11 Upcycled Garden Decorations

Bling your garden without breaking your budget or adding anything new to the waste stream with these upcycled garden decorations. Here are eleven great ideas for upcycled garden decorations–eco-friendly beauty for your beautiful garden!

1. bowling ball gazing ball. If you don’t want to buy new glass marbles for this project, use broken tile and grout to make it a mosaic ball instead.

2. brick plant markers. These plant markers are so lovely that you won’t believe how simple they are to make!

3. cinder block mosaic. I can’t be the only one who has random cinder blocks, right? I mean, where do they all come from?!? Fortunately, they make great borders for little garden beds, especially if you mosaic them with broken tile pieces first.

4. jar lid plant markers. I have loads of old canning jar lids that I use for this project.

5. marbled privacy fence. Is a privacy fence stealing your sun? Embed your kids’ forgotten marbles in it and enjoy the glow! Pro tip: you can also do this with a plaque made from a pallet board, then hang it somewhere sunny.

6. outdoor clock. I LOVE the idea of an outdoor clock; look for a beat-up old plant stand instead of the new one that the author uses for her project, or cut a pallet board down to size to get the same look.

7. paint stirrer plant markers. Please note: this is only an upcycling project if you ACTUALLY use used plant stirrers. This is NOT an upcycling project if you use new paint stirrers from the hardware store, EVEN if you get them for free! The most interesting way to do this project, in my opinion, is to use a coat of the paint color that the stirrer was used for–it’s a record of your design projects AND a garden marker!

8. pallet board garden sign. A pallet board, a wood burner, a hammer, and two nails are all you need to make these garden signs. You don’t even have to sand the wood!

9. pallet board walkway. This won’t last forever, but if you need a nice walkway between the beds in your garden, it will look quite nice for a couple of years.

10. penny ball. Upcycle a bowling ball or playground ball with pennies–you know you don’t actually use them! The ball makes a lovely decoration, but I’m told that it also deters snails and slugs.

11. soda can plant markers. People will never guess that you upcycled these plant markers out of soda cans.

Looking for even more ways to jazz up your garden? Here are six more ideas from our sister site, Eat Drink Better!