Theme Planters For Your Personality.

Theme Planters For Your Personality.

Right now is an excellent time to make planters that express your personality.  The danger of frost is past and the nurseries are awaiting your pleasure. Even indoor gardeners can benefit from this idea all year long.

Shall we start with the shape of your planter?  Let’s start with a single tier and use an old wash tub.  Take a nail and punch a few drain holes in the bottom of it.  Decorate it as you see fit outside.  Donna Duberry’s painting style or even in the style of our beloved Bob Ross can transform your humble tub into a work of art displaying your theme before a singe flower is planted.  

Want to get fancy?  Set a second smaller tub on the middle of your first planter and plant strawberries, as an example,  with ceramic bunnies, squirrels and birds in the lower tub around the edge. Then make a planter with the Virgin Mary or the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the top tier. Even a third tier could be made with a smaller basin on top to make a place of honor for Buddha or the concept of your choice.
Also, plant cacti and sword plants in planters with desert themes (“Beeb,  Beeb!”) to encircle your birdbath to keep cats, squirrels, and kids away. And Wylie Coyote needs to be kept at bay, too.

Any shape planter will do from a large flower pot to a sunken kiddy pool with a beach theme for the back yard. A flower pot that looks like a thimble could please a collector of these varied treasures. (I have a cat flower planter that is its own theme already.) Don’t forget to incorporate your table fountain into a theme planter for tranquility.  

Next, You have tended your compost pile, watered it, turned it, added to its content with only vegetation, no fats or oils, and it is perfect. Raid your compost pile where the soil it rich with organic material to fill the tub with the best soil available.  In a pinch, buy potting soil and make due for your apartment balcony.  

Pick a theme for your proposed vessel of living art. What do you like?  Cats are my favorite but your passion might be horses, Corgi dogs, like the Queen Mother of England, dragons and wizards, or the famous landmarks of Paris, France.  What do you want to experience when you look at this creation?

Find appropriate figures that will stand the weather if outside use is anticipated or just features what will stand watering if inside or sheltered. Salt dough figures would not be suitable as they will corrode quickly and poison the ground, but ceramics are fine.  Set the figures approximately where they will live in your planter world.   

Select the types of plants you desire for your selected theme.  Catnip, herbs, marigolds, calla lily bulbs, could make a charming background for cats, petunias too. The bulbs will make lilies in time, of course, so your world will be a changing delight with the seasons. You can also pick the herbs for your kitchen and the creatures in the planter won’t mind.  

Upright growing plants like mother-in-law tongue, dwarf gladiolas, even bell pepper plants and the like will work in a planter with tall obelisks.  Plant a few plants such as moss, portulaca, and sedum around the tall figure to set it off for a better view of it.  Your ceramic young lovers can lounge in a mini-garden like that with taller plants mimicking trees in the background.  

A whole village from the Shire can inhabit the world you made for them. Mini varieties of flowers can be their gardens while taller plants can be their trees. Also, a banzai tree could be the centerpiece of a Japanese garden in the shelter of your patio with Dragon plants as background additions and whatever else pleases your creative muse.

Plant red, white, and blue flowers in a Support-Our-Troops planter. Add flags on other than wooden poles, and items of a patriotic nature.   Hobby Lobby has wooden stars already on dowels that would go in there ready for the names and pictures of your service people to be decoupaged on.  You will have to protect the dowels and the finished product from the moisture.  Get a can of sealant and protect them with a few thin coats sprayed on, left to dry, and sprayed again to seal the artwork and wooden stick.   A glob of modeling clay could be the base of a stand with the tributes inserted away from the moisture of the soil. This would be colorful and practical all at once. (This idea can even be used for houseplants:  give them a theme.)

Holidays could be a theme with flowers of a single color in planters. Accent a feature in your yard with a planter that carries the same theme.  A small wishing well planter could stand beside the larger wishing well feature in your front lawn.  Dear in a planter could grace the dear figures prancing across your landscape.  

The sky isn’t even the limit for rich imaginations and the creative muses: make planter with themes for your lodge, fraternity or church are basic.  How about mini-planters for shut-ins who can appreciate the outside being nearby.  A Happy January planter can brighten anyone’s darkest month of the year. Large planters for graduation festivities and birthdays (plan ahead) are welcome and unique, especially if they have culinary herbs or food producing plants that will produce in season. Little graduates or birthday, anniversary, retirement party favors can populate these planters as appropriate. Childhood themes for children will spark wonder for children and grandchildren. Young ones need to learn in a positive way to love plants and living things.

Ever think of a set of wedding planters for the ceremony which double as gifts for the bridesmaids and groomsmen?  Potted plants can easily be transformed into wedding fare with accouterments from the craft shop. Make special ones for the best man and maid of honor, parents on both sides, and even the flower girl might like the attention of her own small planter to care for like a big girl.  A small trowel and rake go with this gift if it is for a wedding especially with a child who is just learning the gardening craft.   ? ? ? ? ? ? ?