MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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Long story but I need 2-3 decent length wooden planters for the garden. I was thinking of something rustic and wondered about using hollowed out tree trunks. Good idea/bad idea? Would they need treatment, sealed inside, drainage holes etc? I was assuming they'd be on some sort of wedge or stand to raise them off the ground a little.
How much work and what tools required for DIY?
Tree trunks I'd imagine would want weathering and aging, and possible lining.
I make my own from decking boards.
How much work and what tools required for DIY?
Loads of work. A tree trunk is going to be very heavy until you've managed to hollow it.
For DIY if you're not handy with a chainsaw then you'd be looking at you'd be looking at an Adze and a box-set of negro spirituals. Get your wife some Aviator Sunglasses, and rifle and some chewing tobacco so she can watch.
Alternatively an angle grinder and some arbotech disks (basically chainsaw teeth on a metal disk) are good for removing volumes of wood. PPE up though I've had disks fracture and the pieces come of off bullet-fast.
Where are you siting it? A chainsaw-ist could more readily cut straight through rather than hollow out a trough - effectively making a raised bed if you're siting it on soil rather than a patio.
For quick and easy and a rustic look though you could get some 'Slab' from a sawmill - effectively the first slice of a log so you've got one flat face and one natural bark face - then fix those pieces together like a traditional planter / raised bed.
You forgot the life insurance policy 🙂. Get your wife some Aviator Sunglasses, and rifle and some chewing tobacco so she can watch.
Your slab idea seems a good one.
I made a couple of these 4 or 5 years ago, still going strong. Can reproduce the cutting list if needed!
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Your slab idea seems a good one.
You can usually get it in 6" planks - flat on one side, curved on the other with about an inch of flat on the sides so they can butt together neatly
Thanks for the offer. Much larger than I'm considering.
I made some raised beds from lengths of pressure treated 6x2" from Wickes a couple of Easters ago.
It would be quite easy to get some 8ft lengths and cut them down to size to make little trough style planters. You could elevate them with a few off-cuts of 2x2" timber.
Get some thick plastic sheets, or old compost bags to line the trough and they should last a good few years.
If you want them to look more "rustic" simply dismantle some waney-lapped fence panels and tack them onto the outer face. There will loads in your local tip over the Easter weekend.
All you need is a decent handsaw, an electric drill/driver and some wood screws.
Get someone else to make them for you....
For DIY if you're not handy with a chainsaw then you'd be looking at you'd be looking at an Adze and a box-set of negro spirituals. Get your wife some Aviator Sunglasses, and rifle and some chewing tobacco so she can watch.
😆 made me laugh a lot
Also reminds me of the time my dad made a deep salad bowl out of a log *without* using a lathe. Just some lovely carving tools I'd bought him, and the kind of time only retired people can put in. The resulting pile of shavings that represented most of the log was epic.
Some of the chemicals that they treat wood with are pretty nasty, I wouldn't be using treated wood for growing food.
Some of the chemicals that they treat wood with are pretty nasty, I wouldn't be using treated wood for growing food.
Not to mention all the diesel particulates, polluting woodburners and acid rain.
There will be baby robin's falling from the sky.
Some of the chemicals that they treat wood with are pretty nasty, I wouldn't be using treated wood for growing food.
Not wrong. I line mine with either 125micron black plastic, or if I'm out, old compost bags.
Halved whisky barrels - or are they just too common where you are?
A half tree trunk will be an awful thing to work on, heavy even when empty, will rot through the bottom quickly, and will be a beast to dispose of in a few years time.
Somewhere in the UAE I saw the equivalent features made from fibreglass, used along the central strip of a road. They looked to be straight from a bugs bunny cartoon, but probably helped prevent crossover mishaps.
What about building something like this.
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A bit like a saw horse with sides.
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Dobbies had some nice looking ones outside. About 4 or 5 feet across. Top approx waist height.
Decking boards is easiest. Make them deep and have a mid-height raised section in the middle. Line with a thick polythene liner. Put the drain holes in the mid-height section and then fill up to here with pea shingle. Then fill to the brim with topsoil. Voila - permanent water reservoir at the bottom, but the roots won't be always wet either.
Not to mention all the diesel particulates, polluting woodburners and acid rain.There will be baby robin's falling from the sky.
Each to the their own, but I would rather not have arsenic in mine or my children's food, ta.
The OP didn't mention growing food in them. If they are just for plants then anything will probably do
As far as I'm aware, chromated copper arsenate treated wood isn't what you get from any DIY store. It's prevented to be sold to anyone where there is potential for domestic construction.
If you're genuinely worried about wood preservatives leaking into the soil, line the planter with polythene sheeting. If that's not going far enough, use untreated douglas, larch or other resistant wood of your choice. But you'll still need to line the planter with polythene sheeting to prolong its lifespan.