants take off, you’ll hardly have to weed at all. But why not place the pallet up against a wall? The horizontally-oriented slats make great supports for growing another vertical garden — here’s a tutorial from Life on the Balcony.

Furniture

If you think about it, furniture is meant to hold things — so why not turn old dresser drawers or a storage bench into planters?

And finally, my two personal favorites: Something I’d never thought of until I started researching this post — a container water garden — and canning jars as wall planters, an old standard done up with style; both are from Apartment Therapy.