Tuesday, August 23, 2016

The potential! At the ReBuildng Center...

When I wrote about my Bromeliad dish garden I referenced the ReBuilding Center, later I realized I've never dedicated an entire post to this amazing Portland resource. Time to right that wrong!

The Rebuilding Center takes donations of reusable building materials. According to their website... "Every day, eight tons of building materials move through the Rebuilding Center warehouse, with all donations and sales serving our mission to reduce waste and build local community."

There are several buildings and many departments in the complex. I tend to head right to what I think of as the "vents and ducts" area.

This piece had great potential for replacing the problem part of my dish garden, if only it were smaller.

I so love the possibilities of shiny metal!

These! OMG! They were aged just right. A pair of tall planters...can't you see it? Somehow I left them behind. As I write that was 3 days ago. I wonder if they're still there?

Hmmm...

And this! I see a long shallow planter.

Fabulous!

They have wood too, if you're into that sort of thing.

In another section these perforated squares have been haunting me. No doubt most of you know what they are, but I do not. I just know they're terribly cool.

And there are buckets of them!

There are also a ton of light fixtures...

And bathroom bits.

I rarely see the front of the store (usually entering from the alley), but it is impressive!

Love the fence too, although the color is not a favorite.

Now that we've had a quick little tour around the store how about I share some of the things I've done with my ReBuilding Center finds?

I have no idea what this piece of metal really is, but once I found it I knew it would be a planter. It's all one piece, open at the bottom, but I sealed off the long base while still allowing a little water to drain.

This is year two for the Aloe and Sedum combo. I suppose next year I'd better pull them out, root-prune, and refresh the soil.

This is one of many traditionally "pot-shaped" metal pieces that have become planters.

This one is open at the bottom, essentially just a ring. I used it to help increase the drainage for the roots of this Agave parry var. couesii, it is planted in the ground and will stay here over winter.

Ditto for the piece the Agave bracteosa is planted in. Where as the Agave nickelsiae planter has a solid bottom and gets moved around.

This old metal funnel has held a few different Agaves.

Each only spend a season in such root-cramped quarters, but they look good while they're doing it!

That metal drum was a ReBuilding score. Again I have no idea what it's supposed to be. There's a hole in the top with a piece of PVC glued into it. Great for planting!

Of course the pie-plate and other pieces used to make the dish garden were recently written about here.

I still love it!

This tall perforated piece of metal is playing trellis to a Passionflower.

And a few loops of metal wire are allowing another Passionflower vine to use the Albizia julibrissin 'Summer Chocolate' tree for support without overwhelming it.

I just have to remember to train it around the wire every so often.

I do love the ReBuilding Center and hope you have something in your city similarly inspiring for re-purposed "could-be" gardeny things!

All material © 2009-2016 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

30 comments:

  1. I love your eye for seeing the potentialities in metal stuff! ;-) Not to mention the mini raised planters! I'll have to keep that in mind for the bottom (clay) part of my garden...

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    1. I do love metal! I wanted our fences to be corrugated, but some smart person cautioned me against the glare and reflected heat.

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  2. So glad you pulled this all together in one post. I'm also a big fan of bottomless pots/vents in the garden. That metal drum is the best find. What an undercover salvage artist you've been!

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    1. "undercover salvage artist"...I love that!

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  3. We too have a rebuilding center. I have always meant to visit. You have totally inspired me. You really are an artist!

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    1. Thanks Laurin, hope you get a chance to visit yours.

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  4. Your creativity is impressive, and thrift/recycling is a great thing. But metal plant containers always make me wonder: doesn't the conductive nature of the material make temperature swings more extreme? The swings in Portland are probably smaller than they are here (November and late Feb-mid March often being hugely stressful even for in-ground plants).

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    1. The small metal planters typically don't spend the harshest part of the winter exposed, and the things I put in them are (for the most part) happy with the extra heat in the summer. I can report the soil in the stock tank planters in the driveway is warm and dry early in the spring, when the rest of the garden is still quite cold and wet.

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  5. I get so confused at the Rebuilding Center that I usually go away empty-handed. I could use some of your laser-like focus instead of looking at everything. Do I detect a bit of non-buyer's remorse? I am always more likely to regret the thing left behind, how about you?

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    1. Not usually. If I walk away then I forget about it. I think it was just having to look at that photo and imagine the possibilities that got to me. But then I tried to figure out WHERE I would put them...(I still haven't gone back).

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  6. My favorite of your repurposed pieces is the square platform with the Aloe and the burro's tail Sedum. I have a couple of very large metal hoops that I need to do something with. I'm thinking some kind of Sedum quilt thing.

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    1. Yes! I hope you get a chance to do that Alison.

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  7. Ours is called the Re-Store and it's run by our local Habitat for Humanity group. If you see something unusual you usally have to grab it as things sell quickly. We do rusted metal for the most part outdoors and a bit of galvanized indoors!

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    1. We have the Re-Store here too, but sadly there aren't any locations that are convenient for me to get to.

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  8. Those stores are great resources and you've shown me some ideas for parts I usually pass by. Ours is called ReStore and the funds support Habitat for Humanity projects. We used it to outfit a house we flipped. Lots of brand new items left over from large projects end up there so it's always nice hunting.

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    1. You and Linda (comment above) have me wanting to make the drive to our ReStore!

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  9. Wow. Love your creative repurposing. Everything looks great. I had no idea that the fish-tail looking leaves of the passion flower (whose name escapes me) are so big! Who needs flowers? Gorgeous.

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    1. Passiflora incarnata - I think they were showing a little drought stress when I took that photo, and curling in a bit. Emphasizing the fish-tail look.

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    2. Ooops. Nope. Passiflora 'Sunburst' is the one to which I was referring. Searched your blog-not so lazy today as I was yesterday.

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    3. Ah!!! That makes sense. Silly me forgot there were two Passiflora in this post!

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  10. I had no idea you had SO MANY cool metal pieces. I'd love to do something similar with metal rings that raise the plants up. I HAVE to make a trek to Portland in the van...

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    1. Fill the van with metal and plants...I like it!

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  11. Sad to say I have a miniature version of this store in my garage... not enough metalwork for you though. :) I've never visited our local version of this place as I need to use what I have first!

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    1. When someone's got the wood skills (and tools) you have why leave home?

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  12. What a great place! Must visit next time I'm in your neck of the woods! You need the two tall planter things to go with the rest of your galvanized metal stuff! Go, buy!

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  13. You've made some great finds at that place! I love the entrance. This reminds me I keep meaning to check out the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Kelso.

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  14. Well, you set me on an on-line hunt. As with other of the commentators here, the closest we have to your ReBuilding Center is a Habitat for Humanity ReStore, which turns out to have an outlet closer than I realized. To springboard on Alan's comment, I suppose I could ferry through my husband's workshop but that would probably be a far more hazardous expedition.

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