How to Recycle a Rusty Pan to a Succulent Pot in a Pot InstaChallenge

Stacy Davis
by Stacy Davis
6 Materials
$30
1 Hour
Easy

One of my favorite tags to follow on Instagram is the hashtag succiepotinapot. The people in this challenge are so creative. I have had two galvanized chicken water pans sitting in my yard rusting away for quite some time. I didn’t know what to do with them. I researched cleaning the rust off but these were really rusty. Honestly, several times I just about trashed them but I guess I knew one day, I would come up with a solution and a new use for these two pans. Are you holding onto something that you just know someday you will be glad you kept it but right now it sure looks like trash? I turned to Hometalk to see who had battled rust and won and I found a woman who used rust reformer on her patio furniture and thought “that’s it” and I went out and bought some.

I brushed out the insides after I took this picture but that is all I did to prepare these for spray painting. Since they will be planters, I wasn’t too worried about the inside.

Pretty cool...I only did the inside where the rust was and the outside will be spray painted white.

I spray painted the outside white and drilled holes in the bottom for drainage.

I was going for a vintage vibe. Now comes the fun part. I covered these holes with coffee filters to keep the soil from falling through.

I went around and bought a variety of flower pots. The watering can I already had and I really liked it but it ended being too big. I laid all the pots inside to see which ones would work. Most were too big for these shallow pans.

If I can find a deeper outer container, I will try the watering can.

For my smaller pan, I scored an interesting green “vase?” at Goodwill. I think the style with succulents will be a good combination. Tea cups are so cute in these arrangements but I didn’t see any that I liked at this store. (Funny side note: I don’t know how I missed that small vase in the bottom left of the picture. After posting this picture, I’m tempted to see if it is still there! 😂)

I went on Amazon and bought one of those combo “frequently bought together items”. 5 succulents (they ship 1 extra free, to try to ensure your satisfaction so you receive 6 succulents) 6 owl pots and 6 wood pot bases. I am going to use the owl planters in a future project.

Also, it included this handy dandy squeeze waterer.

I went to Home Depot and bought cactus soil and some items to make my own succulent soil. I also bought black sand and two colors of gravel.

I arranged the items to resemble a flower bouquet.

Here are the items that I used to make my succulent arrangement. I have a video but I need to condense it down. It took 9 minutes to complete the project.

I am putting it at my front door as a change of pace.

It’s done. I need to get a paint brush and clean of the sand from the succulents but other than that, I super pleased with this project.

Unboxing my succulent plants from Amazon.

Resources for this project:
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3 of 4 questions
  • Mike Rose-Dinwiddie Mike Rose-Dinwiddie on Jun 02, 2019

    Did you remove the plants from the plastic containers? I'm sorry if seems like a dumb question, but I had to ask.

  • Linda Thomas Linda Thomas on Jul 12, 2019

    Can succulents be planted in the ground

  • Sherri Sherri on Jan 03, 2021

    How did you keep from getting the white spray paint on the lip of the pans when you painted them?

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