One of the things gardening teaches, is the re-use part of reduce, reuse, recycle. Perhaps repurpose is a better word for the project I am sharing today. Several years ago, ok a couple of decades plus years ago, we removed some “walls“ in our garden. The walls were here when we purchased the house and were built out of cinder block. A few were used to create raised beds, but most were just 2 foot high enclosures that separated the flower beds from the walkways. Over time we gave away many of the cinder blocks to friends who needed them for their own projects.

Then a couple years ago I made a concerted effort to find someplace to donate the used cinder blocks. After speaking to three people at ReStore, including the manager, they agreed to pickup the cinder blocks if we would stack them in the driveway on their pallets. We brought the pallets home and stacked over 2/3s of the blocks onto them. Sure enough, the pickup crew showed up at the appointed time and took away the blocks. Yeah! Only 1/3 of them left! A couple days later I went out to ReStore to get another pallet to complete the process and was told they would not like to get the rest of the blocks. By this time my stack of cinderblocks looked like this.

But the best part is I finally found a purpose for the cinder block.

I was running out of time to have the cinderblocks go to a new home, as we were having a fairly large event in our backyard soon. What to do, what to do? Then I saw an article where someone had built raised beds out of cinder blocks, and by using them in a unique way, were able to make them look new and fun. It gave me enough of a vision to re-examine my stash of cinder blocks. They would become the wall to place a potted shade garden on.

I rearranged the blocks and began to move potted shade plants in. I found some old pot hangers, filled them with potted Diascia hybrids and repurposed a strawberry pot with Superflorens Begonias. I added Impatiens, both walleriana and New Guinea hybrids that were elsewhere in my yard. A lovely old Asparagus densiflorens ‘Springeri'  joined them. The added bonus of putting these moderate or greater water lovers together is that they are now not spread all about the yard, but in one place, where it is easier to supply them with their higher water needs.