Garden Pots From Recycled Tires

Planters from discarded tires aren't anything knew in the gardening world. When I was a kid my best friend’s mom had a container garden in the parkway, hell strip for those of you gardening outside Chicago, made from old car tires. They were there for years before I paid any attention to them aside from thinking they were ugly or the occasional attempts to tip them over. One Earth Day we had a presentation at school on recycling and the speaker showed us how flat tires are repurposed and kept out of landfills by gardeners who turned them into container gardens. It was as if someone had flipped a switch in my head and I started noticing garden pots from recycled tires all over the place. The planters didn't seem to ugly to me after that.

I had not given tire planters much thought in the intervening years until the owner of Flat Tire Décor who wanted to know if I would like to use and review their baskets and pots made from flat tires contacted me.  Over the past couple of months, I have made good use of the two baskets sent to me indoor and outdoors; as I prepare the garden for the upcoming growing season. The Newport tire basket has been a good decorative pot sleeve hiding the plastic pots that are home to some amaryllis bulbs and ZZ plants.

The Catalina basket is too shallow to hold any plants I currently own so I have been using it around the house as a catchall and for transporting things like seed packets, hand trowels and other items I need to move around when I am direct seed sowing or setting up photographs for my garden blogs.

Both of the baskets are handsome and have numerous uses in the home and garden. Over the winter, I could not wait until spring so I could use these baskets as outdoor planters in the container garden, but I think I will keep them indoors where they can give a finished look to houseplant groupings during the winter. Next winter I will use the Newport basket to hold several of my larger amaryllis bulbs that have a tendency to tip over when they are in bloom.

Flat Tire Décor products (baskets, pots, entry mats and shoes) are made from old tires sourced in Chicago, Illinois and assembled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They contract the Curative Care Network, a program that offers work experience and training to people with disabilities, to assemble these products.  Not only are these items beautiful but they help the environment by recycling rubber that would end up in our waste stream, and they help give people an opportunity at better life. It is not often that garden pots, or any kind of garden products for that matter, can make you feel so positive about owning them. Flat Tire Décor gave me the Newport and Catalina basket free to review, but it is the kind of company and product I would support on my own for the reasons listed. You can plant a container garden of annuals and perennials in pots made from recycled tires, but you shouldn't use them to grow anything you plant on eating because tire rubber is not food safe. To learn more about their products visit Flat Tire Décor.