You can achieve a stone look. There is a plastic primer availabe in a spray can and also a paint that will give them a stone look. I saw these products last year at either Home Depot or Lowes. Good luck.

~I am not sure if you would be interested in this or not but thought I would pass along the info!~

If you go over to the Garden Junk forum (which is my home!) and look under FAQ, about half way down the page are links #1, #2 and #3 about making plastic nursery pots look like the fancy type you buy in the stores. Some of the pictures are amazing, you would never know it had started out as a plastic container! Come on over and take a peek!

Della

I am going right now, Della! Came here to see what, if anything, I could do with my latest find. Near a new building, landscapers tossed a bazillion 5gal nursery pots after landscaping the site. I saw them from my office window and snapped 'em up pronto. Thanks, Della, the Garden Junk faq is for me!
LU

A book I've got somewhere on container gardening gives instructiosn on how to make a stone look planter out of a polystyrene box. You cover it in some yoghurty mixture (and other stuff) and the algae makes it look like natural stone after a bit. I'll have a look for the book and type the instructions out for you if I find it.

Another thing I did was using leftover decking to create a surround for a plastic window box so it looked like a wooden window box but that only really works if you've got some leftover decking from something else. Maybe worth keeping an eye out though as often people chuck away stuff like that.

Crafty_Canuck - thank you for that link. I have checked out that forum before but never looked at the faq. And I have lots of ugly 5 gallon pots to get started on.

Carey