The Scene
While out on an evening walk I cam across a house that was doing some proper spring cleaning. They had placed some once-lovely broken pottery out on the curbside. One particular green pot had both vertical and horizontal cracks, but surprisingly no large pieces had fallen away. It took me two trips to carry two broken pots home (more on that second pot later), but oh such satisfying repairs!
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| Found planter with old dirt and some volunteer sprouts |
The Fix
Using some epoxy that my friend already had on hand I decided to see if this pot could be repaired. First I dug out the dirt that was dried up in the pot. Then I ran water over all the cracks, from the inside and from the outside, to try to wash away as much dirt as possible. Although the cracks made it seem like the pieces should come apart, they would not, so I listed to the pot and just rinsed away what I could. Then I let the pot dry in the sunshine.
I don't have photos from the epoxy application because I had gloves on and had to work quickly. Since I could not really move the pieces of the pot that had separated, I decided to try to over-fill the cracks with epoxy to get as much coverage as possible.
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| Outside of pot, with epoxy |
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| Inside the repair |
Conclusion
The (slightly messy) epoxy repair worked! The cracks were on one side of the pot, so now that the structure of the pot is stable I simply turn the cracked side to the back. Now this discarded pot has a new life as a home for some fragrant rosemary in the (slowly expanding) container garden. So don't be afraid to repair broken pottery, a little wear and tear can tell an interesting story. Here is the pot on its first night of its new life.
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| Ready for rosemary |
Happy freestyling!