The best decorating ideas are functional in some way. Ashtrays, for example. Before smoking became a moral outrage, ashtrays made of Murano glass, California pottery or chrome and Bakelite served as little works of art.
Things you can use are always the best choices for adorning open shelving in living areas. Unusual bar glasses or bright lacquered bowls that actually can hold cocktails or rice crackers just make more sense than figurines.
I recently hit on a perfect solution for the 6-inch ledge that wraps my screened porch on three sides: fake terra-cotta planters that I can grow lettuce in.
The 2-foot-long containers have integrated water reservoirs in the bottom. This is a slick idea for two reasons. First, the containers have a much sleeker line, tapering gently from 8 inches across the top to 4 inches wide at the bottom, with no clunky tray protruding from the bottom.
Second, each tray has a hole that lets you water from the bottom. No more water or soil splashing onto the ledge. No more trays overflowing and dripping onto the porch furniture. A huge improvement, well worth the $10 each I paid for them.
One year, I grew allegedly sweet-smelling begonias on the ledge. (Their fragrance, if any, was extremely subtle and not worth the premium price.) That was before I realized the ledge was the only place my lettuce crops could flourish.
I can’t grow edibles in the back yard because our two Labradors eat them. I tried cordoning off the kitchen garden with 3-foot-tall rabbit-guard fencing. But the dogs can jump over it without a running start.
I tried cold frames: open four-sided rectangles with salvaged garage windows placed on top. When the dogs learned how to push the tops off to nibble, I hinged the lids in place. On warm days, when I had to prop open the tops with sticks, they were able to flip them open the rest of the way.
Eventually, they broke all the glass tops without cutting themselves, but laying waste to several square feet of lovely lollo rosso, buttercrunch and curly endive. I imagined them dropping their hard-rubber Kong toy on the panes, then carefully removing the evidence.
I got four of the faux terra-cotta planters. I’ll grow mixed-leaf lettuces in two and mache, or lamb’s lettuce, in the others. The varieties I’ve chosen will provide a pleasing mix of color and texture to look at, and by snipping off the leaves an inch above soil level, the plants will continue to grow until they finally croak in July’s blistering heat.
