Elho’s Vibes plant pot can handle pretty much anything
17/9/2024
Translation: Katherine Martin
If you’re looking for a nigh on indestructible, stylish plant pot, you’d be well advised to get one from Dutch brand Elho. I now have four – and I don’t plan on stopping there. As long as your plant’s heavy enough, the pots can even go on the balcony.
I have semi-green fingers. In other words, flowering plants always die on me, but my green plants grow and thrive. Naturally, that means I often have to repot them. A few years ago, I discovered the Vibes plant pots from Elho and have been a fan ever since. There’s just one thing I’m slightly less keen on.
Giving my green plants a splash of colour
Non-flowering plants are, as you might expect, green. If you ask me, that gets boring after a while, so I use the pots to try and inject some colour into my otherwise predominantly grey-blue living room. Elho pots are available in dusky pink, sunny yellow, mint green, wool white or petrol blue. They have a ribbed surface, which goes wonderfully with my ribbed, glass lanterns.
The pots come in different shapes and sizes, so there’s one to fit each of my plants. My already magnificent fig tree lives in one with a 30-centimetre diameter. My little, green fern, on the other hand, has hunkered down in the «coupe» pot to gain some height. Once it’s grown, it’ll get a standard pot too. Its former home will go to a new baby plant.
Source: Anika Schulz
Lazy cleaning
Flower pots have a habit of getting filthy. When it’s not the soil causing the mess, it’s the fusty, stagnant water pooling at the bottom of the pot. I used to laboriously scrub my porcelain and clay pots by hand. Now, I stick my Vibes in the dishwasher. Or mini dishwasher, to be exact. Since all Elho pots are made of plastic, they’re super easy to clean. You simply knock the coarsest bits of dirt off the pot, rinse it under the tap, pop it in the dishwasher and hey presto! It’s perfect for people who, like me, hate cleaning.
Great for indoors, outdoor use limited
According to the manufacturer, the Vibes are indoor pots. However, I also put them on my balcony. Simply because they’re almost indestructible and, in my experience, resistant to frost. The only drawback is that they’re very light. So light that they can blow away – especially when that Hamburg wind picks up. In the past, I’ve been forced to go looking for fallen mini pots in the courtyard.
Source: Anika Schulz
With this in mind, I’d only recommend using the Vibes pots outdoors if they contain large, heavy plants, or if you’ve weighed them down with something else. Or if you live in some mystical place with zero wind.
Source: Anika Schulz
The environmental factor
The Dutch manufacturer’s ads say that its flower pots are made from recycled plastic. Or, as the website puts it, «the beauty of waste». Elho also has a wind turbine in its backyard, meaning all its products are supposedly manufactured using «100 percent Dutch wind energy». The turbine even features in this cute little video.
I don’t know whether the wind energy generated by the company is enough to run its production process or whether they use extra power from electrical sockets. However, I wanted to mention the environmental side of things in order to give you a fuller picture.
In a nutshell
Stylish and easy to clean
Elho’s Vibes flower pots are long-lasting pops of colour. They’re available in many sizes (7 cm, 9 cm, 11 cm, 14 cm, 16 cm, 18 cm, 22 cm, 25 cm and 30 cm in diameter), and come in both bright and subtle colours. As long as they’re weighed down or sheltered reasonably well from the wind, you can also use them outside.
Pro
- Available in many sizes
- Very robust, dishwasher-proof and frost-resistant
- Manufactured in an environmentally friendly way (according to the manufacturer)
Contra
- Only suitable for outdoor use to a limited extent
Header image: Anika Schulz
Anika Schulz
Teamleader Editorial
Anika.Schulz@galaxus.deAs a child, I was socialised with Mario Kart on SNES before ending up in journalism after graduating from high school. As a team leader at Galaxus, I'm responsible for news. I'm also a trekkie and an engineer.