Container Gardening Ideas: Paint Can Used as a Cactus Planter!

by Ashley Cotter-Cairns
(Container Gardening For You)

Container Gardening Ideas: Paint Can Used as a Cactus Planter!

Image used under a creative commons licence with the kind permission of boeke and Flickr

Most container gardeners love a splash of color, but this is taking things to extremes.

Every couple of years, my wife decides that it's time to repaint part of the house. (I am thankful it's only PART of the house.)

And the consequence of that is, inevitably, that we end up with a bunch of old paint cans.

You can't even recycle or throw those away here -- once per year, you have to line up for a hazardous waste disposal day, and they are humanely disposed of (probably just dumped into landfill, but it makes us all feel better about our government's greenness).

So, this enterprising container gardener has come up with the genius idea of using their paint can for something fun. By planting cactus plants in the paint can.

There's two good things about this.

The first is, obviously, it's nice to see a paint can get a new lease on life, and not just rust away worthlessly.

The second is, cactus plants are not particularly colorful. I mean, some of them can be, but on the whole they tend to be fairly drab silvery-gray things with occasional flowers.

By planting them in a bright orange-red paint can, it certainly makes things a bit more cheerful.

Please use the Comments form at the bottom of the page to leave your feedback about this spiky red piece of recycled planter smartness, or click the arrows to see more unusual container gardening planters, including bathtubs and sinks, Barbie's Convertible Dream Car, and even a shopping cart!

More Great Container Gardening Ideas

Read our article on 'out there' container gardening ideas, and find out all the crazy things people grow their flowers in!