What’s the deal with cachepots? When you buy one of Jackson & Perkins’ living gifts, you aren’t just getting a great plant–you also get a beautiful container!
Referred to as a cachepot (pronounced “cash-poe” because it’s French), this container dresses up your nursery pot with a more durable and beautiful outer covering. Cachepots can take many forms: ceramic pots, woven baskets, metal buckets, wooden boxes, and more. But they all serve the same function: to hold your plants, and to look darned good doing it!
But when the holidays are over, and your plants have gone on to a permanent home (or to the retirement home—i.e. the compost pile), what do you do with the cachepot that remains? If you use your imagination, it turns out there are LOTS of great ways to repurpose them. Here are 10 brilliant ideas for how to get more mileage out of your cachepot once the holidays have ended:
Barbados Amaryllis has such a stylish metallic cachepot.
1. Dress up your cachepot. An old pair of jeans can make a charming covering for one two cachepots, adding a touch of whimsy to any setting. A great way to bring a flashy, festive container more in line with a year-round décor that is more laid back and rustic. Burlap, Rope, or an Old Belt are other great things to wrap around a cachepot for a rustic vibe.
2. Turn that pail into an eye-catching ice bucket. Just be sure to clean the plastic liner and put it back in, for water proofing. It will surely be a hit at parties. If the ice and drinks sticking out doesn’t tip people off, you can use chalkboard paint to label the bucket “ice”, or if you have multiple buckets, the mini-chalkboard can be great for indicating Caffeinated/Non-caffeinated, Diet/Full Strength, Kids/Adults, etc.
3. Attach pots or buckets right to the wall to make convenient cubbies for small item storage. It’s not as tricky as you might think: Just drill 2 holes in the bottom of your cachepot and then attach it to the wall with 2 drywall screws. If you are putting anything heavy in the cubby and/or using a plastic cachepot, you can reinforce the back with a piece of wood cut into a rectangle (both of the screws go through this rectangle).
4. Turn your metal cachepot upside down to make a Light Shade. Use a metal-cutting drill bit to make a hole in the bottom of the cachepot large enough for the fixture to go through—if you are replacing the fixture you will need some electrical know-how. To make the shade more decorative and let more light through, use a smaller bit to drill a series of holes in the walls. Cachepots that already have patterns on them give you a convenient guide for where to put the holes.
5. Make them into hanging planters. First make a holder for the planter—an inexpensive way to do this is the simple coat hanger, but if you know how to macramé, you could make something a bit more attractive. If you feel really ambitious, hang a trio of planters off of a table leg (see picture below), or take a whole chandelier outside and replace the lights with planters.
6. Nest a smaller pot inside of a larger one to create a two-tiered planting. Alternately, you can fill the larger pot with pea gravel, put a tea light on it, and cover it with a glass hurricane to protect the outer planting. This creates a lovely romantic centerpiece that is perfect for having a candlelit dinner on the porch.
7. Ruin a perfectly good place to sit by making a chair planter! A whimsical way to repurpose an old kitchen chair is to cut out a hole in the seat and place a planter inside of it. Getting plants up off the ground like this makes them easier to tend and easier to look at, plus there is something evocative about taking something as pedestrian as a chair and adding plants to make it enchanting!
8. urn a metal or ceramic pot upside down to make a suspension platform for wind chimes. Just hang your chimes from the pot’s rim and voila! You can even use crafty alternatives to wind chimes, like old silverware, house keys, bamboo, or even bottlecaps!
9. Upcycle metal pales into small stools for the kids. (See picture below) With three legs and removable lid, you can turn pales into stackable storage that also make great little stools!
10. If all else fails, just use your cachepot for storage! I don’t know about you, but I never seem to have enough storage to organize all the tools, coins, spatulas, pens, etc. that end up cluttering my countertops. Containers with handles are especially handy for this purpose.
And this is to say nothing of using your cachepot to hold more plants! As you can see, a little cachepot goes a long way. So from now on, whenever you are looking at living gifts, don’t overlook the cachepot, because you are really getting two gifts in one!
Plenty of inspiration for how to repurpose your cachepots after Christmas.
