Lighten your Load – A simple tip for container gardening

April 12, 2019gardenarthurized home, colorful cottage living, container gardening, planting tiparthurized Leave a comment

I love this time of year because I get to select flowers for the planters around our yard and on the porch. If you’re filling planters too, I’ve got a plant-saving, back-saving, money-saving and waste-reducing tip for you. One simple tip that has four different benefits and might not even cost you a penny? That’s a gardening win!

Save your aluminum beverage cans or ask family and friends to save them for you. For gallon size planters you will only need 3-4 cans. For really large planters, you could use 30+ cans.

Using my coffee filter tip; cover the drainage hole in your planter.

Then without disturbing the filter(s), start filling the planter about halfway with empty aluminum cans. Make sure that the cans are laying on their sides or upside down so that they don’t fill with water over time.

Carefully place potting soil on top of the cans, tuck your plants in and fill the planter with soil to about an inch from the rim. This is a great tip for people like me who tend to over-water plants. The cans provide excellent drainage so the roots don’t sit in water. The planters are easier to move because they weigh less than they would if they were filled with soil. You’ll save money because you won’t need as much potting soil to fill the planter. And it keeps the cans out of the landfill.

I’m attempting to rescue these lavender plants from our shady garden area.

Note: I have used this tip very successfully with annual and perennial flowers; I haven’t tried it with herbs or vegetables. If you try it with foods, use fewer cans and plant shallow – medium rooted crops. Hmm. Maybe I’ll experiment with lettuces and herbs?

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Window Boxes on the Garage – An Upcycling Project

April 3, 2019plantsarthurized home, colorful cottage living, container gardening, diy, galvanized, garage, upcyclingarthurized 1 Comment

The garage at Arthurized Home once serviced our small neighborhood.
The previous owners supported themselves and their 14 children with income from this garage. (As much as I love a good exaggeration, that’s not one. They really raised 14 children in our 950 square foot cottage! But that’s a story for another day.) The garage has a pit for changing oil and a beam for hoisting engines. There’s a fireplace out there; you can see where someone closed up a 4′ x 8′ window (yet another story) and blocked up a bay door. We’ve got some future goals for fixing it up, but for now it’s a utilitarian eyesore.

Why yes, that is a leaf blower hanging in the window!

A few years ago while my sister was visiting, we stumbled upon the Funky Junk Interiors website. She made the brilliant suggestion that I should “junk up” the garage. I started with some upcycled window boxes made from discarded metal sawhorses.

Here’s how: Wearing safety glasses and heavy leather gloves, my husband cut the legs off of the saw horses, leaving the attachment and folding the cut edge down into the box. (You could file the sharp edges if you like. We didn’t bother.) He then drilled holes for hanging along the back of the window boxes using a drill bit for metal. Next he positioned the boxes and marked on the wall where the screws would go. Then he drilled pilot holes into the cinder block using a masonry drill bit. He aligned the boxes with the pilot holes, placed a large washer over the holes and secured each one with a masonry screw.

Using my coffee filter trick, I blocked the gaps on the corners and filled the planters with soil and flowers. Because the planters are shallow, I use a moisture retaining potting mix. I feed and water these on the same schedule as my other outdoor container plants. When it’s hot outside they get a drink twice a day.

While I wouldn’t recommend installing them on a playhouse, (hello, potential sharp metal edges) these window boxes would be great on a deck, a potting shed or other outbuilding. A she-shed? A chicken coop?
I could go on all day.

If you make this project, I’d love to see it! Email your pictures to arthurized dot home at gmail dot com.

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