My New Pots from Master Potter, Guy Wolff

November 18, 2016

My New Pots from Master Potter, Guy Wolff

I am always excited to get new pots for my growing collection of rare and exotic plants - especially when they are from master potter, Guy Wolff.

I first met Guy years ago during one of my many trips through Litchfield County, Connecticut, searching for antiques, plants, and ideas for my magazine, Living. I was so impressed by Guy's pottery, I became a regular customer.

Some time ago, I asked Guy to make me another batch of pots in various sizes. And last week, he personally delivered the vessels to my Bedford, New York farm - each and every one of them is so very beautifully handcrafted. Take a look, and enjoy these photos.

: Guy Wolff delivered more than two-dozen gorgeous gray pots – these are the largest, each weighing more than 55-pounds.

: Guy’s wife, Erica, accompanied him from his Bantam, Connecticut shop. She helped move the pots to the edge of their truck as Guy and Ryan carried them inside.

: You may recall, we visited his shop last year to see how these pots are made. This is Guy’s work room, with many of my pots drying on the table.

: It was quite amazing to watch the master at work – he throws with such ease.

: The front of Guy’s shop is a restored 1740 post and beam structure, which houses his showroom.

: Back at my greenhouse, more pots are brought inside, including these orchid pots.

: Here is a beautiful tall pot, with a simple decorative band at the top – I love its shape.

: And here are some smaller containers – Guy makes all of them himself – they are just stunning.

: Each pot has a large drainage hole in the bottom, along with his signature etched in the clay.

: At the bottom side of his pots, Guy stamps his name and the wet weight of the clay used. This standardized system for marking horticultural pots was adopted by Victorian potters.

: He stamps my name and the year the pot was made on the other side. On some of the bigger pots Guy has made for me, he stamps Cantitoe , the name of my farm.

: During the visit, Guy was so happy to see so many of the pots he has made over the years. He says my collection is definitely the largest one he has seen of his pottery.

: This was Guy’s first trip to my farm. He took many photos of the pots being well used in my greenhouse.

: Here are just a few of them.

: He also took photos of his pots currently being stored under this long table.

: Most of these are Guy Wolff pots just waiting to be potted with new plants.

: Guy visited my citrus greenhouse to see more of his pottery, and to take photos of other pots, which inspired him.

: This pot is stamped 2006.

: It was so much fun having Guy at the farm – he truly is a master craftsman. Erica and Guy stopped for this quick photo with Ryan before heading home. Please visit Guy’s web site to learn more about his pottery – they make wonderful holiday gifts. http://www.guywolff.com/

: Earlier this week, Wilmer took on the task of repotting some plants in the biggest of the new Guy Wolff pots.

: This pot has a wet weight of 56-pounds.

: I wanted to repot several ‘white bat plants’, Tacca integrifolia, a long-lived, short stemmed rhizomatous herbaceous plant with big, pretty leaves, vertical growth habit and strange whisker-like bracts below the flowers.

: And look at these – they look just like sleeping bats wrapped in their wings.

: As with all our repotting projects, Wilmer first loosens the roots with his hands, and prepares it for the new vessel.

: The older, larger rhizomes are trimmed of leaves and roots.

: A few broken shards are positioned over the drain hole in the bottom of each pot, which will allow water to drain out but keep the potting mix from escaping.

: Wilmer scoops a bit of the potting mix into the pot.He uses a good quality ericaceous compost mix, with about 10 to 20-percent added perlite for extra drainage.