Out with the New

Thank you for all the sweet comments regarding my potting bench.  Over the years I've come to appreciate the patina of old terra cotta pots.  I'm not always very good about bringing in my terra cotta flower pots in the winter, so I have a fair collection of bottomless flower pots that froze to the ground.  I just bury halfway in the soil and keep using them until they finally shatter.

So my terra cotta flower pots never get a chance to develop a nice mossy patina.  They always look brand-spanking new. 

I've heard of people using yogurt to age them, but that just sounds gross.

Then I read about using garden lime.  Most of the tutorials show pots that covered with a heavy white crust, which wasn't wasn't the effect I wanted.  I just wanted to take away some of the new look.

I picked up a bag of garden lime at Home Depot.

I stirred in two large heaping spoonful into about a cup of water (or around a third of a venti-sized cup).

I found that the lime was hard to dissolve, so I just stirred frequently while I worked.  I brushed several coats liberally onto a flower pot.  It was a hot day, so it dried quickly.

When it is dry, use a soft rag, like an old t-shirt, to brush the excess lime from the pot.  Check out the transformation.  It's instant aging.

To be honest, I had my doubts that the lime was doing anything other than just adding dust to the terra cotta.  So I sprayed them with a garden hose.  They have sat in the rain.  And they still look like this:

I'm linking up...

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