Best buds: planters & pots

Turn to quirkily-shaped and colourful vases, jugs and urns as holders for your plants. They’re easy on the pocket and delightful to the eyes, vouches Nisha Ravindranathan

Decorating on a budget doesn’t have to be stressful or difficult. Au contraire, it can be intuitive and simple — all you have to do is break it down. Break it down to the bare bones of it in your head first.

Decorating with vases, jugs, urns and various other containers that hold everything from your own herb garden, to flowers, hydrophytes, air-purifying indoor greens, cacti and succulents for instance, is a great way to infuse warmth, colour and in this case, literally breathe new life into your home.

The great indoors

Doing your bit for the environment is surprisingly easy. You don’t need to plant whole trees, just make a stop at your local nursery instead. Choose between bamboo palm, snake plant, Chinese evergreen, pothos and dracaena – that’s five species, all easily available, which make an immediate and welcome impact on the air you breathe, by constantly recycling and purifying it. Use quirky planters – think large soup bowls, animal-shaped terracotta pots or even traditional pickle jars – to tenderly root these. Hang them from beams or place them in nooks either in your home or office, or on your desks or wall shelves. The best way is to incentivise growing plants at home – they do take work you know; there’s watering, occasional fertilising, dusting, weeding. And let’s not forget that these requirements vary hugely, depending on what you’re growing – and it is important to find a use for them. Case in point, my own herb garden that veritably sustains my kitchen.

Buy window boxes (available easily) and secure firmly to a balcony parapet or railing. Alternately, mix and match colourful pots and planters and house them on a windowsill. Holy basil, mint, coriander, Ajowan caraway and curry leaves are among the easiest to grow through the year, given the heat of the Indian summer in most parts of the country.

Vertical gardens too are easy-peasy and super fun! You can buy wrought iron holders or ceramic containers that are easily mounted on any wall. Succulents and ferns grow best, especially if you mix peat moss to your potting soil, but so do other low maintenance flora, such as money plant or the sturdy purple-heart. If you have enough sunlight, and your wall-mounted holder is large enough to hold planting pots, there’s literally no dearth to what you can grow.

Get orchids and anthuriums – both are flowering plants that need neither direct sunshine nor too much water. Plus, they last ages on the vine. A lesser-known secret – use tender coconut water to keep the soil moist, but never soggy; not only can you skip fertiliser, you’ll also see your blooms proliferating. All you really then need are clever planters to go with. Again, quirk works best, or if your do-it-yourself skills are up to the challenge, simply dip dye terracotta pots, decoupage them, or spray paint in bright colours.

If you’re all thumbs (as opposed to having one that’s green) and worried you’ll kill even the hardiest plant, then cacti and succulents are the way to go. House them in glass terrariums on your coffee table or plant them in a mixture of potting soil and peat moss in teacups for an adorable mad-hatter miniature garden that can go anywhere – on window sills, in a gap on bookshelves, on your desk, or on a countertop in your bathroom.

Hydrophytes or plants that grow in water are up next. Create a beautiful water feature inside your home with the most basic supplies. Invest in a wrought iron stand (available in most nurseries) and a medium to large-sized brass urli (a traditional cooking vessel typically found and used extensively in South India). Mount the urli on the stand, fill with water and float bright orange and yellow marigolds or crimson roses. Alternatively, if your vessel is large enough, you’ll find it can house free-floating water lettuce (pistia), water hyacinths and even water lilies.

Yet another home hack involves scouring antique stores or flea markets for brass and copper pots – think medium sized lotas, handis or the Iyengar chombu; there’s also the kalchatti (a traditional stone cooking vessel from Kerala). Grow readily available money-plants in these to create a beautiful pop of colour in visually and texturally standout containers.

Stopping at a florist’s every once in a while is a great apartment pick-me-up. Mix and match holders for best results. Keep your selection as diverse as possible, whether it has to do with structure, size, pigmentation or finish. Start with the basics. Collect interesting bottles and jars – their appeal might lie in their shape, colour (Bombay Sapphire’s crystalline blue bottles of gin come to mind), or simply because they’re rare to come by (remember the monk-shaped Old Monk bottles that are no longer in production). Soak these overnight to peel away labels, scrub clean, and voila! With a little imagination, you can elevate these from pedestrian to unparalleled. Think multi-hued gerbera daisies in green wine bottles, peonies in clear glass mason jars, single lilies in apothecary vials, tuberoses in tea kettles… you get my drift, don’t you?

When buying vases, again, go for diversity – collect blown glass, porcelain, ceramic, wood and beaten metal. Look for variety in dimensions, mold and composition. Never forget that the vase itself – with or without blossoms – can become an objet d’art. And whenever possible, buy them in pairs so they can go together on either end of a mantel, replace bookends on a floating shelf or go on your bedside tables – one on each end.

Finally, there’s dried flowers or DIY blooms you can make or procure. Needless to say, paper is always prettier than plastic. Bonus: some serious karmic credit for not adding to your carbon footprint. A fun way to display artificial flowers is to yoke them to containers that are naturally rustic and of the earth. Think raku fired urns, stoneware, hollowed tubes of bamboo or distressed wooden pods. The paradox of such pairings is what lends beauty to the end result. Here’s hoping that’s enough information and inspiration, dear reader, to have you spring into action.

(The author is content & loveliness crafter, The Wishing Chair, New Delhi)