Easiest Vertical Garden Ever!
We are slowly but surely conquering our backyard. Last summer we added an awesome sunken fire pit area, and this summer I’m working on dressing it all up a bit. One of the things that bothered me was these large bare sections of fence. We’ve done a lot of projects lately, so I decided not to push my luck this time and went with these super-easy vertical garden planters.
B’s kindergarten class has been working on how-to writing, and she’s been pestering me about letting her help write a how-to blog post. So this one is mostly her, with a bit of help.
Supplies:
- Felt pocket planter (Ours has 12 pockets, but you can also get tall skinny ones, etc.)
- potting soil
- slow-release fertilizer (I like Osmocote for flowers and other plants we don’t intend to eat)
- Screws & Drill
- container for scooping dirt
- sedum tile or other hardy drought-tolerant plants (I want my plants to trail and hang down- and hopefully cover most of the black felt planter eventually). Also, my first time around I tried to use Creeping Jenny and you’ll see it in the pictures. But it didn’t last long because it wasn’t getting enough water. The pockets are pretty shallow. The sedum is still very happy after a few months though!
How to Make a Vertical Garden
1. Mount the planter.
Mount the felt planter on the fence with screws. Make sure your screws are going into something solid. This thing will weigh a lot more when it’s wet!
2. Fill the planter pockets.
Put one container full of soil into each pocket of the planter.
3. Separate the plants.
Take the plants very gently out of their container and break them apart into 12 pieces (or however many you need for your planter).
4. Plant.
Make a little hole in the soil and put fertilizer in. Put a plant in the hole.
5. Fill.
Fill in around the plant with a little more soil
6. Water.
Water once every two days.
That was so easy. Right? If a six-year old can do it (with a little help of course) then so can you! Now it’s had a couple of months to fill in. I will update with more photos as it fills out.
Since writing this, we’ve done another one on the other side of the fire pit area. So simple and quick!
More Backyard Ideas…
So simple yet so pretty!
Thanks Patricia!
this is gorgeous.
have you planted anything else aside from succulents?
Help much appreciated.
Hi Rhea!
I’ve tried Creeping Jenny in there, but it didn’t survive long. In all fairness, I did forget to water it for several days. If you want to grow something that’s not drought tolerant, I would look for a hanging garden with larger pockets so the soil won’t dry out as quickly. Good luck!
What about vegetables
Hi Deb!
I think you would definitely need larger, deeper troughs for herbs or vegetable to do well. It wouldn’t be too hard to modify the plans to make them deeper though. Good luck!
What part of the US are you in? I’m wondering how long your summer season is?
Hi,
I’m in Seattle. We have a shorter growing season here- March-October. But true Summer is usually July 1- Sept. 15 or so.