Gardening Gift Idea: Miniature Succulent Planter
I love the look of the big living walls all covered in succulents, and really wanted to try my hand at building one. But for my first attempt, I figured I would take the concept and shrink it down a bit. So with Mother’s Day right around the corner, I’d like to show you how I made a miniature succulent planter for my mom, and hopefully it inspires you to make a thoughtful and creative garden gift for your mother as well!
What You’ll Need
You’ll only need a few items for this project and you may already have some of them lying around. You can make whatever size you like and the concept is still the same.
You’ll need:
A Wooden Craft Box (from any craft store)
A piece of 1/2″ grid wire
A piece of gardening weed control cloth or shade cloth
Waterproofing for the inside of the box. (I used Flex Seal, but you can use a polyurethane sealant or even just line the box with a small piece of plastic.)
A few basic tools. (Drill, jig saw or thin hand saw, Glue gun, wire cutters.)
Step 1: Prep Your Wooden Box Lid
To start, you’ll need to cut the top out of your box lid. I found the best way to do this was to remove the hardware from the box so I could work more easily with the lid by itself.
Trace out a rectangle on the inside of the lid leaving a small lip all the way around. Then drill each corner and use your saw to cut out the rectangle. Give the edges a quick sanding. The lid should look like this when you’re done:
Step 2: Stain or Paint Your Box
Now with the lid all cut out, you can give the whole box a coat of paint or stain. I prefer the way stain looks on natural wood so I chose my favorite color and gave it a couple coats.
Step 3: Waterproof Your Planter Box
Once your stain or paint is dry, it’s time to waterproof the inside of your box. Since we will be planting succulents, we won’t be watering too often but waterproofing is still important to increase the lifespan of your succulent planter.
You can hot glue a piece of plastic to the inside of the box as a liner if you prefer, but I chose Flex Seal because I honestly just think it’s easier and provides a good rubber, waterproof barrier. I just taped off the edges of both the box and the lid so I’d only get the Flex Seal on the inside, and then gave it a nice, even spray.
Step 4: Cut Your Grid Wire to Size
Now you’ll need to cut your grid wire to fit nicely into the lid. It’s important to keep a little lip on the lid so you have something to secure the grid wire to. Measure the inner dimensions of your lid and then with your wire cutters, cut your grid wire so it fits snugly. You may need to make some minor adjustments.
Once I got a good fit, I chose to spray paint the grid wire gold. I thought it would look nicer with the stain I chose. This is totally up to you though!
Step 5: Reassemble Box and Glue in Grid Wire
Now is a good time to put the box back together. So hopefully you saved the hardware and you can just pop the hinges back on with a screwdriver.
With a hot glue gun, make a nice bead of hot glue around the inner lip of the lid and secure the grid wire into place.
Step 6: Make a Pouch For Your Soil Mix
Now, with a piece of garden shade cloth, make a little pouch to hold your succulent soil mix. To do this, I just wrapped the shade cloth around the box to get a general idea of how big it needed to be, then I hot glued it together like I was wrapping a present. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to hold soil.
I glued the side and one end shut to make a little pouch. Then, I filled it about half way with succulent mix.
I make my own succulent mix with a 1:1:1 ratio of potting soil, sand, and either coco coir or peat moss (whatever I have on hand). For a more in depth look at my soil mix, check out this article: How to Propagate Succulents.
Now just fold the open end of the pouch over and test to make sure it fits snugly inside the box. You made need to add or remove some soil to get a perfect fit. It’s important that it fits snugly and pushes up against the grid wire when the lid is closed. Once you get a good fit, you can fold the open end over and glue it shut.
Step 7- Time to Transplant Succulents!
Okay, it’s time for the fun part! This is where you actually get to be creative and plant your succulents however you want into the box. I used a mix of succulents that I’ve propagated and also some cuttings from a succulent I bought from the store.
When preparing your succulents for planting, you want to cut them so there is enough stem to seat down into the soil pouch. You should also remove all the dead leaves from the base of the succulent.
Once you have a good variety of succulents prepped for transplanting, you need to decide where on the grid you want each one to go. You can arrange them however you like, but keep in mind they will grow over time. So make sure not to crowd them too close together.
With a toothpick, pair of scissors or another sharp object, carefully poke holes through the shade cloth and make a hole down into the soil so the stem has a place to settle into. After doing this, I probably wouldn’t use a toothpick again because it was a little too flimsy.
Then, just gently push the succulent down into the pouch in whatever arrangement you’d like. And the result is a beautiful little succulent planter box that you could proudly give to someone as a thoughtful and creative gift!
Step 8- Water and Let Root
With the work basically complete, you just need to lay the planter box on it’s back and give it a good watering. The succulents will require about 3 weeks to take root before the box should really be stood up to be displayed to the world. After that, it can be placed anywhere to be admired by all!
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this fun and creative gardening project and I’d love to hear how your miniature succulent planter turned out for you. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different sized boxes, different colors, and different succulents. As long as you stick to these general concepts, you can get super creative!
If you have any questions or comments about building a miniature succulent planter, please let me know in the comments below and I’ll be happy to get back to you!
Happy Gardening,
Cody
Thistle Downs Farm