The weather has been BEAUTIFUL here for nearly a month now. I am absolutely loving it, and of course, the first weekend that the garden centers opened up, I was there! Which kind of made me a sucker because as I have learned, it takes a little while for the greenhouses to get all of their plants in! Naturally, I have to learn things the hard way...but the way I saw it is that I would get a head start on the growing season and my plants would be
that much bigger!
On one of my many trips to the garden centre I came across a tray of sedums (a type of succulent plant). It looked
so appealing that even though I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with it, I brought it home. After spending a few days searching for neat ideas on ways to use my sedum tray, I decided I was going to build a frame planter. I came across some step-by-step instructions from
Young's Garden Centre and thought it looked simple enough! Except of course, I couldn't just buy a frame, I had to make one...
I found this crazy and wonderful place called Community Forklift. They are basically a warehouse and yard filled with building supplies that were taken from excavation projects, donations, excess supplies from construction jobs...you name it, they probably have it. But in a dirty, used form... When I first stepped into the warehouse I felt very overwhelmed. I was so excited to have found a place like this with so many hidden treasures! ...and so much crap. I literally spent an hour and a half in there and came out with two pieces of wood that cost me $2. I think I'll do better next time...
They have a section of trim, which is where I found the trim that I used to make my planter frame.
I also found a piece of cedar that I cut and used for the back of my planter.
Step 1: Cut the trim to make the frame. This took a lot of muscle!
Step 2: Glue the boards together to make the frame. I also used a staple gun on the back to hold the sides in place as the glue was drying.
Step 3: Build the planter box that will sit behind the frame. I bought a 6 foot 1x2" board and cut four pieces to the size I needed after I built my frame. Then I pre-drilled the holes (I never realized just how important this step is. And it is always so tempting to skip this step, but if you want to avoid splitting your wood, it's probably a good idea to pre-drill your holes). Lastly, I screwed the pieces together, turning the top piece on its side, as it mentions in the instructions from Young's Garden Centre, to create a gap for watering. I also drilled a few holes in the bottom board to allow for drainage.
Step 4: I cut the cedar board to create two pieces the size I needed. Then before I attached them to the back of the box I drilled two holes into the top piece. This allowed me to string a wire through the board before I attached the board to the box, making it easier on me when it came time to hang the frame. Following? Hope so.
Step 5: Screw the two boards onto the back of the planter box.
Step 6: I used wood glue to glue the frame to the planter box. You could use Gorilla Glue or any strong adhesive I would guess. This is the step where you would fill the planter box with dirt and then attach a piece of gardening fabric over top of the dirt before gluing the frame on top. I didn't do this, as I had a tray of sedums that I simply had to cut to the right size and plunk into my planter box. I did put a layer of potting soil in the planter prior to laying my sedum slab down in the frame.
Step 7: So, I forgot to consider gravity...I needed to use about six very long nails to nail my sedum tray to the back of the planter, so that they wouldn't fall out!
In hindsight, I would buy a frame for cheap rather than make one. Unless you are awesome at making frames, which I am not...yet! I'm pretty determined to master that skill, however. Overall, I think it is a cool little planter and kept me busy for an afternoon while my son napped.
