Do people in your country use old tires as garden pots?

12 comments

1. You can find old tire garden pots in some small private gardens here in Germany. They are also popular as potato growing fixtures, since you can dismantle them instead of busting out the shovel to get the potatoes out again. This may be attributed to Russian gardening culture tho – lots of ex-Russians here tend to have their own garden

2. They used them in local train stations in Liverpool back in the 1980s. Except these were the more industrial sized tyres, slit around the outer middle and pulled inside out. If that makes any sense at all?

   Painted white and then filled with decent looking flowers, they weren’t super tacky but a definite pain in the arse to lean against.

   I’m gonna have to show this to a couple of Polish colleagues and see what they think.

3. I’ve seen some of those, but I wouldn’t say they’re super common… I had a neighbour who painted tractor tires (and not just covered them with paint, but actually painted small flowers and designs on them) and filled them up with flowers. It looked pretty nice.

   There are other creative pots too, like using old toilets, wheelbarrows, watering cans, or old bikes. Nobody really finds them *controversial*. It’s a good way to recycle stuff that would have ended up in the trash. Kinda trendy actually.

4. Yes, it is sometimes done here. Not too popular, using old containers or items like wheelbarrows is more common, imo.

   Additionally, in the 90s, my kindergarden had a whole climbing track build of tires! We loved that! It had tires of different height that you walked/jumped on, they formed a circle. We could also hide into the bigger ones during hide-and-seek. I wonder, if that climbing track is still there…

5. Yes, extensively. Some even carve figurines out of them, usually stuff like swans or rabbits. They are usually also painted different colors, the brighter the better. Tires are also sometimes used as fences of sorts, my kindergarten had those, we’d use them as slides.

   There has been a controversy related to them lately. The government banned using tires as decoration several years ago, and some people were upset about it. Some consider it a form of modern folk art and a way to bring at least some color and creativity to often drab-looking grey Russian yards.

   I personally like it. Yeah, it’s tacky, but it can be fun, and it certainly brings at least some character to a place. Beats having a pile of dirty snow for decoration. Plus you give a new life to old tires, what’s so bad about that?

6. There are also many of them in Ukraine. Tires were also [used](https://www.google.com/search?q=%D1%88%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8+%D0%BD%D0%B0+%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%8F%D1%87%D0%BE%D0%BC%D1%83+%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%BA%D1%83&client=ms-android-samsung-ga-rev1&hl=uk&prmd=ivn&sxsrf=APwXEdew7DP-qoL5NEt0dLAI9vSsEb8iTA:1685621555096&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwinnJHQhaL_AhVJCBAIHUC5CMQQ_AUIHygB&biw=412&bih=810&dpr=2.63) on children’s playgrounds as a perimeter, you can jump on it, or different sculptures were made from tires. I think it was popular in post-communist countries because people were poor.

   Similarly, I saw that slippers are made from tires in Africa.

7. I have never seen an old tire used as a gardening pot, but I just may not have looked in the right places yet. It seems like a great idea, though. When I change my car tires, I may give it a go

8. Yea sometimes, I’ve seen them painted nice colours in some gardens so they’re not just black tyres.

   My primary school actually used old tractor tires are sand pits for us to play in as well.

9. on the one hand it’s a great way to reuse tires at least they don’t pollute the environment.
   On the other hand, seeing nature grow in plastic is such a sad thing.

10. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it, but I kind of like the way it looks. I’m honestly kind of tempted to get myself some old tires now.

11. Not really, most of these tires are already collected by your car mechanic but it is common to have [tin boxes](https://images.app.goo.gl/V1QaGVwjHXBitj996) as gardening material. It is normal to buy 20kg cheese, olives, olive oil, tomato or pepper paste, sun flower oil, etc. When you finish what it is in the tank, you usually put dirt in it from garden to grow bug free vegetables, herbs. We used to have chili peppers, parsley, mint, stinging nettle, etc. in them and every evening before dinner, we always pick something up from there.

12. Don’t do this

    Tyres contain a host of chemicals and metals that should not be in the human body. They do gradually erode and break down, leaching those chemicals into the environment – the ground water, soil and plants