Token - I believe that these areas used to called 'Pot Ghettos'. lol. I'm pretty sure that we all have them. Here's mine:

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These are the left over perennials from my old home. I am still creating gardens for them!!!

Nancy.

My messy area is not only messy, it's ugly. It includes spare rocks, bricks and grave; tomato cages, rain barrels and a compost pile. It's behind the garden shed.

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I spread mine around. The compost piles are out near the highway, behind a row of scrub oaks with limbs to the ground and other shrubs like sassafras, close to a field road so they look as if they belong there.

The big epi pots and airplane plants that don't have another home are behind some shrubbery next to a little sassafras grove under a cedar tree. Because the epis hang down, they have to be elevated. I used upside down 5 gallon oil cans covered with plastic.

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I put everything else in the tool shed or in the greenhouse. Plants have to leave the greenhouse for the summer and seek shade or get planted out.

Nell

Awesome slight of hand, Nell. I am in a, well, awe!!!! lol!!

Nancy.

I like a tidy ship as well as anyone, but I rather like the look of stacked pots and things in the garden, even the compost bin. I have big round tomato cages filled with canes and poles for later use. I like the way it looks at the back of the garden.

The problem I have with my pot ghetto is that my chickens scratch around them looking for insects and tiny snakes and tip them over and scatter them around. Then the wind carries them.

But the Junk! Now, that's an entirely different matter altogether. Your "messy areas" don't hold a candle to mine, and I ain't braggin' It's just awful! I have tons of junk, old weedeaters & parts, a couple of tires, old chicken wire and things like that. What a sight! But what am I do do with it?

I reuse what I can (recycle, etc); burn or compost everything I can, and put what I am able into bags in the trash, but some things are just too big and too heavy to go into the trash bin/dumpster. It's 30 miles to the nearest landfill and they charge $30+ per load, plus more if you have any large items, tires or wire. I can't afford that!

I also don't want things laying around serving as hiding places for rodents, snakes, spiders and what-have-you.

Well, TG, Trash Day is in two weeks. Everyone around can haul all their yard and household junk into town and get rid of it FOR FREE. I am going to be able to haul off a lot of mess this year. YEAH!

I will save the intact buckets and plastic pots and things I "might" need in the garden this summer, but the rest just needs to go away!

Great Topic!

Annie

I have a huge table of seeding plants and plants in one gallon, 5 gallon. I am growing agave's and nolinas and getting their roots bigger before I put them out. I have grass plants ands seedlings galore. Looks like a nursery with a madwoman as the owner.. My messy area is everywhere. I am a mess. Everything is unfinished. Drives my husband bonkers. I have a big swap coming up. I hope people will take my plants.

We inherited lots of outbuildings when we moved to the adjoining farm back in 1991. There are 6 in the yard alone and they are all filled with lawnmowers, trailers, tillers, trimmers, etc..........then there is the junk and I have tons of it. I can keep most things out of sight.

But as for the pot ghettos; I like how those look. Makes your place look alive and working.

The worst thing we accumulate is trimmings and branches from all the trash trees in the yard. I keep those stacked behind one of the sheds and periodically we have to haul it back on the farm to degrade.

I have seen in magazines and on TV (think P. Allen Smith) those lath houses attached to buildings where they pot things have pots stacked and keep gardening tools. I always think what a great way to have things organized, sort of hidden and attractive. He lives in the south too.
You might need to get those skillful hands busy on another project! You need a garden shed with an attached lath house.

I do want a garden shed. I just haven't figure out where I would put it. My basement/garage is plenty large enough, but the plants need to go outside. This year I will have oodles of dogwoods and redbuds that are growing from seed. There will also be some shrubs and maybe a few perennials that will be potted up. Maybe I need to build a trellis to hide that stuff behind. I've got plenty of vines I can grow to cover it quickly.

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This sunny pot ghetto arrangement was born of desperation. The dog thought my 11 pots of little strawberry plants and 5 pots of coreopsis starts was another pet park. What she didn't pull up, she walked in. The big timber on the right fronts what will be another bed, later. I set the gallon pots along in front of it and put a 4x4 in front to hold them in place.

Now the pets just walk on the big timber and rarely step in the pots.

Nell

Mine's on the back porch. Can't see it from the road but it gets shade in the morning and sun in afternoon. Now this is just the plants in pots that are waiting to be planted out or traded. They get some protection from strong wind but enough light to be healthy. they are also very easy to reach with the water.

For all my garden junk, I have a little potting shed where I stow pots, soil, amendments and tools. Inside the shed I have a potting bench that my dad made for me from reclaimed wood siding from our beach cottage. Next to that I keep a large barrel of potting mix. I also have shelves and hangers for tools. The pots are usually stowed upside down on the floor. It's a real mess.

Outside the shed I have a few things like a bench to rest on from gardening chores and some enamel pans used for preparing special mixes for plants. I also usually have the shovel and rake hanging on the outside of the shed all summer since they get used almost daily. I didn't like tracking mud into my shed so I laid a little porch in front of the doors and put out a mat to wipe the loose dirt off my shoes.

I planted a pink rose next to the door several years ago and it has turned into a climber. It covers most of the east side of the shed and has started to climb over the roof now. I don't know what kind it is, but it blooms off and on all summer and sometimes all through the winter too. I tried to repaint my shed this year, but couldn't get through that rose to do the east side, so it is 75% white and 25% red. It looks so silly. Cheryl

Our lot was part of a former tree farm so our trees are in neat rows (the ones still standing) On the side yard I have three rows of standing trees and my 'pot getto' is between two of the rows with a 4x8' table and an old picnic table that have holding plants and then pots underneath along with a couple tubs holding used potting soil. I also have a 8x20' shade house on the back of the garage that I have starter plants, seedling trays, tubs with new potting soil, vermiculite and perlite and a ton of empty cell packs and 4" pots - still wondering when one has too many pots - lol. Still looking for the perfect set-up but this one works really good for now......

Lynne

I really like this topic. I have more than one pot ghetto.

My ugly plastic pots are stored in a wire-used-to-be-magazine rack behind my potting shed. However, it won't hold everything, so I have some stacked on the ground beside it.

Inside the shed, I have my nicer clay pots staked on the bottom shelf of my potting bench.

Closer to the house are my potted plants/seedlings, some are on the ground, and some are on three plant tables made from scrap wood. Oh, and I have few by the veggie beds.

Like Wantonamara a lot of things are unfinished, but my two vacation (whoopee!) starts at the end of this week so I plan to finish several projects and clean things up. :-)

I have so many set-ups, I don't think there is a perfect one! I am the messy queen down here.

I have several potting benches, and I am always potting things up on the back porch, or front porch, or anywhere that is not a potting bench. DH has spent a cazilloion hours to get me organized.....I don't think there is any way to organize me.

There are pots of all sizes. I get mad if he throws any away. I might need that one. There are trays of all sizes, and I do manage to use some of them up- well, pots too- when the MG plant sale comes around. There are bags of potting soil, soil-less mixes, peat, perlite, vermiculite, and mounds of mulches. And then there are the tools.....

I keep a select few tools in my garden bag. I guard them, as DH is prone to swipe a tool or two; HE is the tool KING down here. It matters not what the tool is for, any tool is good. Grrrr...

And then...Oh, Lord.

There is the junk. DH's junk.
It is excellent junk. Some may be priceless, some cannot be replaced. Some, I don't know what it is, but he does. Believe me, he knows what it is, and he knows WHERE it is! There is no way to skim any of it off to the dumpster. He would know it immediately.

We have a tiny little lawn. Flowers, vegetables, herbs and trees/shrubs cover the entire 2/3 acre, except for the house and one tiny patch of St. Augustine grass. Why do we need not one, but TWO 42", 26 hp riding mowers? The vegetable garden is all raised beds, and the cottage garden is thickly planted. Why do we need a regular tiller, a huge rear tine tiller, a mini-tiller, and, of course, the attachments for a weed-eater that will till up the ground and the attachments for those riding mowers that make them TRACTORS?

I have a big greenhouse- 14'x24'x12' tall. It is nice, and I have a shade cloth for it so I can use it in the summer to protect plants. I also have a hoop house, 12'x24', and very nice, but I am waiting for my friend to come and get it. We are going to put it at her house, and put her into the plant growing business. DH wants the real estate to enlarge his shop, and that is o.k. with me.

I am excited about seeing that empty space where the hoophouse was....

Janie

I've been meaning to post this for ages. Nell, here is how they keep the critters out in Greece:

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Very clever. I need to do this now!!! btw, you may notice that the streets are paved with marble!!!! Wow.

Nancy.

I thought about chopsticks and skewers, Nancy. I put little loops made of tree branches around where I didn't want the dog to go -- she just scoots through the loops.

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At least the loops in front of the daffodils in front of the rocks kept He-who-mows from mowing them.

Nell

Nell that is so cute. I think you will just have to get used to a little damage. I have so many stakes in my shade garden that it looks junky, but my old dogs can't get cool enough in summer.

I'm so happy I could spit. I got this rack from work today. It was going to be tossed in the garbage. There are two more still being used. I'm going to try to claim them as soon as I can.

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Next year I will use them to wintersow seeds in cups and put a plastic cover around the entire thing creating a small greenhouse. This summer, I'll use it out in the back yard to hold all my containers and my "Easy Propagation Chambers". I might even have a plant sale next spring.

WOW! That is a nice shelf for your little seedlings! I am glad you are happy, Tom. Sounds like you are enjoying your new job.

Did you know that Lowes has a foundation that gives grants up to $25,000.00 for educational gardening projects? I just learned that today, when we had a little meeting about writing some grants.

I thought that was great!

Janie

I've seen something about that Janie. We've got an elementary school teacher who just bought $400 worth of plants using a NC beautification grant for the school. I picked out knockout roses, a bird bath, some evergreens, some hollies, lots of annuals, a few perennials, and some azaleas today. I'll deliver them on Monday, my day off, and show them how to plant and arrange them. They hope to get donations and turn it into a full garden over the next 5 years. The kids get extra credit for helping.

I have a potting area that is a fenced off area off my garden shed. I put my wintersowing containers there, the pot ghetto, and as in the first pic, I group my containers there when I go on vacation to be watered on a timer.

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This is the entrance. I try to make it pleasing to the eye as well. I didn't have any pictures that really show it, but I do have an old cabinet along the wall of the shed that I can use for potting.
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My area is being re-vamped as we speak. The dirt pile is being removed (other side of the shed), tree stump dug out, camper will be gone, etc. We are building a garage, starting in about 2 weeks, weather permitting. The lawn mower, leaf blower, trimmer, snow blower, saws, tools, etc. will all go in the garage and I have been promised the shed all for myself! Originally we were going to run electric to the shed, but I said that I really don't need electric just a place to store pots, tools, etc. Also to do potting, etc. So instead DH said he will install a skylight when they re-roof it to match the garage and house.
This picture was taken several years ago in fall, the beautiful tree over the shed is no more, we lost it last year. :-(
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What a gorgeous tree! I am so sorry you lost it.

Michelle,

Is that salvia argentea in your container collection? Does
it always live in a container? How do you keep it from year to year? I have 3 now in different parts of my beds
but they are not as huge or as upright as yours. Does it
share the pot with anything else? Thanks, Chris

I seldom show this messy area.
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A bulldozer is poised to move forward over my 'wild prairie' area if the tractor with big mower can't take care of it adequately.

Nell

Chris, yes it is. I just bought it last year and planted it with an angel wing begonia and a fuchsia. I put it in a raised bed for the winter and if it makes it I will use it again in a container I really liked it. I would cut off the older leaves that seemed more droopy and just to keep it a good size for the pot. Here's a picture that shows it a little better.

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