Garden of freestyle delights - a SECOND metal hayrack planter appears in the night

 The Find

While out for a walk one night I came across a surprising find, a metal hayrack planter (complete with coir liner, dirt, and some plants that looked relatively healthy).  Why was this surprising, at this point I shouldn't be surprised by anything left out on the sidewalk.  At the time it seemed like the garden-related giveaways and clean outs had slowed down, so perhaps that was the reason for surprise. 

Discarded hay rack planter

I didn't take it with me right away, but waited until I was on the way back and near the end of my walk. It is always a risk to walk away from something left out for free, but luckily no one had scooped it up while I was finishing taking my exercise.  I decided to get rid of the existing dirt and plants because I knew right away that I would be putting something new and colorful in this planter.  I had found my first metal hay rack planter in early spring and loved the classic style.  I had thought about buying more hay racks but ended up buying two metal baskets because they were the only things in stock when we went to the superstore garden center.  Don't get me wrong, I like the look of the baskets, but in a small space the hay racks are a better fit up against a fence to give maximum plant frontage.

Here is the outer metal-only part of the hay rack planter without the liner. You can see that there are attachments in the back if you want to hang the planter on screws or hooks. I didn't do that, I went an even easier route.

Metal hay rack outer part

The Hay Rack Makeover

I hung up the planter with some repurposed cording that had previously been used to hang up a set of individual plastic planters arranged in a pleasing geometry.  This bit of fence has seen quite a few different planting arrangements over the summer.  I planted some bright yellow mums to tie into the patio table color and some small Angelonia plants with purple flowers to carry over the purple from the neighboring hay rack planter full of purple petunias.

Hayrack planter with mums, angelonias, and petunias

Conclusion

I love the second hay rack planter, even though the metal frame has a different design from the first one I found.  Not-matching is pretty much par for the course when you get your gardening supplies for free!  I think the $1 yellow mums appeared in my world at just the right time too. I bought 5 pots of yellow mums for $5, and good thing that I did because that offer was gone within a week. 

Here are the two hay racks along the fence.  The original hay rack was planted with purple petunias, some of which are now long enough that I was able to drape them around the edge of the second planter.

The fence in all its planterly glory

Happy freestyling, and always think about donating before discarding!