Paint your new terracotta with whole milk or yogurt. Set outside. Magic.

"Paint your new terracotta with whole milk or yogurt. Set outside"

I've heard that -- so it actually works?

Terra Cotta breaths which for many plants is a great thing. Get what you love, what works for the way you garden. The plants in pots sunk into the dirt when made of terra cotta do much better than plastic. 30 years ago when garden craft art was all the rage I made a light house/bird house/yard light out of terra cotta pots. They don't hold up to a tree falling on them. Lost it this winter to DH and his saw.

I had a couple of rhe ’fancy’ ones years ago and they are nice to look at. They aren’t very practical for most uses due to weight and you have to be mindful of what you plant directly in one. Thirsty plants don’t so well in terra cotta in our heat. I ended up putting the plant in a plastic pot that fit inside the terra cotta pot.

@Patriciae, we always used buttermilk to ’age’ a pot. Plain Yogurt works too. It’s best to soak the pot a while before applying. And if you have some existing moss you can harvest a small piece & rub onto the pot. Then cover the pot with clear plastic, put in the the shade and check every few days to make sure it is still damp and leave it for 2-4 weeks. It will stink but works well.

Yes, they are very heavy. Even smaller pots are heavy for their size if their walls are thick. But there's just nothing like good quality terra cotta, it will last decades if cared for (meaning avoiding cracking). I, too, line most of my large pottery, either ceramic or clay, with plastic pots. I don't use plastic in some of my smaller pots, though. I take all my pottery into the barn to store for winter.

I have this one I got at our local art show one year. There was a second one but it broke at some point. I mostly kept the indoors for my houseplants, but the geranium looked so nice in this one. I had it on the porch. The pot is still on my porch but currently without a plant in it. I need to get one.

"It will stink but works"

No joke - put the treated pot(s) away from your door and windows. I did several at once and the spoiling dairy smell was ick - maybe only 1 or 2 pots won't be too bad. Also attracted a lot of flies. But it did work to jumpstart that nice weather-worn patina vibe.

Yes it works, it is the fat and proteins in the milk. And yes it can smell but it is outside and yes keep it moist which can be done just by keeping the soil in the pot moist. And yes rub with lichens and moss with fruiting bodies if you want to speed that up. I did hypertufa for a while and made huge cement balls some covered with colored grout and treated those and they look great and are still in good shape after twenty years or more. We have the perfect climate most of the time, mild and damp.

I have a really realy old clay pot that has an elaborate pattern pressed into the outside of a very thick very old pot. Old Terracotta seems to be more resistant to freeze thaw. I have lost all my modern pots but the oldest one keeps surviving.

They have these rolling things to put under these huge heavy pots. I dont move mine around though.

My favorite nursery had beautifully painted terra cotta pots on display a few weeks ago. Yes, seems like a big comeback.

Most of my indoor and outdoor containers are terra cotta, and I've had good luck with them. I store them in the garage over winter, but the garage isn't heated. I haven't had any crack in recent years. My houseplants like them better than plastic. I have very hard water, so mine look aged after about six months of minerals leaching through.

I received 3 of these brass rolling plant stands as a gift last year that I use for my houseplants. They're almost too pretty to cover up. I looked them up on ebay, and now I'm miffed by the description--"vintage from the 1980s." Are the 1980s really considered vintage already?

I have a lot of terra cotta pots that I collected over the years, going to my weekly auctions. I must have 30 smaller ones but I have enormous ones that have wear and flaking from being outside for decades. I also have many 100-plus-year-old urns all over the yard. Last year, one cracked in half and I had to throw it away. I noticed another one has a big crack in it, also. Why they were fine all those years, and now they're cracking is weird.

Oooooo I like that brass one, Feathers - I have a number of black metal ones, none as attractive as that!

It’s funny – when I first read the topic post I thought (and laughed) about the several decorative pots that have been stashed in deep storage since moving into the house (2010) we currently live in. They were probably purchased in the 1990s and used every year outdoors in the previous house. I don’t remember why they didn’t reappear after moving here but we were slow to getting the garden going.

Then this morning while outside, I notice one of the old pots with a plant in it. Without me mentioning the post at all, the missus had retrieved one of the pots to hold a newly purchased plant.

Raymondz7a -- I had that EXACT pot!