Autumn in New England sparkles with the harvest of fruit and foliage, the dimming toward winter blessedly slow, except for the decline visible in one of its most popular symbols – pumpkins. How quickly after Halloween the jack-o-lantern meets the compost pile, the cheerful pumpkin patch becomes a blanket of orange mush. What to do with the post-holiday surplus?
I’ve decorated for a number of November events and discovered that pumpkins make the most marvelous vases for fall bouquets, with the stems of bittersweet and autumn leaves, Japanese lanterns and silver dollars, grass tassels and wild wheat stuck in the moist flesh, furthering the notion that unusual items make the most appealing containers for plants. Of course, there’s always room for window boxes brimming with spring pansies and hanging baskets on the Victorian porch. Today’s plastics resemble exotic carved urns of pottery and stone, and wooden benches and metal mailboxes are often constructed with anchoring planters. But objects not commonly used for plants are conversation pieces.
Certain plants lend themselves to specific types of receptacles. Lavender is lovely in delicate china tea cups, and cacti in coarse blocks of hypertufa. Hollowed tree trunks serve as planters for woodland mosses, groundcovers and ferns in shade gardens, colorful zinnias dazzle in brightly painted coffee cans on the deck, and kitchen herbs in old tins on the window sill. Vines look well where they’re allowed to trail, in layered hanging baskets and tiered terra cotta. An exceptional display I saw once was an old bureau with plants tucked into, and spilling from, its open drawers.
Planters can be substantial focal points, the largest elements in an area of the lawn. I’ve seen antique wagons filled with sundry flowers in country yards and row boats overflowing with potted plants at the shore. Some gardeners’ flower “beds” are enclosed with wrought iron foot and head boards. On a smaller scale, wheel barrels and radio flyers make excellent receptacles for plants, especially since they are easily relocated seasonally. In our lawn, salvaged cinder blocks form a pyramidal wall to conceal the area where we store empty pots, the hollows filled with lavender and rosemary, lemon grass and golden thyme. On the opposite spectrum, certain planters are reserved for intimate settings. A porch set with children’s furniture and a tea set — pitcher, creamer, tea pot and cups –hosting a collection of violets, small succulents displayed like jewels in large shells — abalones and conches- — on the door step, and glass jars – miniature terrariums, jars, ceiling lamps – strung with wire or rope and suspended from a tree branch. In complete contrast to the fragility of these are the coarse farm implements which make perfect planters. Watering troughs, antique threshers and seeders, buckets and milk cans are all visually strong enough to support foliar plants, like coleus and caladium, and provide contrast for delicate flowers, such as alyssum and baby’s breath.
Repurposing items for garden use has become as popular as everything vintage. Old crates labeled Coca-Cola, old wash tubs from our grandmothers’ laundry, old milk boxes from the era of the milkman and door to door delivery stir a sense of nostalgia in the same, gentle way as old-fashioned flowers. Succulents nestled in old boots remind us of the wearer, or the season, old colanders stuffed with pansies of a favorite cook, or a kitchen. Bird baths and fountains make beautiful center pieces for annuals in perennial gardens. Pallets, placed horizontally or vertically, host leafy vegetables, and old tires hold plants in their hollows, or form the borders of small, circular gardens. When the American Thread Company closed, many lawns were graced with wooden cable spools transformed into planters. In our gardens, an unusable tin pail holds black sweet potato vine, silver licorice plant, and scarlet verbena, a coal bin brims with pastel nemesias and petunias, a small wooden tool box on the picnic table contains herbs and a large one forms a garden wall with a row of assorted coleus. Large plants can be set in an old chair that has lost its cane seat. A personal favorite was my old wooden potty chair, its stenciled lambs frolicking with the pot of pastel pansies sitting in it.
Other favorite displays I’ve admired: a straw basket stuffed with petunias hitched to the handlebars of an old bicycle; a bushel basket tipped on its side in a perennial garden spilling a river of annuals; a wooden ladder on the ground, each rectangle devoted to a different herb; a step ladder hosting plants on each tread; small pots filled with flowers and hitched to the rail of a fence, or to some of the slats on an old shutter leaning against an old shed.
When the flowering season is over, the lawn empties of these ornamental receptacles as well as blossoms, but some of these decorative touches can remain as permanent fixtures, especially at the entrances which greet guests. The window boxes and the baskets suspended from lamp posts which contained flowers all summer and fall can be filled with pine boughs and box wood and brightly colored twigs in the winter, until they once again flourish with pansies in the spring. After summer’s coleuses and marigolds, the bronze tub at our front door becomes an autumnal display stuffed with chrysanthemums and surrounded by gourds and pumpkins, a Christmas decoration of evergreens and holly berries beneath the wreath on the door.
Our entrances are most hospitable when they welcome visitors and the seasons alike.