Galvanized Steel

Summer is really here and it is a hot one!  We have worked to clean up our gardens a bit, I should say a lot!  They have been sorely neglected in the past few years....other things just took a priority.  Anyway, as I have said earlier, my husband loves to garden and as a result receives a few garden magazines.   The "Cottage Garden" is a new one that I ordered for him as a Christmas gift and it is full of great ideas.  One of the the ideas is to use antique or old galvanized steel tubs, troughs, buckets, etc., for plantings.  Theses "tubs" give the gardens some dimension, height, interest, and can keep those plants that tend to take over, more controlled.  While antiquing with our family a few weeks ago, I was searching for some old tubs and my husband didn't really "get it."  I found one for a good price and snapped it up.  Then, on our trip through the Upper Peninsula for a wedding, we stopped at a cute little antique shop and hit the " mother lode!"  They had a lot of galvanized steel, at a great price, but we had very little room in the van.  I bargained and we crammed in what we could.  Then we came home and got to work....

 I love this great big tub, but also got another slightly smaller tub with a curved bottom, similar to the one I already found.  They weren't too rusty, but I thought that the  more used they were, the better they looked.  My husband drilled a few holes in the bottom of each tub....which was very hard for him to do!   After all, they were good tubs in good condition!!!

 I was thrilled to get what I call my "horse trough tub."  Perfect for a small herb garden!

 

 

 The old coal bucket was a great find.  Again, my husband was not so sure!

 

 This smaller bucket is oval shaped and what I thought would be perfect to hang, full of flowers.

 

 This is one of the curved bottom tubs, actually attached to this tree stump.  The tub has a name painted on the side, which makes it even more unique.  This is filled with beautiful shade plants.  I will take updated pictures later in the summer to show the plants, hopefully, spilling over the sides.

 

 I just love the way the coal bucket looks, so I took a few pictures of it.  My daughter helped me to pick the flowers for all of the tubs...I think we did pretty well!

 

 

 Here is the big flat bottomed tub.  We just sat this tub in the garden and filled it with color.

 

 Here is a closer look at the tub and flowers.

 We hung the oval bucket on our deck...we're waiting for the colors to spill over...

 This is the other curved bottom tub.  I wanted to try lowering it a bit into the ground because the "Black Eyed Susan's" tend to get so tall.  Also, this garden is located right at the end of our driveway, so I didn't want a planting too tall to hide the other plantings and flowers.

 

  I think submerging it a bit was a good idea...

 

 We planted the herb garden in the "Horse Trough Tub" on our deck.  It has full sun, is easy to harvest when we're cooking, and turned out really nice.  I love having it sooo close.

 

I love this use for these old tubs and buckets, and if you have one with a rusted out hole in the bottom, even better!  And, yes, my husband thinks they look great!

Hope you're having a great summer...try to stay cool!