Do It Yourself Basket Planter

Over a week ago one of my house plants got dumped, and the pot broken beyond repair. At the time I didn't have time to re-pot it. The plant and the soil were quickly scooped up into the first pot we could find. The plant wasn't exactly planted, and the pot was not really suitable for the plant, but I was in a hurry.

I needed a different pot. While at the store the other day, I decided to browse through the garden section hoping to find something suitable on clearance. There was nothing on clearance, but the basket planters did catch my eye. I have some basket planters that I received as gifts. They have hard plastic liners. The planters at the store only had heavy plastic stapled to the basket. They were priced from $4 to $25. "Hello," I thought, "I could do that for free." and I did.

Materials
A Basket - If you don't have a basket of a suitable size try looking at a thrift store. They usually have lots of baskets very cheap.

Plastic Shopping Bag- or other plastic. The store bought baskets had a thicker lining than the shopping bag, but I used the bag with out cutting it so it was really a double thickness of plastic

Stapler

Plant(s)

Dirt

My basket was about 12 inches in diameter and about 4 inches deep. It was the perfect size for one shopping bag. If your basket is smaller, you may need to trim the bag. If it is larger, you may need two bags.






I laid the bag in the basket and started stapling around the edge about every inch or so. I kept checking the bag to be sure it was sitting nicely in the bottom.

The width of the edge of my basket allowed the staples to go in, but not through so they are not visible from the outside. If the staples were visible a piece of ribbon glued around the edge would easily cover them.

When I had stapled almost all around the basket, I came to the two handles. When they were overlapped they fit nicely in the basket, but I was concerned that the water would work its way between the bags at the handles. So I made a seam by rolling the two handles together, and "sewing" it up with staples. Seemed to do the trick.



All that is left is to add some dirt and some plants. (please ignore the sorry state of the plant itself. Remember it had been sitting half planted for awhile. It will soon bounce back.)

I had so much fun doing this that I made another planter out of some different recycled materials, but I will have to share that on another day.


Frugal Fridays