Greg Corning

Your article is extremely informative! Thank you. Would the sealant leach out and contaminate the garden soil?

Learning new things! I had no idea there is something called food-grade epoxy! Thank you.

Min, Excellent, scholarly + wise information. Thank you.

A variety of plants... Various salvias; columbine; penstemon; lavender - ornamentals, mostly perennials.

Dear LT, Your ideas are excellent food for thought. I had not thought about various factors to consider. I'll look into the Val Cushing information. Thank you.

Dear Chilly, The clay is from New Mexico Clay in Albuquerque. I am told it is a white-ish porcelaneous clay, "mid-fire". The plan was to fire it to cone 5. The glaze is just a commercial glaze - nothing at all fancy or advanced. Thank you for asking.

Dear oldlady, That sounds like a very good idea. Thank you. I'll check to see if the waterproofing paint/coat available is resistant to leaching and, if it is, I'll try that out. Thank you.

neilestrick, The one prototype I've got in place seems to work fine with about 1/2 - 3/4 inch in the ground. Hmm... Now you've got me worried about ground movement in winter. I likely won't be able to bring most of them in because I expect the plants to grow and engulf them, which means I'd have to prune so heavily to remove the collars that it might harm (some of) the plants.) But this is worrying. The typical winter where we are (northern New Mexico, elevation about 6,000 feet [1830 meters] brings repeated cycles of freezing and thawing, as in three or five really cold days followed by many mild days with freezing nights. So yikes, these things will face many freeze-thaw cycles per winter.

Min, They're like a dog collar sized for a jaguar's neck.

Exactly. Very short open-ended cylinders, you could say. Like gigantic ceramic dog collars. (Hey maybe that would be a cute design idea.)

Hello. I hope you are well. I'm brand new at ceramics. I've made some "collars" - clay rings about eight inches in diameter and about four inches high - to put around garden plants. (This is to conserve water by keeping it right at the plants' bases.) The bottom edge of the rings are unglazed because I learned that glazing the bottom edge would cause them to stick to the kiln shelf. I need to seal the unglazed edges so that they don't absorb water and then fracture when water freezes next winter. I don't want toxic sealants because I fear they will leach into the soil and poison the plants as well as other organisms. Do you know of any non-toxic sealers for ceramic items? Thank you.