Planters for the Patio Table and Yard

DesertRose
by DesertRose
8 Materials
$15
2 Hours
Easy
We enjoy our patio and deck area in the evenings with the cooler temperatures and dry breezes. It is difficult to grow gardens where water is so precious so I made some homey planter decorations for our patio. It gives it color and a cozy homey feeling as we relax after work is done. We also have a few planters down off our deck we can see while sitting at the table. Here are a few combinations of real planters and faux planters.
I love the old wheel barrow. My husband drilled holes in the bottom and filled it with potting soil. The petunias have filled it this summer.
Another favorite is our coal bucket. Notice we put mulch in all our containers to help hold the moisture in our dry climate.
One faux planter is pebbles in the faux prickly pear cactus containers. Although they are not real, people are surprised to learn they are stone and not real cacti.
I bought a drink caddy a while back and never used it. I decided it would work better as a condiment caddy, but that too was not used. Today it became a planter. I love the metal and glass combination with the wood handle on it.
I filled the jars nearly full with pink sand, added colorful pebbles and faux succulents.
I removed the lids from the condiment containers to make my last planter, a wagon box. You can see I used paint on a sponge to make the wagon look old and used. I glued the "wheels" on and painted them also. Gorilla glue is great for this if you have time to wait for it to set real well. The incense burner boards I just happened to see in the crafts and thought they would make a nice handle. I painted a craft stick also, and strapped it on with some boot leather.
After I painted the lids for wagon wheels, I glued some rawhide pieces on them to give the impression of spokes.
I roughly painted the planter box with brown over gray to give the wagon a used appearance.
Here is the wagon finished, and one more planter we love is our whiskey barrel.
I do not know what we would do without planters in our dry climate. We love the sunshine, but plants do need moisture often in the heat. You cannot see the barrel, but believe me it us under all that beautiful growth!


Here the new ones today are on the patio table. I love the wagon best of all.
Love my patio table decor, especially the mason jars and wagon.
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  2 questions
  • Rynn Rynn on Jul 28, 2018

    On the faux cacti made of stones, how did you make the 'prickly' part ? I have seen some examples of stones painted to look like succulents, but none this good.

  • Sue Sue on Jul 28, 2018

    Same question as Rynn! I live in high desert with tons of cacti but I hate getting pricked by them & would love to make ones that won’t get me!

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  • Jennifer Jennifer on Jul 28, 2018

    They are all so pretty and full of color!! Love them

  • Carey Carey on Aug 20, 2018

    I have a wheel barrow that I was debating what to do with in the near future!! I love your idea. Since mine is a deep one like yours and to big for me to handle as a full wheel barrow (It was perfect for my husband, but not for me at all. I think that I will line it with some pool liner to protect it from rust, Paint it so it will be pretty, put some rock in the bottom for drainage rather than putting holes in it. We get so little rain that with to much drainage, things are just to short on water. An uncle once told me that you have to watch bags of potatoes to be sure that they were not "Stove piped" I didn't understand what he meant, so he explained that they used to put a stove pipe in a potato bag and put big potatoes around it and then fill the pipe with small potatoes. Removing the pipe left a bag that looked like it was full of big potatoes but had mostly small ones. I am thinking that you can use this same technique to put a soil wick into a large planter so that water that is trapped in the rocks below will be wicked up to the flowers that we want to benefit from it.

    • DesertRose DesertRose on Aug 26, 2018

      Carey, yes, you are right, that is an excellent idea too! Thanks for sharing.

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