Martha Stewart's Affordable Plant Stand Uses A Cheap Garden Staple

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As one of America's most established home-and-garden authorities, it's safe to say Martha Stewart knows a thing or two about DIY home decor. In a 2023 Instagram post, Stewart demonstrated how she repurposed a tomato cage to be used as an inexpensive, minimalist plant stand. She achieved this feat by cutting off the pointed feet, spray painting the cage gold, flipping it so the wide ring is facing up, and placing a potted plant on top.

If you're looking for indoor plant decor on a budget, this technique could yield you some decent savings. A basic single tomato cage sells for between $5 and $8 when you buy it from a major retailer like Home Depot, where you can also save money on plants, while multipacks at Walmart and Target often work out to roughly $6 to $11 per cage. By contrast, simple indoor plant stands commonly start around $15 to $20 at Target, while similar products list for between $19.99 and $29.99 at Ikea. At many retailers, more decorative or multi-tier options can easily climb to $50 or more per unit.

While Stewart's hack could save you some cash, there are still DIY costs to consider: You can find a bottle of gold spray paint for around $10, while a basic pair of metal-cutting tin snips may sell for around $10 to $20. These could hike up the price if you just need one plant stand, but they are each one-time purchases you could reuse repeatedly for future DIYs.

The most obvious drawback to Stewart's hack is that tomato cages are typically not as stable as purpose-built stands. Due to the potential for wobbling or unsteadiness, you may want to save this hack for smaller pots that won't stress the cage's frame. 

Additionally, the materials for this kind of project may be cheap — and possibly even cheaper with some money-saving tricks you can use at Home Depot — but there's still the non-cash cost of doing it yourself. You need the patience to cut the cage properly, smooth out any rough metal edges, spray it evenly, and then leave it alone long enough for the finish to dry and cure. Rushing any of these steps could require you to redo the paint, buy extra pads, or scrap the whole thing for another tomato cage or traditional stand altogether.

But if you pull it off properly, you can save on the initial sticker price and the long-term cost that a traditional stand may impose. If you're the sort that moves often, plant stands you're not too sentimental about may be some of the first furniture pieces you'll want to sell before moving to save some money. After all, bulkier stands could be more costly or time consuming to relocate. Additionally, whether you're moving or not, damaging or replacing a higher-end plant stand may prove more of a financial complication than replacing one of these cheap DIY alternatives.