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Earlier this spring I purchased two garden urns from Judy Hillman at Madrona Hills Ace Hardware here in Salem, Oregon. I was attracted to the elegant form and the charm of the woven metal trellis patterned urns.

I wasn’t sure where they would end up but after moving the urns around my garden, I found just the right spot! Now comes painting, placing and leveling.

HERE’S HOW TO DO IT:

1. I set up on my kitchen table for a dry, clean place to work. I cleaned the surface of all dust and rust and then I used throw away foam brushes to paint the urns.
2. It’s important to create some kind of base for planters that you put directly in the garden so that the container drains properly and sets straight. I used 8 cut in half, recycled bricks to form a circle an inch larger in diameter than the urn bases. First I leveled the ground by eye and then set the bricks in the soil with a rubber mallet. I used a level to get them perfect.
3. I used sphagnum moss to line the urns and wrap around a separate pot inside the urn. I used a recycled pressed paper pot. This set-up will make it easy to remove the plants and put the urns away for winter.
4. The last step was to add the plants! I divided a large clump of hostas from the yard to plant in the urns.

The paint I chose for the urns is the same as my front trellises. Several years ago I matched color chips to the green copper roof above my front door and discovered Benjamin Moore’s Waterbury Green (HC-136), also from Madrona Hills Ace Hardware. I love this color in the garden because not only does it match my copper roof, but because it also looks stunning with all of the various colored blooms that are climbing and nestled in and around the trellises and urns.