Plan a planter

Planters to decorate the exteriors

Green lovers who, despite not having great outdoor spaces available, do not think just to give up the pleasure of being surrounded by flowers and plants, they can remedy the problem with flower boxes to be placed on the terrace or simply on the balcony of the apartment.

In reality, the flower boxes are a good solution if you have a paved courtyard or a garden, big or small: in fact, they introduce an element of variety and dynamism outside the house and their usefulness should not be considered exclusively from the ornamental point of view.

The planters may be functional to the division of spaces in large gardens, or in smaller environments, can be used to separate the area destined to the garden, for example, from the garage.

Combined planters

The convenience of the planters is also linked to their maintenance, not to mention that limiting the area devoted to green within a well-defined space, you can spend less energy and effort and better control the plants.

Furthermore, for older people it is a good solution in order not to use too much strength for the care of their plants.

For those who have a balcony overlooking the street, the planter can be visually striking, perhaps consisting of a rectangular container in cotto to be placed flush with the railing, in which you should place the abundant flowering plants such as geraniums, or with foliage and dangling flowers.

Before planting our plants, on the bottom of the container must be placed a layer of gravel and crushed stone on which will arranged the pots with flowering plants, all of which should then be covered with soil. When the flowering period will arrive the spectacular visual impact is assured.

Brick planters

For those wishing to take on the construction of a brick planter in their own garden, the materials required are:
- Gravel or crushed stone
- Concrete
- Solid brick
- Filter sheet

Once you have decided where to place it, you have to trace the perimeter and dig the ground for about 30 cm deep.
One must realize the foundations by placing on the bottom some crushed stone, for a layer of about 10 cm, then pouring a layer of concrete of about 20 cm and wait for it to solidify, let at least one day to pass.

At this point one can proceed with the creation of the masonry; the thickness of the wall will be of one or two bricks, according to the size of our planter and strength that it will have.
The bricks are then placed alternating the long face with short face: for each course of bricks should be checked with a bubble level mason, making sure that everything is on the same level.


The lower course of bricks, also, must contain some hole, to leave free space between a brick and another, to allow water drainage.
Before filling the planter you can spread on the bottom a filter sheet so that when watering the plants will be reduced the amount of soil that flows out from the holes left for drainage.

All must be filled with garden soil and only then we will proceed with the planting. For planters built on terraces you will have to take into account the weight and to consider that there might be some problem related to moisture.

To avoid this, before pouring the soil in the planter is recommended to spread a tarp on the bottom.

Regarding the edge of our planter, it can be made with the same brick or, if you want a more elegant solutions, you can use a stone slab suitably cut from the marble-worker and replace the last course of brick with stone.

The upper surface of the marble can be smoothed to be used as a seat.

If you prefer to give the garden an atmosphere of greater naturalness, you can build wooden planters, for example, railway sleepers, which are very well adapted to this use, making sure that these do not exceed 50 cm in height .

We will proceed by digging the area intended to planter for about 20 cm higher than the level of the garden, thus the sleepers will be placed leaving small openings for drainage between the one and the other.
If you mean to overlap a second row of sleepers, these will be offset with respect to those below.
The final effect of this wooden planter will be of great naturalness and make our garden more informal.