Gannett News Service
A straw hat is home to two types of thyme and red Gazania (above). Sedums grow in a retired pair of boots (top).

Easy, inexpensive gardening is old hat: Use what's available

DIANE HEILENMAN, GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

Originally published June 23

Serious gardening calls for selections in hard-scape and landscape that endure to another generation. Serpentine brick walls are nice.

Serious gardening calls for sculpture, tastefully placed.

Get real.

Real gardening, which most of us do, makes do with what's around, affordable and modestly entertaining.

That's how the Hat Trick evolved.

A favorite straw hat that had split from too much use was hanging on a hook with a few other too-worn-to-wear-but-too-nice-to-throw-out straw hats. A garden talk loomed.

What to say? What to do?

The Hat Trick, of course!

Here's the formula:

-Take one old straw hat and staple, stitch or hot-glue fabric, screening, shade cloth, whatever across the head opening, leaving one edge free.

-Line with dampened sphagnum moss, then stuff with potting mix that contains slow-release fertilizer. Staple, stitch or hot-glue the fabric opening once it is stuffed with soil.

-Make a slit in the straw or use a pre-existing one as I did. Plant.

I used the favorite design formula for any container: one plant that hangs, one that spikes and is airy, and one that is bulky and colorful, bigger than the rest.

Also, be sure to select plants tolerant of similar growing conditions, dryish in the case of my two kinds of thyme and one Gazania, a clumping, daisy-like plant.

Engage in other tricks.

There's the Boot Trick or the Chair Trick, both ways to recycle old items.

Planting a boot is pretty self-explanatory.

To do a chair, you replace the bottom with window screening, stapled to the wooden frame of the seat so that the "seat" is deep and droopy, the better to hold enough soil to plant in. Line this "container" with damp sphagnum moss. It will help moisture stay in the "container" and also restrain soil dripping out with every watering.

Add potting soil. Don't use dirt. It will be too heavy. Either buy potting soil with fertilizer in it or add a handful or two of slow-, three-month-release fertilizer.

Plant, being sure to over-plant. You want a finished look from the beginning. You don't want to wait all summer to have it look good in the two weeks before frost kills the annuals in the chair.

You can use perennials, but only if the "seat" is deep enough and you can bring the chair onto an unheated porch over winter. Even then, you will have to carefully monitor water and cold. I'd advise annuals even if you will have to replace them.

The chair -- unlike a straw hat -- might last through two seasons if you can put it under cover over winter.

What else can you plant if you are not hampered by a need to be serious?

A pair of tall boots. A birdhouse. An old chimney pot. The unused dog house. A wheelbarrow is a bit of a cliche, but, oh well.

With whimsy and cute things, it's often wise to either use your cleverness sparingly, in a single hit that can be admired, or go in the other direction entirely. Get carried away and fill the entire garden, porch, patio with your creations.

Anything in between can look a bit, well, junky.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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