How to recycle pots in the garden?

As a utility object

Once repurposed, pots prove to be very useful and practical objects or materials, whether in the ornamental garden or the vegetable patch.

Here are some possibilities for incorporating your surplus and broken pots into a very virtuous cycle:

• to create an insect refuge: old pots are often seen turned upside down, filled with straw, and hung along a trunk for the simple reason that this makeshift shelter is ideal for earwigs, those helpful allies in the fight against aphids. They find a cosy straw nest (in the vegetable patch, place it on a teepee). To prevent the straw from falling out, place a small piece of wood or fine mesh under the straw. You can also create your insect hotel in the same vein, inserting several pots to attract earwigs and lacewings. Inside your pots, you have a choice: straw, practical, or pine cones. The larger your hotel, the more pots you will recycle! > Also read Olivier’s tips in Welcoming Garden Insects: 7 Shelters to Build Yourself and Virginie’s advice in How to Make an Insect Hotel.

Insect hotel made from recycled pallets with numerous flower pots (© David Catchpole), and earwig shelter

• to make nesting boxes or feeders: pots can be converted into nesting boxes, with the saucer closing it off; just drill the entrance hole to the right size. You can also use old hanging plastic pots to improvise feeders. Unperforated pots and saucers can serve as waterers. Check out the tutorial “Make a Robin Nesting Box with a Flower Pot” on La Salamandre’s website, Virginie’s tips in How to Make a Bird Box Using Flower Pots, and Ingrid’s advice in DIY: Bird Feeders.

An improvised feeder in a plastic hanging pot, a nesting box made from a terracotta pot, and small colourful plastic pots as waterers

• for labelling: mini terracotta pots can easily be transformed into pretty labels when turned upside down on a stake. By writing the plant’s name with a permanent marker, they beautifully and cheaply replace unsightly plastic labels or expensive slate tags!
• as a salad cloche: by turning the terracotta pot upside down again, chosen large enough this time, you create a cloche for blanching salads such as chicories (curly, escarole), or crambe (sea kale). The porous clay allows for good aeration, but it is advisable to fill the inside of the pot with some straw or dead leaves to block out the light.
• to protect the stump of certain plants: a large broken pot turned upside down works well for plants like clematis that need shade at their base (with mulch inside to prevent overheating!). Large pots or jars that are no longer usable due to cracks are also interesting to keep for covering frost-sensitive plants in winter, ensuring to fill the inside with well-dried dead leaves.

The pot as protection for vegetables or certain plants

• a twine dispenser: here’s another repurposed use for a flower pot with drainage holes, simple yet practical in the shed or garage: just take a suitable saucer for the pot, place the twine in it, and turn the pot over the spool. Let the twine come out through the pot’s hole, and secure it with a wooden clothespin (it looks nicer!) to prevent it from falling back into the pot.
• as an oya (or olla): once the drainage hole is reinforced, you can convert some larger pots into an irrigation system.
• as mulch: if you have many damaged terracotta pots, crush them into small pieces; this way, reduced to a sort of crushed brick, they will make an effective and durable mineral mulch.
• finally, always use shards and pieces of chipped pots to place at the bottom of your next plantings: their convex shape does not completely block the drainage hole and prevents drainage materials (clay balls, gravel) from escaping.

As a decorative object

Old terracotta pots make for an unusual decorative element and blend well into a garden with their terracotta colour, especially with homemade creations that will have the advantage of being original.

Here are some easy staging ideas to replicate:

• as a container for succulents: place your succulents in pots that can no longer be used (cracked from frost or old). Choose the most ornamental pots possible, with decorations or friezes. Some broken pots can form true basins, ideal for these undemanding plants. For more demanding plants, opt for a taller pot. You can also use your broken pot as a cache-pot.

Succulents are beautifully showcased in broken pots

• as a decorative element in a flower bed: for this use, it’s the beautiful large broken and damaged pots or jars that will take place in a flower bed, serving as true decorative objects. The patina of old and damaged pottery that we couldn’t bear to throw away finds its place in the garden, much to our delight!

This lovely unusable pot has found a new life at the foot of a magnolia

• dressing a bottle hedgehog: these vintage bottle drainers, prized by collectors, can be reimagined with pots to offer a vintage decoration, either on a terrace or in a very bucolic garden…

An old bottle drainer finds its place in the garden!

• as a tripod, totem, or pot curtain: Add verticality with a few pots placed head-to-head in pairs to form a column, or try creating a totem that allows for the stacking of pots along a rebar driven into the ground. Even more original, a curtain of pots on the same principle can even create a partition!
• some broken pots integrated into a larger composition: for example, in a beautiful terracotta planter (keeping the same material), the broken pots positioned at the bottom can add a bit more height to certain plants.

This eclectic mix of pots yields an interesting result! (© Leonora Enking)

• pots to paint: a somewhat vintage decoration idea, certainly, but a good one when the pots are a bright red (like industrial terracotta pots). Painting them in one or two colours can introduce colour to shelves on a balcony, provided the overall look is harmonious (same colour scheme with different patterns). If you choose plants that match the chosen colour (such as yellow Osteospermums and petunias), the result is charming!
• Finally, the more crafty among you can create a primrose theatre (Auricula theatre), a replica of those that were popular in the 18th century, by making a lovely wooden display with three shelves and a small roof, painted in a duck egg blue or slate blue, for example. You can recycle up to 15 small pots (maximum 10 cm in diameter), all in terracotta, which can be of slightly different sizes or shapes, to showcase a collection of primroses. The small roof will protect the primroses from the sun and rain.

a primrose theatre or Auricula theatre

Our tips

Recycled pots can, if not handled carefully, give a kitsch effect in the garden. The characters created from flower pots may not be to everyone’s taste, but they can find a place in a vegetable garden, serving as a scarecrow, for example.

To avoid any tasteless mistakes, try to maintain a colour unity in your pots, without overdoing the painting—unless in the same colour—but rather highlight the very aesthetic material of raw clay, its matte finish, and simplicity.

As is often the case with garden decor, be sparing and avoid overcrowding your spaces with too many pots in all directions. Surprise or originality will no longer be present.

To achieve beautiful ornamental results, accumulation effects are stunning as we have seen previously: several pots lined up on a ladder or on a homemade column will add a touch of whimsy and your own style to the garden, balcony, or terrace.

Draw inspiration from numerous DIY project books for the garden: new ones are released every year, well-made and always offering more recycling ideas.

… And you? Share with us your decor ideas using used pots in the garden!

Beware of mixing genres in the garden…