Beginner Gardening: Ceramic Planters, 0 by Plants4myPots

Plants4myPots wrote:
I'm an artist that works with ceramics, and I can tell you that drilling into fired clay can be mindbogglingly difficult. You put the word planters in quotation marks - which leads me to believe that they probably were not meant for that purpose. It is true that unglazed terracotta pots could be drilled through with a bit of effort and care... but if your "planters" are stoneware or porcelain - it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible to drill through.

Depending on how big they are, and when I hear "planter", I think "big" - you could fill them halfway with broken chunks of old flowerpots and then put the dirt and plant on top, and not bother drilling at all. I'd also suggest you pick plants that are relatively tolerant of being wet or dry, so you can just be careful when watering to keep them from getting waterlogged.

I did that with this pot with a rosemary topiary bush in it. I rescued the "planter" from a fellow potter because she was going to smash it because her decorations didn't come out the way she wanted it. In the picture, the "planter" is also sitting on top of another upside down pot, just to give it some more height. I had it living on this north facing porch from June to November in Rhode Island, and it did well. It continued to do well when I brought it indoors for November/December because the north porch didn't get any sun, and there was at least some morning sun in the south hallway. Now, I've moved back to Florida and it's back outside and hasn't been any worse for wear in the past month. My biggest problem will probably be making sure it doesn't get too much water from rainfall...

Good luck!