Addicted to Blue Pots

By Carrie Lamont (carrielamont)
May 06, 2008

We each have our own secret addictions. This is my confession: I am addicted to blue pots. Plastic, clay, terra cotta, stoneware, even the styrofoam ones look pretty good to me.

When you look at the picture on the right, you might see any one of a number of things.  You might see that the garden hose has been carelessly left in the picture, and that the pot needs to be washed off and you would be right.  You might notice that those impatiens really aren't happy in that much sun, and you'd be right again.  You might be able to tell that the picture was taken at a funny angle - right again.  You might even think the impatiens should be healthier and flowering more.  When I look at that picture, I only see one thing, my beautiful old blue pot.

I used to do ceramics as a teenager, and the one pot I was always trying to throw was a pot for plants. The one glaze I was trying to mix was the perfect blue glaze. I never did manage to throw the perfect pot for plants, drainage hole, matching saucer and all. (I think my dream pot was a little bigger than my talent.) Nor did I ever find the right recipe for any one of my favorite colors of blue. But I started collecting pots. 

Now I'm older, much older.  I know that good pots are expensive. Every once in a blue moon, I'll splurge and buy a new blue pot. 

Some years it will be a heavy, stoneware pot like this one, to the left, which has weathered many New England winters without complaint.  Last year I went crazy and bought a whole bunch of beautiful blue pots at a local craft supply store. Although the pots were very pretty, they were not weatherproof.  Some even had blue stripes, which I liked, although not everybody was fond of them.  The seams between the stripes were the first things to go when it froze.

I even painted some pots blue.  First I tried spray painting some plastic pots blue.  But I did it quick and dirty, not carefully, the way Melody recommends in this article about refurbishing old pots.  As you can see, that didn't work very well. 

But then I swiped some blue latex paint on a plain clean terra cotta pot with a sponge.  I liked the way that came out, and since there's a tender plant in it, it comes in for the winter anyway. Someday soon, I'll paint its sibling, the bigger matching plain terra cotta pot.  

Once I got to thinking about blue pots, I started thinking about the some of the blue pots my friend has.  These lucky pots are never subjected to freezes and thaws, because they're in California.

I like to think that having so many blue pots gives my container plants a unified look, but maybe not. There are still a lot of motley other containers mixed in, mostly because people give them to me.  I know I shouldn't admit this here, on Dave's Garden, but some days the plants are just there to fill up the pots.  Of course that doesn't explain all the plastic pots overflowing with plants; there it's the other way around. As long as they are blue plastic, of course!

Here are some more shots of my blue pots... 

About Carrie Lamont   Carrie has two teenage daughters, which is exhausting all by itself. She has been married for eight delightful years to her husband, who works for an airline, facilitating Carrie's frequent need to travel. She is forever coming up with crazy and irreverent schemes and trying to get others to do it her way, but is learning to be humble as she ages. Carrie has a masters degree in Music, and sings as she gardens a small urban plot from her wheelchair.

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Discussion about this article:

Subject Topic Starter Replies Views Last Post I Love Blue Pots Indynannyof8 30 99 Oct 30, 2009 3:05 PM painting clay pots elmerfudd 1 3 Jul 15, 2009 1:39 PM Anything can be a pot Shellsort 1 26 May 12, 2008 3:29 PM Potted insanity... podster 3 49 May 7, 2008 10:09 AM Congratulations... ottoson 1 28 May 6, 2008 6:08 PM

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