Last year I did some container gardening, with a whole bunch of pots on my back deck. It was pretty fun and I wanted to do it again this year, but I also wanted this year's set of plantings to help make my back porch/deck a bit classier. Last year was for experimentation, but this year is for the cool version, or so I told myself. I figured that the best--read that cheapest and easiest--way to do this was to color coordinate my flower pots. Since last year I had a turquoise seat cushion and matching turquoise holders for my movable lights, this seemed like a legit choice for a color scheme.
So, I went to the home improvement store and bought a can of ridiculously bright turquoise spray paint. I went with a glossy Rust-oleum paint that is advertised to adhere to plastic and work well outside. Then I rounded up the planters and pots that I wanted to use, spread them out on a plastic drop cloth in my garage (it was raining outside) and started painting. Oh, yeah. And I decided that it would be super-fun to have my tomato cages match my planters, so I painted them, too.
To get a nice, even finish, I needed at least two coats of paint and a few pieces needed three. I also painted the sides and bottoms first, then flipped them up and painted the tops and inside edges. All this crazy painting meant that I ended up going back to get a second can of spray paint. I forgot to write down the name of the color, but luckily the one I picked was such a wild and notable color that I didn't have to worry about getting the wrong color of turquoise on that second store trip!
I painted almost all of the pots/planters, with the exception of two of my four smaller pots that were a darker turquoise already. I left these their original color to add what I'm thinking of as a "sophisticated color contrast." And then when I think that, I laugh inside. :)
After the base coat was done, I decided to add some more "sophisticated color contrast" [hehehe!] to a few other pots. These were the terra cotta and plastic pots and saucers for my hanging plant holder. For these, I bought a sample of a contrasting color of paint. I could have gone to a craft store, but those are far away. For less than the price of the gas for a round trip drive to a craft store plus the cost of a small bottle of craft paint ($3.75 to be more exact), I bought a small jar of lighter turquoise Behr Satin Gloss house paint. I used that to paint some designs on the terra cotta pots (some free-hand and some with painters tape) and saucers, and to paint one plastic pot completely. Fun note, painting the plastic using a sponge brush made it more textured and suddenly it looked like a ceramic pot, rather than a cheap $1 plastic version. Cool, huh?
After the designs were done, I coated the pots and saucers with 3 coats of indoor/outdoor glossy varnish (left-over from use in my Coaster and Glitter Shoes projects, actually). Then they were ready for planting. Here are a few pictures, but you can see even more of my new and *very* sophisticated porch decor in my up-coming post about this year's container gardening.
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