old railing ( photo / image / picture from AAnightowl's Garden ) the other half of the old railing ( photo / image / picture from AAnightowl's Garden ) cholla cactus in spreader ( photo / image / picture from AAnightowl's Garden ) Here is some of my garden junque... I got the railings from my church this summer. They wanted to put up new ones, so they let me have the old one to use as trellises. I tried and tried to post my rebar arbor, but cannot get it small enough in height or size to fit here. Sorry. Guess I will have to post it on GardenJot and post a link to that.
I love old metal railings, they are so cool as trellises. I saw one of those spreaders at a thrift store a couple of weeks ago but never thought about making it a planter....ummmmmm, will have to keep that in mind for the next time. Do you have an image manipulating program....Photo Shop, GIMP, etc? GIMP is a freebie and works much the same way as Photo Shop but I found it much easier to learn and has short cuts Photo Shop doesn't. Anyway, you can scale the image size to a width of 500 pixels then post it here. 500 pixel width is the max for forum posting.
I'd be tickled to find some of that railing! And I'm still holding on to a spreader that hasn't worked right for years. I think you have just inspired me to give it a new life.
I had had the cactus in the ground, but got tired of sticking myself on it every time I needed to weed that flower bed. Then I remembered that old broken spreader and it works perfectly. I have lots of photo programs-- Gimp, Paint, Photobie, Photoscape and a few others. I was working in Photoscape tonight. Paint does NOT do well for changing sizes, at least not for me. I have not played with my GIMP program in awhile, will have to try it soon for resizing photos. I have played around with painting pics with it. Well, they look like gradeschool art for me so far. GIMP is kind of pain to change file types, or to open their files. I was given an old wooden jenny lind crib this summer and put it to good use. The metal springs, I used for a trellis in my tomatoes. The wooden parts I used in several flower beds. I use old washing machine tubs as planters. One has lilies in it, and another has a Weeping Pussy Willow. One is empty at the moment. Broken/leaky buckets, plastic tubs of any kind, baskets, etc all make great planters. I have an old wicker magazine rack that I had hens-n-chicks in this summer, but I moved them out under my dogwood tree so they could spread out more. I havent replanted it yet. I made a planter of an old pink bird cage last spring. I put some creeping yellow sedum in it, and it is doing fine, though it is done for the year. I had had its picture in here, but it is lost in my computer someplace. Guess I will have to take a new one. I will try and resize some more pics tomorrow evening after I get home. Hey Toni, maybe that old spreader is still at that thrift store ? I would check it out just in case. My old broken spreader sat in my tool shed for years before it occured to me to use it as a planter. A cheap idea for huge tub planters: if you have a feed store in your area, sometimes the farmers bring the empty salt tubs back to sell. Around here they are only $4 if empty. I use good ones for water tubs for my animals, and leaky ones for planters.
http://gardenjot.com/garden/view/713/Rocky-Top Here are lots of pictures of my garden, some of which are too big to post here. My rebar arbor is among the recent ones. The wisteria vines had been growing on an ancient apple tree in my yard, but it came down in a storm a few years ago, and I was trying to figure out how to make an arbor for free when I remembered I had 4 large lengths of rebar. Someone told me they were easy to bend into shape. I didnt believe them, but I tried it and they were easy to bend after all. I bent each peice into a rough U shape, and stuck the bottoms far into the ground. The ground was soft from recent rains, so that was a huge help. I put them into the shape of a rough square, wired the sides together, and used a peice from an old washing machine for the top. The washing machine peice is in a circle, and used to be atop the tub to keep clothes from coming out, newer washing machines do not have this peice. I wired that up top for something for the vines to cling to and to hold the box shape together. My wisteria vines love it. That rose of sharon was already there when I made the arbor, and ought to come out, but I have not yet been able to dig it out so I can move it.
