Good ideas!

Where did you find the ones in your last picture?

Great ideas! I really like using different types of containers ... LOVE the rain gutter planter!

Home Depot has bright orange five gallon "Homer's Bucket's for several dollars each.

Near the bags of concrete, or one isle over, you may find really big, really sturdy troughs for mixing mortar and concrete.

These next two aren't containers, but they should be right near the concrete section.

"Remesh" makes a great trellis for tomatoes or climbing vines. It's like a 5'x5' section of stiff welded fence, but with squares around 12" across. Much lighter and cheaper than hog panels.

A lighter and narrower form of remesh is a "Masonry Ladder", which ought to be displayed somewhere near concrete products. Idea from Xeramtheum.

http://garden.org/ideas/view/X...

Here's a list of where to ask for free 4-5 gallon pails:

car washes
burger joints (pickle tubs)
school cafeterias
restaurants (especially Asian)
bakeries & doughnut shops
delis
supermarket bakeries
supermarket delis
painters & drywall contractors (if they don't use plastic-lined cardboard tubs)
Home Depot ("Homer's buckets" or "Leaktite" in the paint isle 10/$30)
cat peoples' kitty litter tubs (maybe less UV-resistant)

And you can turn a bucket into a self-watering "eBucket" by following Gymgirl's pictorial tutorial:
The thread "Make an eBucket!" in Vegetables and Fruit forum

Great ideas Cheryl. I love them all, the troughs, gutters and especially the concrete sewer blocks.

Great ideas. Head out to the Builders Supply places where they sell Masonry Supplies, sand, stone and concrete. They have terra cotta pipes, flue liners and poured concrete and masonry meshes that come in all types of sizes and shapes that work very well as trellis. The well part of this water feature came from a local mfg of poured concrete products. They make sewer pipes, steps and other types of products. We just dug a hole, dropped it in and tiled the top edge.

Don't forget to check out the Livestock Supply places as well. This feeding trough made a very interesting water feature.
A little before and after on this large terra cotta sewer pipe and these cement pipes don't look like much now but they will be just beautiful next summer with a couple of spider plants coming out the top. Might even try to add faces to them.

HollyAnnS said:

Lovely water feature, Holly!

Thanks for the info on where to find products. I still haven't found anything but the standard cinder blocks, but I'll keep looking.

Great ideas Hollie, and beautiful water fountain.

I saw a photo once where someone had cut a 2-foot length of huge-diameter sewer pipe, set that upright, and used itg as a circular bed or planter. It must have been 3-4 feet across!

RickCorey said:I saw a photo once where someone had cut a 2-foot length of huge-diameter sewer pipe, set that upright, and used itg as a circular bed or planter. It must have been 3-4 feet across!

COOL!!!

Love the cinderblock idea! I've only seen weeds growing up through them before

I have seen terra cotta flue liners used to grow herbs, keeps them somewhat separated. Also along a brick walk like raised edging with flowers growing in them.

I wondered how they cut that honking huge concrete pipe. Culverts? Maybe an angle cutter with a masonry wheel. A lot of work!

It looked a little like an Easter Island statue had put down some Giant Dixie Cup collars.

Great ideas and inspiration! Now, tell me this: I have a stack of kitty litter pails--those square ones. Is there any paint I can use to cover up the school bus yellow color and product name on them? They would make great containers!

There is the paint made to use on plastic garden furniture.

I painted a couple of plastic pots last summer with a Krylon Hammered Metal paint that was made for use on plastic. I had 2 plastic pots that looked the same but were different colors. One was terracotta colored and the other cream colored. It worked very well for me.

I did a search on Krylon. Looks like I could easily do that. Have to buy the litter anyway, so a couple of cans of Krylon for plastic, not much more investment than that!

Before you paint them you could use a hole saw to cut a few holes around the sides and make a strawberry type pot . There are a couple of other type of treatments you could try some mosaic work on them.

If contact paper comes in a waterproof variety, maybe stripes or appliques in patterns?

Gutters work well for me as window boxes because they're almost invisible. The plants grow over them in the summer and while empty in the winter, they blend into the siding well.