Terracotta pots

All my terracotta pots look awful now. All white mildew and mold.

I spent ages trying to clean them last summer and i'm not relishing the thought of doing them all again!

Should I be painting them or replacing them with another type of pot? Or do I just have to deal with cleaning them every year? The few painted ones I have don't seem to be affected.

What is the best way to clean them? Most of them need to keep the plants in while this is done.

Many thanks

 

Hi Sanaku. Terracotta pots are porous, consequently they are a breeding ground for micro-organisms, and consequently go green and other funny colours in time. I doubt that you can ever really keep them clean, or even clean them properly once they have gone green. Personally I buy them for this very reason, they look natural.

Painted or glazed ones have a smooth surface, and if anything does grow on it it is superficial and can be wiped off. You could seal your pots, either with paint (ie coloured sealant) or with varnish (ie transparent). I don't know exactly what varnish you would use, you would have to ask. I would start by considering marine varnish, its designed to cope with the wet, and it will keep the barnacle off . :D

 

Thanks for the advice Peter. I hadn't considered leaving them was an option, I just assumed i should be cleaning them. I bought the pots as I liked that they were natural but don't remember seeing other peoples with the white & green all over them.

i've had a little google about and even found places selling the pots pre-aged with moss already on them!


I'll go out tomorrow and try to see them in a new light

 

Apparently you can age them quicker, by painting them with youghurt. I am not sure it it has to be natural growing youghurt or not. This encourages the growths. And even better if you add some moss, put it in the liquidiser and then paint that on, you are preseeding (if moss has seeds?) the pot with moss. However I have never tried it.

There are a few comments here. http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Home-and-Garden/Question78335.html I just Googled - youghurt terracotta pots. There should be some more stuff out there on the subject.

 

I agree with Peter terracotta pots appear better looking with the greeness/age to them and seem to blend more in the garden than spanking new clean ones.....but saying that I'm all for colourful pots too in the garden I painted my chimney pots bright purple and gold last year I'm sure I'll be adding something else to them this year nothing like a good change!Hel.xxx.

 

A good stiff wire brush I find gets most algi off or a very course sandpaper.
It is hard work though.

 

Make up a mild bleach solution using thin bleach not the expensive thick stuff and carefully brush or wipe this onto the side of the pots.

 

Believe it or not, we have the same problem here and we have LOTS of terracotta pots.

The best solution for us is to let them sit in the sunshine for a couple of days and then brush it off. I DO KNOW YOU HAVE SOME SUNSHINE IN THE UK ... OCCASIONALLY. :D

 

You just wait until summer LoL we will show you what sunshine is we are going to have a scorcher.