alternative to garden plant pots

Hi all
Just wondering what anyone has used as an alternative to plant pots, hanging baskets, garden tools, furniture...... well just anything to do with gardening infact

I'll start it off

We made a garden bench using a railway sleeper we cut off about a foot at each end placed them on their sides meaning the non sawn end down placed the long piece on top and screwed them together hey presto a very sturdy bench which the kids use at the moment to get up and down from the trampoline.
All ideas welcome :thku:

 

I used the clear, plastic salad box from our old fridge when we bought a new one. Makes an excellent mini-greenhouse for keeping tender seedlings protected in Spring.

 

Shiney,a lot of the trampolines have net enclosures with them now so that the kiddywinkles can't fall off of the edge,though having said that my friends daughter and son were juming around on theirs when they clashed ansd the four year old suffered a broken leg and ended up in plasters00k

 

I'm all for finding 'other' uses for things and recycling.

When one of my plastic water butts split, I cut off the bottom 8" or so and used it to plant my mint, the top bit has become another compost bin.

An old cheese knife is brilliant for getting grass out from between the slabs on my patio.

With permission - windows from a skip for cold-frame making.

From somewhere I acquired a deep, white polystyrene box with a lid - replacing the lid with a bit of perspex has made a warm and cosy 'nursery'.

When (no matter what I tried) some old solar lights stopped working, I used the plastic 'shades' to put over new tender plants. The hole in the bottom is just the right size to pop in the ground, they make effective slug/snail 'stoppers' and the wider top allows for growth and easy watering.

Empty washing up liquid containers I cut up for plant labels, nice and long so they can be pushed well into the ground.

Plastic cream pots with lids make great containers to keep anything and everything in, especially in the greenhouse (you can usually remove the labels which are just plastic and folded underneath the pot itself).

Spray bottles which have had anything in them - usually some sort of domestic cleaner - when thoroughly rinsed (and rinsed again) have innumerable garden uses. With the labels soaked off a permanent marker allows you to keep one bottle for each use, so no danger of putting a bug spray in something you may previously used for weed killer.

I could go on, but am in danger of boring people to death now :ywn:

 

"An old cheese knife is brilliant for getting grass out from between the slabs on my patio." - I use one too and it's much better than the 'tool' I bought.
I've used buckets for flower pots in the past.
Ice-cream tubs for storing things in.
Mop handles for stakes for beans- cheaper to buy a new mop than just a new head so I'd acquired several.

 

I think I have posted these before here at GC, but I'll post them again. I saw this car at a garage over near Shap in Cumbria.





Now thats an unusual planter!!

Steve...

 

Brilliant Fidgetsmum I'm all for recycling and Bob is too as it says him so many pennies.

Maybe we should have a spot on the compost/recyling section for ideas to use in our gardens or maybe even a totally new section on what works well for us as I would certainly add to the posts.:thumb: Hel.xxx.

 

A good point and thank you for your concern but our trampoline has side netting all the way around to stop the kids from falling off.

 

Maybe we should have a spot on the compost/recyling section for ideas to use in our gardens or maybe even a totally new section on what works well for us as I would certainly add to the posts.:thumb: Hel.xxx.[/quote]


hear hear or is it here here sorry not sure which one is correct :dh:
what I mean is........I agree !!!!!!!

 

My youngest daughter did a Politics degree and, on the back of that, I bring you this totally useless piece of trivia:

The phrase, 'Hear! Hear!' is supposed to have originated in Parliament, possibly during the 18th century, as an abbreviation of the phrase 'hear him, hear him', the equivalent of today's 'Order! Order!'

There - and I thought that bit of useless knowledge would never come in handy!! :hehe:

 

I love bits of useless trivia as you put it .....it makes life alittle more interesting :thmb:

 

Totally off topic, but if it's trivia you want ... 'amok' is the only Indonisian word in the English language!

Back on topic.

I made a great cold frame out of those lengths of left-over laminate flooring which are too short to use but too good to throw away.

An old rotary line/airer, when attacked with a hacksaw, yields 3 or 4 lightweight metal 'struts', ideal for staking plants.

And finally. I have a cast iron parasol base, which doubles as the base for my rotary line/airer, allowing me to put the line wherever I want it - and no holes in the lawn.