This post is not about my posterior.
Instead, it is about one my favourite things: terracotta pots.
I love pots in general, I love having them on the patio. I don’t like having just a few here and there, in ones and twos no, they have to be en-masse. The patio pots are like a fluid, nomadic border where each year the display is different, the layout changes, some plants leave, some stay, some are new, some are mixed together, some are split, the variety is endless. Move flowering pots to the front, then to the back when the are done. Create micro-climates by sheltering smaller pots next to larger ones, have some in the sun, cast shade with others. Create an enclosed space or put in a break for a view. Hide things, frame things. The annual laying out of the patio pots is almost like a game and I can never tell how it will turn out.
I have a mixture of pots for the patio, some are plastic, some are trugs and others are terracotta, glazed and unglazed. The trouble with terracotta is that eventually, one day, in the UK winter, it will crack and this is exactly what one of my beloved terracotta pots has just done.
This pot has seen summers:
This pot has seen snow in winter:
After many cycles of freeze-thaw, freeze-thaw the most recent frosts were too much and it was riven from the top almost down to the base:
I’ve tried to support it by putting wire around it, but I wasn’t able to tighten it a great deal. We’ll just have to see what happens.
Terracotta pots are my favourite type of pots because of their natural colour, shape and the way they age. There’s something so classic about them that plastic and other types of pots couldn’t hope to match. The trouble is that no matter how “frost proof” they are labelled to be, an unprotected terracotta pot in the UK winter is at risk of frost-shatter, the older the pot is, the more susceptible it may be. I’ve been wanting to buy large terracotta pots for years now and I’ve had my eye on ones like these:
Aside from the trouble with frost-shatter, the only other little, tiny, insignificant problem with terracotta pots (aside from the fact that they are really heavy) is their price. They’re not cheap and can cost a few hundred pounds for a large pot. I’ve seen terracotta pots costing over £9000 for something that is about waist-height. Tell me you’re happy to pay that much for a pot, and then put it outside in the winter!
I will get my terracotta pots, one day but I will have to think of a way to protect them through the winter so they don’t end up as crocks to go in the bottom of other pots as drainage.
Until then, I shall continue to wait and dream.
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