Botanica Atlanta - Landscape Design, Construction & Maintenance

Image: Auntie P.

Please do not get me wrong. As an outdoor material, terra cotta has got a lot going for it. It does not rust, and it does not rot. Terra cotta, derived from Italian words for “baked earth,” is a material that hasbeen used by humans since ancient times. Starting as clay that is pulled from the earth, it can be formed into such useful objects as bricks, tiles, roof shingles, and flower pots. In its most primitive fabrication, the formed clay is then simply baked in the sun or covered with the embers of a fire, though almost all of today’s terra cotta products are fired in a high-tech kiln. In addition to its abilities to stand up to the elements, seeing the beautiful finished color of terra cotta -- an earthy, burnt-orange hue -- makes it easy to understand why it hasbecome the default material for planters.

Images: Angie Muldowney and B. Brisk

Terra cotta pots are the archetypal planting container, but please in mind that they are not the only planter option.

Image: Jason Tromm

Along my daily bicycle commute last year, I would regularly encounter a certain bike at the same intersection. This was not the coincidence of two riders passing one another at the same moment. Rather, the bike in question was actually being used as a decorative planting container. As spring arrived it became covered in green growth, and as summer came it displayed showy blossoms. There is a very interesting statement here, that something that was designed for motion and engineered for speed would be repurposed as a stationary, or “planted,” receptacle for landscape plants.

Images: Taylor Dundee, Mick Limux, and Marina Berger

Wheeled vehicles, of course, are not the only objects that can be repurposed. Other non-traditional planters involve bringing interior plumbing fixtures out into the landscape. Like reuniting long-lost relatives, some gardeners carry old bathtubs outside to join terra cotta pots, their ceramic brethren. Vegetated bathtubs, whether intentional and manicured or derelict, are a common sight in rural gardens. (In the South, they are nearly as ubiquitous as the so-called bottle tree.) Another plumbing fixture that is just as durable and container-ready as the tub is the toilet, and though this “objetd’art” may or may not be something that you want to put on display, some gardeners show theirs off with pride.

Images: Keith Burns, Jonathan Warner, and A.Piper

Research into repurposed, unconventional planters turned up an interesting project in Haiti called the “Road to Life” tire gardens. A collaboration of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and the Papaye Peasant Movement, this agricultural program goes beyond re-use for the sake of visual interest. By inverting discarded automobile tires, this effort has worked to grow food in one of the poorest and most environmentally ravaged countries in North America.

Images: Norm Horofker and Aiesha Cummings

You may find these Haitian plant casings, as well as many of the specific repurposed containers that this article mentions, to lack the visual elegance or sophistication that you want in your garden. Let these inventive planters, though, serve as a reminder that there is a world ofoptions outside the default “blank canvas” or “black frame” that a terra cotta pot provides. Seek out a container that not only matches the style of your landscape but also reaches the level of expression that you hope to achieve. And perhaps remember that one man’s trash is another man’s planter.

Images: Leta Paine andPaul Sayer

Author: Sam Valentine,BLA, LEED AP