terrazzo planters
Garden pots and planters can be made out of almost anything that can stand up to sun and moisture. Clay, both glazed and unglazed, has been the main material of choice for natural materials, and it can assume all kinds of shapes, sizes and colors. Plastic wins out in the area of man-made materials, combining lighter weight, extremely mold-ability and options for all sorts of colors, usually combined with lower cost.
The three big pots I picked for the new plants on the roof deck are made out of a less unusual material: terrazzo, a concrete that’s been ground down so that you can see the polished aggregate mixed in with the cement matrix. Being made from concrete, they’re heavy–more so than low-glazed ceramic. But I really like their surfaces and the modern profiles of this line from Vietnam. Here’s a closeup of their surface, contrasted here against the leaves of Euphorbia cotinifolia:
Terrazzo planter detail
Concrete planters are used commonly in commercial situations because of their extreme sturdiness, but this terrazzo finishing technique looks to be fairly uncommon. (A web search found lots of outlets in Australia, but not the U.S.) But fortunately they’re available here in San Diego at Walter Anderson Nursery. They’re not super-cheap–maybe double the cost of similarly-size ceramic pots at home stores, but they’re not ridiculous, either.
August 13 2008 | Categories: gardening • landscape design | Tags: planters • pots • terrazzo | 3 Comments »
