Hover Pots: Gardens That Hang from the Ceiling

In an art gallery in a little seaside town on Whidbey Island near Seattle, stylish aluminum planters hang next to the paintings.

Museo Gallery’s annual April garden show this year featured work of Vancouver-based designer Todd Holloway of Pot Inc., whose aluminum Hover pots are fabricated in British Columbia. The shallow Hover pots, available in six colors, are designed to accommodate hanging indoor gardens of sedums and grasses (but look just as stylish in a kitchen, holding bananas or oranges).

Holloway created the pots as an alternative to  old-fashioned moss baskets. “I saw a need for a new solution for hanging plants in the air,” says Holloway. Seeking inspiration for contemporary hanging planters, he became obsessed with various dish and bowl shapes. He quickly hit on aluminum as a versatile, lightweight material sturdy enough to ship with minimal packaging. And aluminum is recyclable, making the hover dishes suited for LEED certified projects. The Dolga and the Flango style dishes are made of galvanized steel, so are less expensive and slightly heavier than the aluminum dishes. Each style varies slightly in depth, width and shape, but all are double powder coated for durability, and come with stainless steel cables and a swivel hook for hanging.

Photographs by Aaron Simpson, courtesy of Museo Gallery.

Above:  Hover pots, complete with hardware, cost between $105 for the galvanized steel dishes to $195 for the largest aluminum ones at Pot Inc. 

“We sold all four hover dishes right off; I could easily have sold a dozen more,” says gallery owner Sandra Jarvis of the sleek, modern container gardens that were the hit of the show. The pots come in colors ranging from a cool blue “iceberg” to hot orange “chili.” The grass and chartreuse green shades were the hits at the Museo show.

Above: Holloway recommends planting hover pots with shallow-rooted succulents, dwarf perennials, and small grasses.

At 8 inches deep, the “Bosa” style has the most root room and can accommodate annuals and trailers. The hover dishes at the Museo show were planted in drought-tolerant sun lovers. Each pot was centered in a showy succulent like Kalanchoe thyrisiflora “˜Desert Rose’, or dark-leafed Aeonium arboreum var. atropurpureum “˜Schwarzkopf’. Creeping thyme; hens and chicks (Sempervivum); different sedums; and tufts of carex, fescue, and mondo grass filled in and tumbled down the sides of the pots.

For more of our favorite hanging planters, see The Hanging Kitchen Garden by Boskke. Planning a trip to Seattle? See our Seattle Design Travel Guide on Remodelista.