Adding unexpected containers to your Flea Market Garden

Junk recycling reaches new heights when creating art and creative containers for the garden.

Just as we must go to the grocery to buy ingredients for a wonderful new dessert to make, so do we make necessary preparations for new and exciting features in our garden. A “normal plant container” can be admired, but for those of us who seek to “shake things up a little” in our gardens,  fun and creativity is just begging to be unleashed.

I like to add a little pizzazz here and there in the forms of unusual containers, both inside and out of my home.  A vase doesn’t have to be 12 inches tall and glass, it can be a pair of rain boots or an old purse.

Rain boots in the forecast…

A pocketbook filled with Spring

For inside containers, all really that is necessary if using as a vase for fresh cut flowers, is a “vessel” large enough to hold a quart jar filled with water, or even a vase that you already have. This “holding “vessel will not be seen anyway, such as in this picture of a bouquet of iris in an old purse.

Baby blue shoes

Children’s tennis shoes can be bought almost at any thrift store for as cheap as 25 cents. That’s how much I paid for these cute blue ones. I planted baby hens and chicks, and when I watered I just misted the plants every week with water. Succulents, such as hens and chicks, require little water, so they make excellent container plants. If they are going to be placed in the garden where they can get rain, make sure you cut small holes in the soles of the tennis shoes for drainage…

A red wagon , bought at an auction, becomes the home for some native fairies.

Tip:

For drainage, knock some holes in galvanized tubs, enamel pans, watering cans and wagons like the one above, with a drill, hole punch and hammer or my favorite, an axe.  Or just use containers with no drainage as vases.   ~~ Sue

And this mailbox looks adorable hung on the inside of my patio fence. Early spring lettuce for a salad flourished up until the hot rays of summer.

Galvanized buckets are becoming very popular for gardens everywhere and the perfect vessel for container gardening of herbs.

Baby shoes make charming ‘containers’

Let your imagination run wild and start hitting those thrift stores and spring yard sales as soon as possible. As I said in a presentation to my local garden club, “If it will hold dirt, PLANT IN IT!!!!!! ~~ Jeanie

Want More Ideas?
See ALL of our Flea Market Gardening ideas in this album, Creative and Crazy Containers.