Wanting to know whether IKEA plant pots have drainage holes before making the trip to the store?
Unfortunately, IKEA’s website doesn’t tell us whether their pots have drainage holes. Their images do not show the base of the pot, and the product description doesn’t tell us whether or not there’s a hole.
So I visited the IKEA at Rhodes (Sydney, Australia) and looked at their pot varieties.
The vast majority of IKEA’s plant pots do not have drainage holes. IKEA’s plant pots were designed and intended to be used as cache pots for decorative purposes. The plant pots with holes usually come with a saucer and are sold as a single item.
In this blog post, I will share my findings on IKEA plant pots so you can decide whether it’ll be worthwhile to drive down to your local IKEA.
IKEA Plant Pots Are Mostly Decorative Cachepots
IKEA is known for its ready-to-assemble furniture, home decoration, and accessories. We all love to shop at IKEA by browsing their beautifully displayed items and finding accessories that will beautify our homes.
IKEA’s supplies of plant pots are typically made with the intention to be used as cache pots.
The purpose of cache pots is often to hide unattractive grow pots hidden from view. They are used as decorative accessories to fill dull spaces or to enhance a themed room.
When I visited an IKEA store, I browsed through the potting section and checked whether each had a drainage hole. This is what I found:
| Name of Pot | Drainage Hole? |
| CITRUSFRUKT | Yes! |
| BRUNBÄR | Yes! |
| MUSKOTBLOMMA | Yes! |
| MUSKOT | No |
| CHIAFRÖN | No |
| GRADVIS | No |
| VINTERFINT | No |
| SKOGSVINBÄR | No |
| NYPON | No |
| GRADVIS | No |
| SESAMFRÖN | No |
| FÖRENLIG | No |
| CASHEWÄPPLE | No |
| BITTERGURKA | No |
The three pots I found that had drainage holes were the Citrusfrukt, Brunbär, and Muskotblomma designs.
The Citrusfrukt pot is one of the few IKEA pots with drainage holes. This pot has five ready-made holes at the base and comes with a saucer. The material used is stoneware which makes it durable and resistant to liquids.
They also come in five different sizes to choose from, all of which have five drainage holes. Having five holes is a great feature of this pot design, allowing excess water to drain freely.
The second IKEA pot that had a drainage hole was the Brunbär. This one comes in two different sizes, both of which only have one pre-drilled hole. The Brunbär pot is made from classic terracotta material which is known for balancing soil moisture.
The Muskotblomma is another terracotta pot with one drainage hole. The Muskotblomma is similar to the Brunbär except that it has rounder edges.
I’ve noticed that IKEA’s planters with drainage holes all come with matching saucers. This makes perfect sense for the planter to capture excess water and prevents spilling onto IKEA’s furniture.
When I looked through IKEA’s website, I noticed that when a planter comes with drainage holes, they will show the hole on their website.
IKEA Online Shopping Tip for Planters:
If you come across a planter with no photo of a hole or saucer, there’s a good chance it does not have a drainage hole.
Why Do Most IKEA Plant Pots Don’t Have Drainage Holes?
There are several reasons why IKEA doesn’t stock all pots with drainage holes:
- IKEA intended to sell only cache pots
As IKEA is a company that focuses on style and convenience, they probably wanted their customers to use their pots as cache pots. This means the customers can buy one of their live plants in-store and a complementary planter. The customer can simply put the plant into the cache pot for immediate decoration for the house.
- To keep costs down
For the manufacturers to add drainage holes to their pots would add an additional cost per unit for IKEA. And given that IKEA is branded as a low-cost household furniture supplier, eliminating the need to drill a drainage hole means that production costs are kept low.
If IKEA only supplied pots with drainage holes, they would need to provide matching saucers, which adds to additional costs, thus raising the retail prices. This may be enough to deter customers who are sensitive to price.
- It gives customers the option
Planters without a drainage hole give customers the option of whether or not to drill one. Some customers prefer to use decorative pots as cache pots; if that’s the case, there are plenty of IKEA ones to choose from. Otherwise, customers can drill a hole if they wish to plant directly into that pot.
Check Second Hand Stores for Pots With Drainage Holes
If you specifically require pots with drainage holes, you should check out second hand markets rather than shopping at IKEA. The second-hand markets that I’m referring to include:
- Thrift stores
- Yard sales
- Estate sales, and
- Facebook Marketplace
These second-hand markets often have an abundance of plant pots for a fraction of the retail prices. And if you find a nice pot without a drainage hole, you can try to drill one in without feeling too guilty if you break one.
To Summarise…
You will find that most of IKEA’s planters do not have drainage holes because they’re intended to be used as cache pots. There are very few selections of planters with drainage holes; for those that do, they usually come with a matching saucer. If you prefer a planter with a drainage hole because you don’t have the tools to drill one, look at second-hand markets while saving money simultaneously!
