We’ve all seen them, haven’t we? Those gardens where the owner has done amazing, clever, creative or just fun things with the simple garden pot! A little imagination can go a long way and bring even the smallest space alive and packed with personality.
Here are three super, simple, fun garden projects made from clay pots that you can try in your own garden.
Clay Pot People
This is one of our favourites here at Love The Garden and clay pot people are a really fun garden project to get started with. You’ll need three medium-sized pots of the same size for your clay pot person’s body and head.
Then, in addition, you’ll need six very small pots for the arms and six to eight slightly larger pots for the legs.
Stack three of the smallest pots loosely inside one another for each arm and thread gardening wire through the middle of the pots to loosely fasten them together and attach to the body pot (which when your person is ready will sit upside down).
You attach the arms by threading the wire through the body pot or looping it around, trying to ensure it won’t be visible when you’ve finished.
Repeat for both arms and the legs so that you have the basic shape of a body with arms and legs dangling down. It’s up to you but you may want to use three pots for each arm and four pots for each leg so that the legs are a little longer.
Then plant up your head pot remembering that whatever you choose to plant it with, will be your clay pot person’s hair!
Your imagination is the limit here and you can go for something simple like spiky grass, something colourful like a clump of purple lobelia or you could go for long curly locks with ivy or trailing petunias.
Then just draw or paint a face on your head pot (one that won’t wash off when you water or it rains) and then place your head pot on top of your upside-down body pot and there you have it, your clay pot person!
Add as much further detail to your clay pot person as you like: you could paint the arms and legs or the body and make a whole series of different size clay pot people to keep each other company!
No Place Like Gnome
If you’re a fan of fairies or a gnome supporter why not make a really magical statement in your garden with the super easy to make clay pot toadstools! Choose as many pots of whatever size you fancy but make sure for each clay pot you also have the clay tray which would normally go underneath it.
Paint your pots white and turn them upside down, making sure your paint is weather and waterproof.
Then turn the trays upside down and paint them whatever colour you’d like your toadstools to be. Red is the obvious choice but there is nothing to stop you painting them yellow, blue or a selection of rainbow colours.
Once the paint is dry, get a circle template (perhaps an old jam jar lid or a good old compass) and mark out circles on the bottom of your clay trays. Then paint the circles white and place your painted trays on top of your upside-down clay pots.
Suddenly your garden has a touch of magic and mystery about it with a multitude of toadstools. Of course, you can get as carried away as you like with them. You could draw or paint on little windows or doors on your pots or why not sit your clay pot person on top of one!
Make Your Broken Pots Into Something Special
We’ve all got the odd broken pot but so long as at least half or more of the pot is intact, you can turn them into something unique.
Start by placing the broken piece inside the pot (or pieces if more than one!) Then, fill your broken clay pot with compost, packing it firmly around the broken piece and filling to the top.
You will see that by adding the broken pieces, you have created a miniature garden which climbs steeply from the broken mouth of your clay pot at the bottom up to the top.
You can then create whatever spaces you like within your pot, such as mini terraces, pathways or even steps depending on how you’ve arranged your broken pieces of clay.
Decorate with stones, shells or other pieces of broken pot and plant up accordingly. Little succulents, ferns, ivy and moss all work really well here and then add whatever finishing touches you like.
We’ve seen people use dolls house furniture, tiny birdhouses, miniatures gnomes or china animals all to great effect.
Have A Go At Home!
Well, those are our three favourites and they’re really easy and fun clay pot garden projects to get you started. But we know you are hugely talented and imaginative when it comes to your gardens so we’d love to see photos of some of your creations.
Have you made a magical mystery broken pot garden, are there fairies and toadstools at the bottom of your garden or perhaps you’ve come up with better ways of putting your clay pots to use and making your garden unique.
Share your photos, ideas and projects with us on our Facebook and Twitter pages or leave us a comment below, and let’s get creative with clay!
