Assemble a unique potting area using architectural salvage and repurposed artifacts. Give it personality by adding items you’ve collected and make it pretty with a profuse planting of flowering shrubs, perennials and annuals.
Your first step toward a functional potting area is to define your workspace. Here, an old salvaged door serves that purpose.
It’s easy to attach a shelf on top for shade and shelter.
Or, add an old metal awning for a contrasting “roof.”
Place a small bench on a larger bench. They’re effective for display and keep your door well braced, but they also transform into a work or storage surface.
If using different wood furnishings and architectural elements to make your workstation, paint them the same color for unity.
Put negative space to work, too. The former window in the old door provides a spot for a flowering focal point—a hanging sap bucket filled with petunias.
This original potting station has room for all the tools and tricks of the gardening trade.
Add cup hooks or nails for holding small tools.
Hang a straw hat and a spare hose from decorative coat hooks.
Use wire baskets to store mulch, bulbs and seeds, as well as plant food. You can see contents and it keeps everything ventilated.
Tin gelatin molds make admirable seed sorters.
Have a watering can on hand to douse newly potted plants. Keep practical containers available for cut flowers too.
Three tin planters (actually joint compound pans from the hardware store), planted with low maintenance succulents, are easy to mount on the fence with screws. They also add a horizontal design element balanced by a vertical vintage flyswatter.
A vintage market porter’s license from London’s Covent Garden adds a bit of whimsy.
Make time for fun as well as for work by shopping for gardening-related vintage finds, such as these three metal hose nozzles. Display them together for maximum impact.
Enliven your potting station with potted shrubs and flowering plants to help it blend with the surrounding landscape.
Do you need some great ideas for flea market plant containers? We’ve got plenty of inspiration for you here. Happy gardening!
© Caruth Studio