What types of pots do you use?

I was wanting to know what types of pots you all use for your houseplants.
I have spiders and wandering jew and can't decide which way to go with each. A few people have said they prefer not using plastic with the spiders.

I have my spiders in a plastic hanging pot- and so far its been fine and I think it looks nice.

I use ALL kinds of pots- whatevers around really!
I've mainly gone towards terra cota ones now though, since they're a bit cheaper than the plastic ones. But my plant collection has grown so much in the past year, that I have plants in butter tubs and diet coke bottles....LOL its kinda bad looking, but whats a college kid to do :)

I'm going to be taking ceramics in the fall and my plan is to make lots of planters-- I'm excited about it!

I keep my houseplants out for the summer, except for a few African Violets and some others that are on my kitchen counter. Most are in terra cotta, but when they are inside, during the winter heating season, the terra cotta pots are placed in deep saucers, bowls, fancy display pots so they can be watered thoroughly and not dry out from my forced hot air heating system. I use the deli containers from the market, the side dish containers from Boston Market (both tubs and lids are useful for this), yogurt cups to start seeds, and I have several rooted cuttings in decorative bottles and an old Moxie mug. My kids say I think everything is a flower pot!

I have both plastic and terra cotta, and they both seem to be doing equally well...but keep in mind, I'm new to plants and gardening.

Jennifer

BTW, I have wandering jew in plastic. I have no spiders, but I really love them. I'd like to know the answer to that, too.

CT spiders will grow in anything or nothing at all as long as they have a little moisture. My plants are outside all of the time. I really like the wire and cocomat baskets but the degrade over time. Spiders get bug too fast and I am constantly dividing them and it is much easier to dump them out of plastic. I stock up on the dollar pots at walmart when they get them. I give so many largish plants away that spending more does not make sense.

The cactus are all in terra cotta so they can dry.

I have used the pressed paper pots too-which the ferns love-but have had the bottoms drop out of those too.

Here is a wandering jew in plastic. It is gitting too big for its britches.

Here are some spiders in plastic.

Ah shoot! pushed the wrong button.

Some miscellaneous plants in all sorts of planters. Most of these will bloom late summer. Spiders are blooming now.

Hey CT, Hairy is big enough to share now. You ready for him? Such a pretty plant. (yes, there are spiders everywhere in the garden.) This one gets some sun in the afternoon and has a pink tinge to the leaves that my mama plant in deep shade lacks.

What beautiful plants. You all have such green thumbs.

Jennifer

Jdee, water, sunlight, and osmocote is all you need for hangers. I am an old 60's child who used to have a houseful of them. Now I live in a climate where they live outside. These are all easy to grow. Most are considered invasive in some parts of the country or world. Weeds confined to pots lol.

I keep the newer plants in plastic and the older established plants that I don't repot as much in terra cotta. That way if the babies start growing too fast (IE I get lazy and forget to repot) and they get too root bound I can just cut the plastic pot off. My spider did that. I rolled it and hammer it and pounded it, the sucker just wouldn't come out! Mere

Mere, ya just didn't wait long enough! Spiders will burst a plastic pot.

LOL.. I guess so! Andy wanted to take pic's of the ordeal, he got a hoot out of it! "Finally something you have no control over" he said. Mere

The only thing I found worse (other than ferns) was a potted red hot poker. Had to take an ax to it! Big fun! Fiona had a fit that I took an ax to her poker. Now everyone has pokers!

LOL, yeah I've done THAT a couple times. Spreadin' the love, I call it. I had let a pot of hens n chicks get out of control, from my grannie that she had for years and years and years. I cut it up with my jumbo craft scissors and gave them to my friends. There was like 50 or so. I guess that's what ya call a green thumb! What's a poker look like?? Mere

Here you go. One of DDs plants. got a couple tubers a couple years back and now everybody has one or nine lol.

http://plantsdatabase.com/go/818/index.html

Yowser, I was in San Fran last week and couldn't help but take pic's of the CRAZY plants out there. This is another one I've never seen before. ZONE ENVY! Mere

It is hardy to 6a. You can start them from seed but a tuber is better. Ya want one?

Things dry out pretty quickly here, so nearly all of my house plants are in plastic or glazed ceramic pots, except the African violets and Christmas cacti are in terra cotta pots. My spider plants are in plastic pots but they are outside where things dry out very quickly. My dad (in Pennsylvania) also grows his spiders in plastic hanging baskets and things do not dry out quickly there. He's not really much of a gardening person but he does love his spider plants.

Interesting question.
I kinda collect those cute little planters from the 30's and 40's. don't really use them though.
I have my cacti and succulent collection in every kind of metal container you can name. I was just going through some junk looking for something heavy enough and big enough to replant some cacti that are now top heavy in a plastic container someone gave them to me in. I have a mix of agave and escheveria in a washtub that looks pretty cool.
I have a huge split leaf phildendrum in an old rinse tub with legs. Looks pretty cool, and a cane begonia in a stainless steel tub from the inside of a newer washing machine. I have an old magtag ringer type machine stored for just the right plant that needs a home.
I take most of my plants outside in the summer as well. I set under an old shade tree in the yard and have my hanging baskets hanging from binder twine from the limbs. So I can set among my plants and read the paper , etc.
Since I farm I get lots of buckets. When the weather starts getting cold I put some stuff in buckets until I can find the right pot.

I went to the Dollar Store and bought plastic colenders. They came in deep jewel tones, purple, lime green, etc. Planted them with Sweet William and move them around the patio when I need a spot of BRIGHT color. I never would have thought of this myself, saw it on DG. Thanks, whoever posted it.
Pati

Ooooh! Frogs, what kind of a plant is Hairy? I just bought a plant last night at Lowe's that I haven't been able to identify yet, and I think it might be the same thing as Hairy (see pic). What do you think? Thanks!

Jenn

Jenn, He is a white velvet, aka hairy, wandering jew. Member of the tradescantia family. Yours look like it could be a young one. Do not faint if it dies back completely in the winter. They bounce back in the spring.

I keep my pelargoniums in terracotta since they will rot if they get too wet out doors. they all have saucers to sit in when they come in because with hot air heat, they dry out really quickly in the winter time. I have ferns in plastic pots, African violets in plastic but sitting in deep saucers to hold moisture, and several large hibiscus in plastic. I have a bunch of ornamental pots that I put the ugly ones into when they come inside, with no holes so they can hold a bit of extra water.

I use all kinds of pots for my house plants. I have discovered that when you use clay pots, they tend to need watering more often but that is ok too. The only thing i try to make sure of is that i use pots with drainage holes in them. Robbie

ok frogsrus how did you get the jew so nice looking igot one bout 3 months ago and it looks awfull compaired to yours

I use plastic and terra cotta. I like the looks of terra cotta better (although I do have to water those more often) and they're cheap, but since plants come in plastic containers, I have lots of those!

art_n_garden, I LOVE your idea about making flower pots in a ceramics class! I'm going back to school (again!) and have always wanted to take ceramics. Now I have a good reason. :)

Oh you should take ceramics! It's funny that this thread came back to life- because I had totally forgotten about my intention to do this until this past weekend- and I spent the whole weekend making pots. Big ones, small ones, funky ones, boring ones. It's so much fun to say oh I need a bigger pot for such and such plant, and then make it.
I also made some (what I'm calling) rooting glasses, so that I dont have to use kitchen glasses anymore! I'll post some pictures when I get them glazed and finished- they're in a kiln at school right now.

I want to know about that wandering jew too- mine are all kinds of scraggly and leggy. Do you pinch back a lot? Or is it just that lovely California weather?
Susanne

Because plastic is so much easier to maintain water-wise and many plants prefer it, but terra cotta is so much nicer looking, I tuck the plastic pots inside the terra cotta. Works great for me. I also have a nice collection of 30s/40s McCoy, Pacific, etc pots that I do the same thing with. Then, if a plant is not looking so great in the container I can transfer something else into it for show and baby the other one until it's feeling better and/or blooming. Some of you may recognize this McCoy pedestal and jardinaire. It sometimes has a huge birds nest fern in it, but that's recovering outside on the deck right now, so this has been in there since before Christmas. The bloom is just about gone but it's still holding it's own. In a plastic pot inside the container. I'd think a healthy spider would look spectacular in something like this. Thanks for the idea!

And here's a totally new thing for me. My friend Denise gave me this anthurium for my birthday, daring me to keep it alive. It's just sitting on lava rock! I put it inside an old restaurant ware compote and have poured water in there once a week and dropped a few grains of osmocote in there too. The blooms are spent now but the plant hasn't lost a leaf yet! I had actually thought of spider plants this way because of their fibrous roots. I think they'd do good on lava rock too. Worth a try.