Can a bath be artistic?

April 23, 2008 | easygardener

Have any of you got any ideas about how to make the best use of this (baby) tin bath I’ve acquired? I could leave it artistically propped up against the trellis as in the picture but I think I could do better. It may look like a piece of junk but I like old metal.

Tin bath

How I wished I’d watched all those garden make over programmes. I bet one of them had a tin bath - and turned it into the latest “must have” garden feature.

By the way I refuse to use gold paint and I’m not studding it with diamonds a la Damien Hirst.

4 comments

Gravatar 1 Karen { 04.23.08 at 8:03 pm }

You could simply plant it up.
You could use “wild flowers” and grasses so it looks like it just filled up over time. (You would have to make drainage holes).

Gravatar 2 Nancy { 04.23.08 at 8:32 pm }

If it holds water, you could make a small water garden from it. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, and if you want fish, they don’t have to be expensive. I buy fish from “feeder stock” that most pet stores carry. The fish (sometimes goldfish, sometimes red minnows) can take care of any mosquito larvae, and are pretty. They grow quickly too. One caveat: gold fish will eat plants. The minnows won’t.

Gravatar 3 Jen { 04.24.08 at 7:49 am }

The first thing that comes to my mind when I look at that is -the middle of a flower. You could bury it up to the edges and plant giant ‘petals’ all around it with one kind of flower, while filling the the tub with other flowers, like marigolds or something. That would be fun.

Or, you could turn it upside down and suspend it from a high branch to look like a ufo flying into your garden.

Or you could put oars in it and make it into a boat complete with a fishing net and stuff like that.

Or, you could paint the outside to look like a mushroom, make a sturdy ‘trunk’ and afix it to the trunk. Then plant around it like a garden gnome/fairy land space. That would be cool.

Oooh, this is fun. Good luck! -Jen :)

Gravatar 4 easygardener { 04.24.08 at 6:23 pm }

Thanks all for your suggestions. I stare at the bath every time I go past and think about what each of you said.

Karen - wild flowers and an old container does sound a good combination, nature taking over kind of thing.

Nancy - I’ve already got two ponds but you have made me think about a bog garden.

Jen - wild suggestions in the nicest possible way! I did like the boat idea. It is fun thinking of possibilities :-)

Leave a Comment