Terracotta Planter Set

Details

Unglazed fired clay pots with a drilled drainage hole and a matching saucer in every size. Unglazed is the horticultural point: a porous wall lets air reach the root ball and lets excess water leave through the side of the pot as well as the bottom, which is the difference between roots that breathe and roots sitting in a wet plastic sleeve. The thing to check in a terracotta pot is the firing, and it is the one thing you cannot see. Clay fired too cool, in an open bonfire or a short kiln cycle, comes out looking like a pot and behaving like dried mud. It drinks water, and then a season of watering or one cold night opens the pores, the surface spalls away, and the pot crumbles at the rim or splits down a wall inside a year. Firing temperature and water absorption are the two figures that separate a pot from a season's worth of pot, and there is a real tension in them: too absorbent and it fails, too dense and it stops doing the job you chose clay for. Both figures are stated here. The second move is paint. Seconds that are warped, cracked or underfired get coated in enamel or acrylic, which hides the fault, seals the very wall the pot was chosen for, and flakes off in the sun within months.

• Fired to about 1,000 degrees C in a downdraft kiln, not bonfire fired
• Water absorption under 15 percent, tested per batch, porous without being soft
• Bare fired clay, with no paint, enamel, acrylic or sealant on it
• No glaze of any kind, so there is no lead
• No plastic liner and no cement in the body
• A drilled drainage hole and a matching saucer in every size
• Terracotta dries faster than plastic, so you will water more often. That is the pot doing its job
• A white bloom will appear on the outside. It is mineral salt from the water and the soil, and a dry brush takes it off
• Water sits in the wall of a porous pot, so do not leave one waterlogged where it will freeze