Thinking outside the pot when it comes to designs on planters

WASHINGTON POST
Cruise down any residential street and notice how many traditional pots and planters grace the front steps of neighborhood homes -- usually identically placed on each side of the door.
They're nice, of course, but a bit too conventional for Bethesda, Md., designer Marjory Segal, a firm believer in visual surprises.
"Using something a little offbeat or different creates a wonderful hello at the door," said the woman whose own plants have resided on or in such eye-catchers as three-tiered antique French pastry stands and decoupaged hatboxes.
Segal said she likes unexpected containers of the sort that can be found in attics, garages, hardware stores or yard sales: vintage bicycles and kiddie wagons; retro suitcases and trunks; old wooden chairs; artfully arranged piles of granite cobblestones; even coiled garden hoses.
Mobile planter
Turning a bike into a planter, for example, requires nothing more than filling the basket attached to the handlebars with flowering plants. A pair of side baskets adds even more punch.
Segal lines the bike basket with cocoa matting, which camouflages containers: inexpensive plastic or metal pots from garden and home stores, or disposable foil roasting pans from the supermarket. After filling the containers with plants, she hides all the exposed foil and unattractive gaps under mulch, moss or river stones.
Ah, yes, stones.
Segal is a fan of creating large and small "planters" of cobblestones. Arrange a small circle with four or five stones and pop a potted plant in the center. A series of clustered stones can line a walkway. Form a large cobble mound on the lawn and tuck assorted herbs or flowers into the crevices.
To give a covered porch the Ralph Lauren globe-trotter look, Segal scours thrift shops and yard sales for old, hard-sided fabric suitcases. She stacks the baggage, leaving the top case open and filled with pots. For an upright steamer trunk, she slips containers into open drawers and compartments.
Old metal picnic hampers and tins, footlockers and even distressed wooden chairs with pots set out on the seats work well, too, she says.
Here is simplicity itself: a brightly colored garden hose coiled near the front door with potted flowering plants in the center.
"Look around your house and find anything that amuses you that will make a statement to welcome friends and family," she said. "What's the old saying? 'You only have one opportunity to make a first impression.' Make it a good one."