I don't really try, but it happens all the time. Here's some salvage items being re-purposed.
This is my newest attempt. Styrofoam packing to float containers for a couple of plants that like wet feet. The Elephant Ear behind sits on a big section of a tree trunk, but the Juncus has the bottom of the pot in the water. I wanted the square to hold it, but that didn't work once it got the weight of potting soil. I have another square with a container floating, but I may have to find a plant that just sits in water without soil. Everything here turns into a work surface - even a sheet of styrofoam floating on water. Who'd have guessed?
The top portion of a double boiler serving as a container and a place to hang a gourd birdhouse. The Carolina wrens started a nest and a cowbird or something squeezed in and laid an egg. The wrens weren't fooled and didn't use it
I think this is a colander? I picked it up at Wal-Mart so I'd have some place to put an orchid they'd marked down. One purchase leads to another, but this is working and the orchid is beginning to bloom.
A light fixture I dug out of the trash at work a few years ago.
An old fiberglass hardhat I got out a pasture dump. It's been laying around a couple of years, but I got some Lithops to try and finally used the hat for them.
A small old copper tea kettle that was down at the barn for years. No clue where it came from or what it was used for at the barn, but a couple of holes and it became a container.
An old washtub on legs. I had used the tub as a planter, but this year I set it up as a stand because I wanted Brugmansia 'Eternity' elevated and it was big enough to hold the moderate sized tree pot I wanted to use for the brug. Not especially liking the set up, but it's doing the job.
