D.I.Y. Painted Planters

I need plants, like fish need water.
Too bad I live in the desert and there's a whole lot of neither.

I mean we do have plants, but most of the native ones have been eradicated in place for fancy imported plants- something my "Natural" life choices battle with. However, I found a simple way to grow native and non-native plants without too much destruction (see also: water use in the desert). The answer for me is indoor planters. All of my native plants are doing great outside just where they're supposed to be, but most of my non-native plants, rosemary, various succulents (drought tolerant and full sun apparently doesn't include Phoenix in July), tomato and bell pepper plants are dead. I guess they don't love the heat and sun as much as I do. Anyway, I knew I wanted to have an herb garden so I bought some ceramic planters and some mint and basil and kept them inside on my DIY tea cart (see future post) and they're doing great! So, I thought I'd extend the planter concept to more rooms in my home, with more diverse plants.

I headed to home depot to find some ceramic planters (NOT PLASTIC- you will soon learn of my hate for plastics), and I found a few but not very many pretty colors. I'm also a ceramicist so I guess I have high expectations. What I did find was a wonderful color selection in their spray paint department, I'm also a painter :).

Sooo, I bought Lime green to match the kitch and some black for the front window in my living room. I also picked up some organic potting soil while I was there (not to be confused with organic gardening soil; one's for plants in pots and one's for plants going directly into the ground). I also got 2 mini cacti and 1 mini succulent to go in my future pots (Gretchen helped me pick out the cacti).

I then headed to Michaels, even though big corporate stores are my enemy, sometimes I utilize the resources available to me and buy things I "need" on my super tight budget. They had a whole selection of CERAMIC pots in lots of various sizes. I bought 3 small pots and plates for the kitchen and 4 smaller pots and plates for starter seedlings to go in my living room.

I got home and got to work. There is little to no prep involved with these guys, I removed the sticker tags from the bottom and started spraying; outside, in a well ventilated area, obviously. The small ones for the kitchen were painted Lime Green. The first coat was done with them upside down and the second was done right side up. I painted a little bit into the interior of the pot but not much to prevent toxic leaking from the paint into the soil. They dried, and I painted the smaller ones black. Same technique; upside down, then right side up. The black ones are going to be for seedlings in the fall so right now they're empty but I did get my mini desert-y plants planted (as pictured in the Afters).

Here's the Photos...

Before:


After:


Happy Painting and Planting!