We have a 48 foot long raised deck on the front of our house. It's big. As I was planting flowers and vegetables last weekend, I was trying to come up with a way to hand beautiful containers of flowers from the deck the cheapest way possible. Cheap, because that's how I roll.
After searching two local chain stores, I came up empty. The containers they did have were ugly and would just sit over the top of the railing, with no nail or other fastener to secure it. As I mentioned, it is a raised deck, and I have active kids. Those flower boxes wouldn't have lasted 24 hours.
After talking to my husband about what we should look for that would be secure, I did an online search. I found some beautiful black wire boxes (the kind with the coco mat inside). I would need 6 of them to cover this long deck. They were not as expensive as some, but still were going to cost $100 just for the boxes, not to mention the potting soil, flowers, or means of attaching them to the railing. Just as I was about to bite the bullet, I did one more quick search: "cheap flower planters" or something like that. Up popped used maple sap buckets for sale on Ebay for 2 for $7.99. Well, I thought I had hit the motherload! Except I was going to need 12, since they were smaller than the other boxes, and the vendor didn't have 12 matching ones by the looks of it.
All of a sudden, a bright light shone in the room. OK, maybe it was only inside of my head, but I realized, "Hey! I LIVE in syrup country! I am going to call one of the local sugarhouses." They were closed, but on their website were used sap buckets for $2.50 each! I made a phone call, left a message, which was returned at 7:30 on Monday morning. By Monday afternoon, I had scored 16 sap buckets, which they gave me a 10% discount on because I got so many! By Tuesday morning at 8am, all the buckets had been punctured for drainage holes, filled with potting soil and flowers, and hung on the side of the deck railing! I used 2" nails to hang them ($1.47 per box at Walmart).
Of course, this project used up a lot of flowers, but Home Depot was having a great sale last weekend...6 packs of Impatiens for 99 cents! So, by (sadly) avoiding my favorite, favorite, favorite, gorgeous nursery, I did save a bundle on flowers, also.
We live in the woods, so the rustic look of the buckets is so complementary to our surroundings, and I love the way these sap buckets look! It's a little embarrassing how proud I am of my ingenuity in finding such a
cheap cost-effective solution. But, seriously, it's the little things in life, right? Right?
Yup, I thought so.
