Broken Terracotta Pot Planter

This is how it went down. I get parcels delivered a few times a week and my two terrorists now get so excited when they hear the postie’s motorbike. As soon as he rings the doorbell, it is game on. No matter where they are in the house or garden they always come running at high speed to get to the front door to greet him.

On this day they were outside when he arrive and it was a race between them who would get there first. They both came screeching into the kitchen sliding on the floor tiles and lost control, slamming into my terracotta pot. We have all seen those funny movies where the pot tips and spins on one side while the person tries to catch it before it falls and smashes. This was me but I was too slow and the vase fell over and smashed. And to make matters even funnier this is the doormat I made for my front door about a year ago, true story.

I do not have a before photo because I had no idea I was going to be doing this project. But basically, it looked like this pot but one side was not broken. As soon as I saw how the pot broke I knew I could upcycle it into a planter. I did glue some of the bigger cracks in the top to stop them from breaking altogether.

Under my entertainment pergola, I have this large built-in planter. It has been empty for the past year because my puppies kept digging up my plants.  I was hoping that now they are a little older they would stop this destructive behavior. It is also a perfect spot for succulents because there is a skylight above this area. Which makes it a great spot to store my pot plants in winter to protect them from frost.

Prepare the pot

The idea I had in mind was to have succulents in the terracotta pot and have some scattered around the bottom. I wanted it to look like they were spilling out of the terracotta pot. It is a good idea to partially bury the terracotta pot to prevent it from falling over. I left the stones that were already inside the planter to use as drainage and added some inside the pot to weigh it down.

Next, I added suitable soil before adding the succulents. The image below was what I had in mind from the start but low and behold they dug them up soon as I turned my back. I think I need to accept I can’t have nice things anymore. They do seem to have a favourite succulent which they like to destroy, so I replaced the broken ones with the type they don’t seem to bother with.

I left this project sit for a few months hoping the novelty would wear off and sure enough, it did. After they noticed I was no longer busy in that planter they just stopped. So every now and then I would just add another plant to finish off the look. The string of pearls was added to the top and will hopefully spread over time. The last photo was taken a few months later. So in the end my broken terracotta pot got reused into something great for my garden.

Add some finishing touches

I found this cool terracotta self-watering spike. They are really great, you can tell at a glance if you need to water your succulents. If the terracotta elephant is light in colour you know the soil is very dry. As soon as you add water to the soil the elephant will become darker in colour. The instructions say to add the water to the inside of the elephant but for succulents, I use it this way.

To finish off the look I added a grass-type plant in the top opening.

Thanks again to my destructive dogs, they were the cause of this repurposed project. They ripped up my futon so I repurposed it into a plant stand for outside.

I repurpose this old piano into a drinks cabinet You can find lots of unique DIY/craft projects on my website Unique Creations By Anita.