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Garden color: Painting galvanized tubs

Unify your garden with a color scheme

Like many of us, Ann Elias likes planting and decorating with galvanized containers in her garden and came up with a unique way to combine her favorite color, aqua,… and galvanized grey. Stripes!

Ann Elias’s garden

Anyone who visits Ann Elias’s garden will know right away her favorite color.  Teal blue  Cool teal, aqua or turquoise make great accent colors for a garden because there are no aqua flowers, so every flower color is vibrant and contrasting next to it.

Collecting galvanized

Once you get bitten, there’s no cure when you begin collecting galvanized containers.  Any metal just lasts so long in the garden,..making it very practical.  Then the cool neutral color and rough nubby texture fit our vintage style and go well with any flower.  Some of us still have galvanized containers our ancestors used.

Part of Ann’s collection, before

 

Buckets get masked off and painted for a special project

A theme running through the garden is Ann’s galvanized tubs, all painted with teal blue stripes and lettering. She masked off the area on either side of where the stripe is to go and brushed on the paint.  She used Annie Sloan’s Chalk Paint in ‘Provence.’

Unify the garden with a color scheme

  • Red and turquoise
  • Rust and Cobalt blue
  • Purple and yellow
  • Dark blue and turquoise

Ann says, “I just like that way it ties all my different tubs and trash cans together, giving them the same colored stripes it becomes more of a collection then just random tubs.”

Ann Elias’s ladder planter, before and after

 

Ann put ‘feet’ on some of the tubs for in front of her garden cottage and more mounted on furniture legs.

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Ann’s galvanized tubs sit on just the legs of discarded chairs

 

 

Ann’s garden path and her ‘Welcome’ tub planters

 

Mop bucket planter

 

A tub makes a good base for a ‘garden tool’ mailbox and it planted and labeled with Daffodils

 

Ann’s garden room, The Lady Lounge, all decorated in teal blue

Ann arranges the tubs on either side of her garden room, at the garden gate and in her amazing butterfly garden, below. See Ann’s butterfly garden extraordinaire

 

Galvanized trash barrels for Ann’s butterfly garden containers

 

Ann’s garden gate with overflowing tubs is your view when you visit!

Other colors schemes for flowers in the garden

  • Red, Blue, yellow orange
  • Falu red, chartruese, like Ann’s tubs above
  • White,…all white!  A Moon garden
  • Pink, lavender, pale yellow
  • Green,…all green! Foliage and green and white flowers

So,…what’s YOUR favorite color for garden accents?  What is your flower color scheme,…any favorites?  

Sue Langley

Sue Langley, a passionate gardener and photographer lives and gardens with her husband and Corgi, Maggie on 7 acres just south of Yosemite, Zone 7 at 3000 feet. She manages the Flea Market Gardening Facebook page and website.

View Comments

  • Nancy DeVries says:

    So Very Pretty!! Would Love to have a Ladys hang out like this LOVE IT!!!

  • Amy Cisneros says:

    Oh my, how wonderful a lot of work I'm sure!! I love yellow in my garden, along with red I bought several small pots that were all ready painted and glazed all kinds of color's at a yard sale. I have purple, red, yellow, aqua, blue I just need to figure out what herbs, to plant in them. I've stop getting garden stuff , i just have to small of a yard to have to much or it looks like my yard is a thift store, I want it to be fun and funky, just not so cluttered.

  • Kathy Vause says:

    I have several different garden vignettes going on that are just starting to come back to life (zone 4-5). My front courtyard is reds and yellows. My Victory garden is r-w-b. My patio garden is purples and yellows. I have a multi-colored day lily garden, a rose garden, a vegetable garden and my holly hocks garden. Love, love, love the potting benches. Can't wait to make my own. I love this site, and this is my favorite newsletter so far. You are my Thursday morning wake -up treat. You sooooooo inspire me. Thanks for making my day.

  • I just wanted you to know, that I am so grateful, for this machine, your site, and all the wonderful, talented people that come through it............

  • Absolutely love the colors and all the rooms you have made in your back yard. What did you make the large ball topped piece from?

  • Adella Garley says:

    I love what you do. I'm just getting started, and no one has really answers my questions. How can I add color to my old galvanized buckets, tubs without using harsh chemicals. The chalk paint looks great but I would like something thinner, and does the chalk paint need to be sealed? Thank you, adella

    • Sue Langley says:

      I don't know if you consider paint to be a harsh chemical, but if you don't, you can thin water-based paint with water. Yes, for outdoors you need to seal it IF you want that protection...
      Best place to ask questions and get a quick answer is our Facebook page, if you have an acct.

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