Repurposing

 Over they years I have got many things for the garden, to use in a different way, this brass coal bucket is a prime example, purchased second hand from a local selling page, it's new life as a pot for my Hosta's. Keeps the slugs and snails away for months, so the plant looks good and flowers, it's tough for outside use and years old. My other plant is in a metal bucket, which works well at keeping the slugs and snails off my hosta's. 

Other things change wildly, this huge fruit and veg metal stand, was purchased to grow flowers in, it worked early in the season, but soon looked scruffy, so I rethought it's use, now it keeps my larger stones to hand whilst looking good. Neither was the designers purpose for use. 

We had been looking for a water feature for ages, I would love a reflection pool but there is not enough space in our garden, this is a fire pit, which is perfect for our needs, adding a solar fountain and some stones makes it pretty and much cheaper than most other water features. The true joy is the little birds use this as a bath, we see them splashing in it every day. 

Even the smallest things can be reused, when my mum moved out of her house, she gave me her gardening tools, this handle was on her spade, which broke and has a new handle, I'm still using loads of her tools. Sadly I've never seen a robin sat on it, I do live in hope.

This unit was purchased second hand back in 1996, it's from a military officers room, we found a shop selling lots of things ripped out on refurbishments. It spent the first 9 years in our conservatory in our last house, it fitted in there perfectly, I took it over when moving here, firstly in my shed, now in the garage, it works perfectly for my garden bits, and not too deep. This photo was from when I first moved it into the garage it's now much fuller and messy.

I love to use old chimney pots, they add height and interest, I've got a few square plastic washing up bowls with handles, which are really useful, I've tried many things, I did try and few arches in different places, I even go this arch second hand, but it did not work so I sold it on to another happy gardener. My greenhouse has an clothes airer hung in the door space every summer to keep unwanted animals out whilst allowing air in, that was hubby's brain wave.  

I am a follower of Dave Northsider, he is a expert in reusing all sorts of thing on his plot, and I'm sure he will approve of my clever reuses, I use china kitchen pots and jugs for houseplants, infact anything can have a second life and in my house often does.