Potted: Make Your Own Stylish Garden Containers by Annette Goliti Gutierrez, Mary Gray

Potted: Make Your Own Stylish Garden Containers

Outdoor style often comes at a high price, but it doesn’t have to. This lushly designed guide empowers you to create your own show-stopping containers made from everyday materials such as concrete, plastic, metal, terracotta, rope, driftwood, and fabric. The 23 step-by-step projects are affordable, made from accessible materials, and most importantly, gorgeous. They include new spins on old favorites, like the cinderblock garden made popular by design blogs or hanging planters made from enamelware bowls, along with never-before-seen ideas like a chimney flue planter and wall planters made from paint cans. Packed with color photographs and simple instruction, Potted is for anyone who wants to turn an outdoor space into a stylish oasis. 

My Review: 

The book ‘Potted’ is in my eyes a very big success. The authors have set out to write a book of do-it-yourself (DIY) potting projects, varying in degrees of difficulty, but with each project having a very energizing and stylish result. They certainly achieved their goal in this interesting and inspirational DIY book.

The authors, Annette Goliti Gutierrez and Mary Gray, own a Los Angeles based, outdoor lifestyle brand called ‘Potted’ for over a decade already. The authors’ love of design led to the creation of this book, and it contains many examples of inspirational DIY projects (23 projects to be exact). Filled with numerous plant arrangement ideas for your garden – whether your garden is the size of a park or you just wish to customize your patio, balcony, or the entranceway to your home with style. Important tenets of gardening such as drainage have also not been forgotten.

Potted, is a book containing various types of affordable DIY projects, ranging from the simple to the more advanced. The authors do state, that if a project is out of one’s comfort zone and skill, to seek an expert for assistance before injuries happen. Safety is actually stressed throughout the book with tips to keep one’s digits safe.

There are five categories of material used to create or customize planters in this book. These categories include, concrete, plastics, metals, terra cotta, and organic materials such as rope. Each category has an average of five projects and each project starts with a list (and photo) of the tools and materials needed to complete the project. After a short paragraph on preparation, the projects are listed in single steps. Each step has one or more very useful color photographs that do not leave much guesswork remaining. The completed planter or project is then also shown in use with good decorational ideas on where and how to use them.

This book uses imperial units only. An imperial to metric conversion table has been included towards the back of the book. The table does not really fulfill its purpose if a reader wishes to further customize the projects in this book, by making planters with different measurements.

Potted, is a very well thought out book, with plenty of DIY projects varying in skill and difficulty. Most importantly, the projects are energizing, affordable and fun. The planters in this book are unique, and the designing skills and authors’ imagination are to be praised. I recommend this book to anyone who loves DIY projects or for people who wish to brighten up their living or garden spaces.