Dressing Your Planters for Less!

Spring is here, so you'll be getting my "low-down" on how to dress your planters up for less!

Luckily, I have the prefect candidate!  Wow! That's bad!

There will be two parts to this post.

1.) Beautifying your pot or planters

2.) How to pay less when filling them!

So, let's tackle #1.  I decided to go with an antiqued gold for my two front planters. I've always wanted to paint them, but never have gotten around to it. 

I picked these planters up a couple years back for $7 each at a yard sale. They are very textured, which will make the antiquing part fun!

Metallic gold spray paint for around $5.50.

Ya, they looked a little crazy at first. Don't worry, they'll get better. See my short cut, I didn't want to unload all the dirt. I was wondering how it would work painting them with the plants still in, and it worked just fine. 

To antique the planter. I wanted to use an oil-based paint. I'm sure a water-based one would be fine, but I was (probably overly) worried about it and went for the oil-based. This varnish and paint I had around my house. I used mostly the varnish, with a little black mixed in.

My classy mixing surface....just keepin' it real. 

I wish I would have taken a better picture of this process, but basically I painted and wiped off the mixture in sections. I used mostly wet wipes to wipe off the varnish/paint mixture immediately after I applied it. 

Now on to #2: Filling the planter.

They say to think... 

* Fill

* Spill

* and Thrill

when planting planters.

Meaning, at least one plant should be used as a filler, one should eventually spill over the side and one should be colorful the visually be the "thriller".

This grass I use on both sides of the Arbavida that sits in the middle of the planter (boxwood would look better than Arbavida, but I'm cheap, so Arbavida it is.)

* Do you know you can cut most grasses. I cut these in 1/2. I have two planters, so this usually saves me around $8-$10, since I'll need 4 grassy "poofs" by the end of planting. 

* For the spiller, I steal from my yard. I find the root of the Ivy (it doesn't have to be a very big root) and cut it off from the root down. A shoot of Ivy (I'm pretty sure they are called shoots, correct me if I'm wrong), will have a root about two feet up. Just follow the end of the shoot up to find it. 

You can see the root by the blade of the knife below. By using this, I will have mature looking ivy already spilling out of my planter, and it will be FREE :)  I use this in all of my planters and window boxes. It saves me a lot of money! If you don't have Ivy, or a vine, maybe you have a friend that does, or a park that needs trimming!

* If you do try using Ivy, water it really well for a few days, after you plant it. It will look wilt for a few days until the root takes hold. 

The Ivy is usually much longer than I need. I sometime plant it in the back and send both of  it's shoots around each side of the planter. The arrow farthest to the right is where I planted the root. The other two arrows show where the ivy strands are coming around the planter and spilling over the side. I usually plant 2-3 ivy plants per planter. Of course, it may be easier to manage them, if you just trim them. Notice I have a rock holding one of the shoots away from my Alyssum. 

* Filler is also available in many yards. If you have a plant that reseeds itself (like the Alyssum below), or even a perineal that you like, these are the perfect plants to divide and plant in a planter. 

* "Thriller" plants are probably best if you use an annual. These will last almost all season, possibly even into the fall, and will look bright if you have them in the right amount of sunlight. You can usually find these on sale this time of year. 

I found these Geraniums for $1.29 per plant.  (you can also see a close up below of the painted planter). 

In this picture you can see the Alyssum and the grass (the fillers), and the Geraniums (the thriller). 

...and here you can see the Ivy (the spiller).

So let's see the $ run down:

Paint: $5.50

Home made glaze from paint I had: Free

3 Geraniums: (with tax) about $4.

Alyssum: Free

Abavida: $10. (Free if I wouldn't have killed this one. Probably just need to water it earlier in the spring.)

Ivy: Free

Total:  under $10 per planter (on the side where I didn't kill the Arbavida). $20 on the side where I did have to replace it. You can buy cute little Arbavidas for $5. They work too. 

Not too bad since I started with this...

...and went to this!

--Katie

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