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How to Make a Tire Planter: Tips for Choosing, Cutting, Inverting, and Painting a Tire

© Felder Rushing

With a little creative paint and a nice arrangement of flowers, herbs, or vegetables, you can make planters out of carefully selected, neatly-cut, inverted tires (free from any auto garage) that will last for decades. 

Choosing and Cutting a Tire Planter

Some tires are easier to turn into planters than others; even steel-belted radials can be cut and inverted easily, since the belts are only in the tread, where no cutting will be done. Before choosing a tire for the planter, test for flexibility. Use your fist or foot to mash in the curve between the tread and sidewall—if it pushes in easily, it's a good candidate, but if it resists or is stiff, move on to another tire.

Cut the tire on the flat sidewall only. It may help to use chalk to outline where you'll cut. Work a long-bladed knife into the sidewall, then saw a zig-zag, wavy, or more detailed pattern. Cut from just beside the center hole to where the tire begins to curve towards the sidewall. Cut right up to the curve, not into the tread where steel belts lurk. Be careful—cut away from you in case the knife slips.

How to Invert the Cut Tire into a Planter

With the cut side facing away from you, use a knee to push in the place where you tested the tire earlier, and at the same time pull the cut side back towards you. If it isn't easy to do, move the knee until you find the tire's soft spot. Lie the tire down and use one hand to pull a little of the cut area, while at the same time pushing in with the other hand. Do a small section at a time as you move around the tire. Sometimes part of the inverted area will pop back into its original position, but ignore this and it will resolve itself.

Use any kind of paint—even spray paint—to make your planter look like a work of art. If the tire is dirty, wash it with a grease-cutting detergent so paint will stick. The cut-out "star" can be painted also, and hung on a wall or fence. 

See below for helpful photos related to making a tire planter.

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