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Many household objects can be used as containers in the garden. I love to use old chairs in the garden to add height and interest to an area that might be otherwise plain without it.
Many can be found on trash day, free for the taking. This one was without a seat, so I stapled a wire basket to the underside of the chair and added a cocoa liner. A layer of newspaper in the liner helps to retain moisture as cocoa liners can dry out easily in the heat of the summer. Fill with plants and good quality potting soil that contains a slow release fertilizer and moisture holding crystals.
By Dottie from Pennellville, NY
Once these old chairs have the seats go bad on them, unless you can refurbish them, they're usually pretty worthless. I found a great way to salvage them as well as come up with new planters.
By Nelda from Dallas, TX
Use an old recycled chair from the junk to make into a planter for flowers to set in the garden.
Approximate Time: 1 1/2 hours.
Get an old chair to use. Take the seat off and use as a pattern to cut one out of hard wood to withstand the weather.
Before planting flowers in the pot, turn it upside down and center in the middle of the new cut out seat. Draw around the pot. Now draw another line about 1/2 inches inside that hole. This will be your cutting line. If you use the first one your pot will fall through. It needs to be a bit smaller then the top of the pot. A roto zip tool or jig saw works nice.
Paint the chair and seat. You may want to paint or spray it with polyurethane to protect it. You may want to keep your chair old and rustic and not paint it at all. Screw the seat on after it dries.
Plant the flowers in the pot and place the pot in the hole. I used a hanging flower pot I got for Mother's Day but removed the hangers.
All ready to set in the garden and look at when you are out there working hard. It'll make your work seem more worthwhile.
By Little Suzy from Millbury, Oh
I love the look of chairs transformed into lovely garden pieces. My favorite type of chair is metal. They are so easy to transform, by removing the seat or just using the full chair. You can see how using chairs as planters while only spending a little money makes a real conversational piece in your outdoor space!
I have found that the kind of chairs with the seat missing are ideal for this. They are usually found that way in bentwood chairs because the seat is round.
I grabbed this chair from a neighbor's loose trash and decided to "recycle" it to make a chair planter.
While on a thrift store trip, I came upon this lovely metal chair that has the most awesome scroll work and curves! This powder room chair would make a great outdoor accessory for my garden. I love bringing the indoors out.
I occasionally see discarded chairs with perfectly good backs still intact.
Check out these photos.
This is an wooden chair that seen it's last days, so I decided to make a planter out of it by boxing in the seat part of the chair with some scrap wood then filled it with soil and plants.
By Sharon from Modesto, Ca
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By Colleen Moulding
From junk shop chair to garden feature!
First you need an old dining chair with a push out seat as this is where the flowers will be growing. If you haven't got one lying around in a garage or shed, ask around friends and family or offer a couple of dollars/pounds for one in a junk shop, charity shop or thrift store.
If you want to paint the chair this is best done first, although a chair showing signs of age looks very good for this project too.
You can get a very nice effect by painting your chair
with one colour, leaving it to dry completely, and then applying another different colour all over. When this second coat is completely dry, lightly sand off the second coat in the places that would naturally have received the most wear and the first colour will show through giving a very pretty distressed look.
When you have your chair frame looking the way you like it, fix a double layer of chicken wire where the seat used to be, in a bowl shape. A heavy duty staple gun is ideal for this job.
Next line the chicken wire with a good layer of pre soaked sphagnum moss as this will be needed to stop the soil falling through the wire.
When you have a good layer of moss in place, sit a plant pot saucer or small shallow dish on top of it, just to retain a little of the water and stop it dripping through quite so much. Then fill your moss lined chicken wire with soil or compost and add your plants.
Pansies look very good in these chairs, as does a cushion of busy lizzies. Climbing plants such as sweet peas will wrap their tendrils around the chair back giving another dimension to the display and a couple of variegated ivies or other trailing plants would look splendid curling down the legs.
About The Author: Colleen Moulding is a
freelance writer from England where she has
had many features on parenting, childcare, travel,
the Internet and many more subjects published in national
magazines and newspapers.
http://www.allthatwomenwant.com
You did an excellent job of giving directions on how to make a garden chair. Although I have seen them before I didn't have a clue how they were put together. A big round of applause to you! This is a project I just may try in the near future! Thanx! (05/02/2009)
By Susan Wolfe
You explained how to do this so clearly. It is a perfect project for me. I know I have 2 chairs for the job and plenty of peat moss, and marigold seeds, and many colors of paint.
Thanks! (05/02/2009)
By nancy
