I think it's a great idea. If I drank coffee, I would do this. I wouldn't put them where the direct sun could make them HOT in summer, tho. I think they would look cute without paint if the label is printed on the can, not paper.

You could paint them white and put designs on them. That's what they used in the old days for pots. I'll never forget an old nursery man telling me that he bought a beautiful azealea in a coffee can. I posted earlier about how to make your own containers using newspaper and toilet paper and paper towel holders. Check it out! Also any plastic container with holes in it. Ice cream buckets make good little buckets around the yard for whatever. I use them almost daily. The lids make good saucers. The plastic go boxes with a clear lid work well for tiny greenhouses to start seeds or cuttings in. Cat litter buckets and any 5 gallon bucket works good as a bigger pot or two together for hydoponic growing. You'd have to google that one. There's a certain way to do that. You can also use two of them with soil in the top one and make a wicking system. I can tell you how to do that if you're interested. You can get 5 gallon buckets at the bakery dept in some stores for free. I see some stores are selling them now. Car washes have 55 gallon drums they get their soap in. Coffee grounds are great for the compost pile.

My fil painted coffee cans for my mil to hang against the fence with drooping succulents in them. It worked great, even in El Paso, but the cans do have to be repainted periodically or the paint can flake and the cans rust. Also, the sun can just age the paint. Guess it depends on what kind of paint used. They used cobalt blue or royal blue spray paint of some sort.

I can remember plants in coffee cans when I was a kid, at gramma's house. And I'm pretty sure the plants my Mom let me "have" were usually in coffee cans. Besides the rusting, I don't think there's any reason not to use them. A cool looking homage to simpler times.

Aren't most coffee cans plastic now though? I don't pay much attention to them since I like to grind my own and buy bagged beans, and those yummy rectangle tins of instant for lazy days. Which are now - plastic! Hahaha! I've found the new plastic ones extremely handy for making a giant ICE CUBE that lasts all day in a cooler. Or for starting cuttings in water for very short plants.

I do that. When I was working, I would bring them home from work, the gallon sized plastic cans. I raid the recycling bins around the neighborhood now to get them and large plastic bottles. I also put them in the bottoms of large pots that I use in some landscaping. Most plants don't have enough roots to go very deep into these large pots, so why spend money on that much dirt?