Flowerpots and containers — mobile garden decor
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Even the most beautiful flowers, shrubs and small trees (especially if they are low) are often “lost” against the backdrop of a colorful landscape. But you really want to demonstrate them «one hundred percent»!
A simple technique known to designers, marketers and other professionals involved in the profitable presentation of a “product”: if you want to make a thing more noticeable, place it at eye level or highlight it with a solid background.
It would seem that everything is simple: the white wall (pictured on the left) is the perfect backdrop. But even the brightest single specimens of plants on such a large plane will simply be “lost”.
Wall vases of bright color will come to the rescue.
We advise you to choose all the juicy shades of red, purple, electric blue (bright blue) and orange. Green, brown and other background colors of the landscape are best excluded.
A small courtyard area or terrace can be visually expanded by creating a visual perspective. How to do this is shown in the photo below.
Concrete retaining walls were made on both sides of the site. The two tiers that they form create the very perspective that pushes the narrow boundaries of space. Naturally, without greenery, this technique will not work that way.
As for the open terrace, if it is surrounded by a lawn, it should be urgently “saved”. A hedge is planted around the perimeter, single tubs with small trees are placed (closer to the walls of the house) (one or two different ones will be enough). Well, on the terrace itself they place several different-sized, but preferably from the same material flowerpots for perennial, annual plants and shrubs.
In the garden, flowerpots, although they look like a foreign element, bring exceptional benefits to landscape design, emphasizing its style and creating the same dynamics.
Agree that in order to raise a composition of herbs or flowers higher, you will need to make an embankment or retaining wall. And it’s expensive and takes up a lot of space. A much more elegant solution is a group of outdoor flowerpots (in the upper photo they are welded from sheet Corten steel).
From of all ready-made options for outdoor flowerpots, ceramic products, thermal bowls and containers made of composite materials are of the greatest interest.
If everyone is familiar with ceramics, then what thermal bowls are so far known only to curious natures. They are made of plastic, the secret of such a street pot is double walls. They prevent overheating of the soil in the sun (an air gap prevents). At the same time, during the period of irrigation or rains, excess moisture accumulates between the walls, which is consumed later in the dry period.
Outdoor flowerpots made of composite materials are good for everyone: modern aesthetics, protection against overheating, refinement of shapes and colors.
One way or another, but most owners of estates prefer to create their own piece of paradise on their own. For them, the following sections of the article.
Wood — the most convenient material in processing. With a certain set of tools, creating a tub or outdoor flowerpot for a craftsman will not be much effort. The main thing is to choose the right wood. I advise dense breeds: oak, mulberry, Siberian larch, aspen. Such products will last more than 10 years.
Pine is an affordable and malleable material. But to extend its service life, treat the finished product with an antiseptic. Not simple, but the one on the label of which it is written that it is indelible. It does not save from darkening of the tree, but it will serve as a reliable barrier against the occurrence of a fungus that destroys wood.
It is not recommended to use waterproofing impregnations from the inside, since they can release substances harmful to plants.
Pots and flowerpots from boards are light enough and are considered mobile. They can be hoisted on a stand with wheels and moved not only to another corner of the garden, but also for wintering in a winter garden or cellar.
VASES FROM CONCRETE
The tree has one drawback — it does not allow you to make rounded shapes, which is possible in the case of concrete.
Here you don’t need any special tools at all — only forms for filling. There should be two of them: for the outer and inner contours.
The material for the molds is flexible plastic (construction or household buckets and basins are suitable), plywood and fiberboard (smooth side to concrete). There are ready-made forms on sale, but they will pay off only with commercial use.
The composition of the solution is the same as for pouring tiles. Holes in the bottom can be drilled later or made immediately using pieces of plastic pipe.
Given the stationarity of such products, the bottom can be completely abandoned so that excess moisture freely goes into the ground.
The recommended thickness of the walls of a flowerpot made of concrete is 6 cm. And the point is not so much in strength, but in the fact that the solution needs to be made of a certain density and it will not have sufficient fluidity to fill a narrow space (from 4 to 6 cm). You will get air voids, sometimes too large. It is not recommended to make the solution thinner, as it will begin to delaminate — after all, excess moisture will have nowhere to go. And delamination is a loss of strength.
Before pouring, the forms are thoroughly coated with oil (you can use vegetable oil or used machine oil. To paint over concrete, there are special pigments that cover the surface (ask at hardware stores), they are added to the solution at the stage of mixing sand and cement.
start work from lining the bottom and the bottom of the larger mold with a thick mortar. At the same stage, tubes are inserted into the future bottom of the bowl to drain water. As the walls rise higher, they begin to try on the inner shape — it is slightly pressed into the workpiece. Take out, checking the concrete mass for voids. Again they cover the walls, increasing the height. And so on until the edges of the larger bowl are reached. The smaller one is finally deepened into the workpiece and the product is allowed to dry at a temperature not lower than +50C and somewhere under a canopy away from direct sunlight.
The inner form is taken out in a day, and the product is removed from the outer one no earlier than a week later.
Another version of the composition for molding is the so-called hypertufa. Its components are Portland cement, perlite, peat. The ingredients are mixed in equal proportions and water is added until a mass is obtained, the consistency of shortcrust pastry.
The solution is applied to a pre-lubricated form from the inside or outside. Cover with foil and let dry for a week. The color is created using the same coloring pigment for cement.
Hypertufa products are less durable than concrete products, but they are more like natural stone and are moisture permeable, which is favorable for the root system of plants.
There is another material for making garden decor — gas block. But when working with it, it is necessary to avoid direct contact between the gas block and moisture, creating an insulating layer of concrete, at least 2 cm thick.
It would seem that there is nothing easier than using ready-made containers, applying a non-standard approach to their purpose. You look at photos from foreign sources and admire the originality of design solutions.
Under the conditions of our realities, such experiments look somewhat different, since kitchen utensils used for these purposes look much simpler and more primitive.
But if you still found a decent container in the attic (it should be made of galvanized or non-ferrous metal, without enamel), try experimenting.
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