The Next Urban Garden Trend: On Your Bike?
Bikes adorned with personal flair are common. A well-placed streamer or perfectly situated nameplate turns a bike into, well, a friend. Some green-thumbed bicyclists have taken bike personalization a step further and have turned their bikes into small mobile gardens. Bikes with everything from fitted wooden plant boxes and garden baskets to “wearable bike planters” can safely contain flowers, grasses and herbs. Cyclists can even use cheesecloth or old cloth, burlap placed in baskets with pre-sprouted wheat or barley seeds, and grow and harvest grass.
Of course, some old bikes’ golden days have duly passed. Luckily, old bicycles make stellar stationary planters, too. Grow vertically inclined veggies near your old bike. Let the seedlings do their thing, and climb up and around your repurposed bicycle. Create a hanging vegetable garden on the old bike’s handlebars with an upcycled basket, and plant flowers around the bike’s base.
Alternately, you can upcycle old bike parts. Here are some ideas on how to recycle bikes, and various bike parts if you’re saddled with a dilapidated, crumbly two-wheeler:
Re-purpose bike wheels: create garden art with old bike wheels. Line beds with the metal frames.
Take it inside: use old bike wheels to create a unique Lazy Susan.
For the craft-inclined: make wrist cuffs out of old bike tires.
Recycle: when in doubt (or lack of creativity), recycle your old bike’s tires and bicycle tubes.
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image: dannyman
