The lowly flowerpot

Magazine Antiques, August, 2004 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

The terra-cotta flowerpot is the workhorse of all ceramic objects, which is probably why its shape has changed little since classical antiquity. Even in the early eighteenth century the English designer Batty Langley advised that plants that had been forced in inexpensive clay pots could simply be nestled, pot and all, into more elaborate and formal porcelain containers that were then de rigueur in fashionable interiors. Unglazed terra-cotta pots were long though to be better for plants because they did not inhibit oxygen from reaching the roots and they prevented water from pooling in the soil.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The history of the flowerpot is the subject of a traveling exhibition on view at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, from August 15 to September 11. The show was earlier on view at the Stonington Historical Society's Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer House in Stonington, Connecticut, where it returns after it closes in Maine. It is entitled A Place to Take Root: The History of Flower Pots and Garden Containers in America, and comprises more than fifty objects ranging from terra-cotta urns made in Tuscany, Italy, to eighteenth-century English examples, and contemporary concrete planters and flowerpots made by Lunaform in Maine (see p. 104 of this issue). Drawings, photographs, and other documents are also on view.

The European flowerpots are included to establish the stylistic roots of American pots, which were initially imported from England. By the eighteenth century potters in this country were making both stoneware and clay pots in some quantity. With the rise in popularity of greenhouses and conservatories in the nineteenth century the demand for flowerpots increased dramatically, and pots were designed to accommodate specific plants. Among these specialized forms are seed pans, thimbles (for tiny seedings), graduated pots and saucers, orchid pans, so-called long toms (for plants with long taproots; see the illustration at right), and forcing pots. Some of the examples in the exhibition are re-creations of flowerpots only known through shards found at waste sites. They were made by Guy Wolff based on fragments found at Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia; Bartram's Garden in Philadelphia; and Hervey Brooks's Pottery in Goshen, Connecticut.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Gardeners in the northern states have always been obliged to bring clay pots indoors in winter to prevent them from shattering in freezing temperatures. To make them more portable, flowerpots were made with "ears" so that there was something to hold onto while moving them. The harsh northern winters have been a catalyst for gardeners and others to experiment with materials that are impervious to frost. In Maine the architectural photographer and draftsman Eric Ellis Soderholtz succeeded in creating pots of colored reinforced concrete that withstood severe climates. Not long after 1901 he began making these pots for his personal use, but soon friends and acquaintances requested his planters, and today they can be found in gardens all along the East Coast.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The exhibition does not have a catalogue.