Plants and another dilemma

One of the big reasons we took our apartment was because it has a large balcony and I could plant herbs for cooking. We have been here three years and so far the garden hasn't materialized. (We do eat on the patio, as evidenced here and here, so we aren't completely wasting it).

Well, I have planter problems. Specifically, I have issues with the fact that many of them are ugly and expensive. The ones that actually look nice are even more expensive. Oh, and I already know exactly what I want despite the fact that I don't know if it exists.

I want straight sided squares or rectangles (I have nothing against round pots, but they aren't very space efficient). No frills, no carvings of grapes. Preferably made out of some material that isn't just straight up plastic, although at this point I'm willing to compromise.

{image from simplyplanters.com}

This would be a perfect space saving option, because we could store things underneath it. Exciting? Not exactly. Functional? Yes. But paying over $200 for a planter is too painful for me right now.

This website has some affordable planters I can admire, but no indication of whether or not they would ship them. Target has even jumped in on the game with one cute rectangular planter, but it's just too small.

If money was no object (as in, if I had so much money that I could literally pile dollar bills in my bathtub and wallow around in it for fun), I would throw all my requirements out the window and buy this one by VesseL. It is 60 inches long so you could fit tons of plants in it! It is glazed white ceramic with a good shape and a simple wooden base!

{images above + below from VesseL's own site, architecturalpottery.com}

Here is one in use, just so you get the scale...
I'm kind of in love with it.

Stay tuned tomorrow to see what I ended up doing.

*Hint - it does not involve fabulous $1,700 planters or amazing facsimiles thereof. So don't get too excited. And yes, I just had a tiny heart attack when I typed out that number.