When life gives you lemons, landscape!

Last year, one of the winter storms here took out part of the old cherry tree in the front yard. It was one of those early season snows that came before all the leaves had fallen off. A number of branches broke and by the time we pruned back the unhealthy parts, the tree looked pretty bad so we took down the last sad little branch and were left with a stump.

 

This was the cherry tree, last year.

I decided to throw some pots on the stumps because why not. This was a remarkably easy DIY planter. All you do is find some planters (I recommend terra cotta or another porous/semi-porous material because you'll want really good drainage up here. I attached 4 glazed terra cotta pots because they were pretty and at Tuesday Morning, the most expensive pot was 10 dollars. Make sure they have a drainage hole in the bottom or you'll have to drill one yourself.)

Then, all you need is some bigish screws and washers. Make sure the washer is larger than the drainage hole, this is what will help keep your pot in place if you have particularly slanty angles like I did. You can drill a starter hole in the stump first (if you want to make it a little easier on your drill) then situate your pot, put the washer on the screw and put the whole shebang through the drainage hole on the pot. Tighten so the pots are secure but not so tight that the pots crack. Then you're ready to go!

 

Ta-da! Now you have an interesting, eye catching fixture in your garden and you didn't have to go stumpin'!

I'm sure this isn't for everyone but I absolutely love the way this looks and how easy it is to transform the planters. Above I have it filled with daffodils that had started to spring up all over my garden. Since then, I took the daffodils out (saved the bulbs of course!) and put some annuals in the pots.

This is what it looks like now