How to turn an old pallet into a hanging garden

If you live on a tight budget but you still want to have a cozy home and garden, there are many creative projects you can do (especially with the kids) to create a comfy home at little costs.

Below I want to share a cheap project with you which I recently completed with my kids.

Take a simple pallet (you can ask companies if they have spare ones).

As my pallet is used outdoors and does not contain edible plants, I did not pay attention to whether the pallet was chemically treated or not. Should you want to use it indoors or with herbs and such, please assure that your pallet is safe.

Buy supplies.

• Paint: if you want to give your pallet a color that matches your garden – I painted mine gray (I chose a matte paint which dries very quickly).
• Plants: a mix of small, medium, flat, bushy, hanging. The numbers of plants depends on the space and how far/close you want them together. I used 3 in each open space, i.e. 48 plants.
• Potting soil: I used about 6 bags of 20 kg each. If you have a compost, even better.
• A roll of landscape fabric. As you should fold the fabric double, make sure there is enough length for it to cover the sides and back of the pallet twice. I bought a big roll because I will be using more fabric for other projects.
• A staple gun and staples. Or hammer and small nails (which is more work and more annoying)
• Sanding paper.
• Hooks and screws for fixing on the wall.

 Prepare and paint

• Clean the pallet of any wood chippings, nails etc.
• Sand roughly.
• Paint in your chosen color.

Attach the landscape fabric.

Double the fabric and start stapling. As it needs to hold quite some soil (and thus weight) you may choose to even overlap the fabric in some areas. Don’t worry if it’s not straight, pretty and neat. This is the backside and it’s going to be against a wall.

Fill with soil.

NOTE: before you start filling the whole pallet with soil, make sure it’s at least close to the final destination. A filled pallet can be very heavy to transport!

Fill with potting soil almost up to the brim.

Plan the plants.

Before planting, decide on which plant is going where.

Plant.

Plant the plants in the soil and add extra soil until everything is filled.

Water abundantly and regularly.
Even, and especially after you have put the pallet vertically, keep watering regularly because the rain will not reach the bottom layers (hint: kids looove watering plants! – so outsource this task!)

Leave the pallet lying flat for a few weeks until the plants have rooted.

Hang pallet on wall or fence.

All of the above took quite some time (as everything where kids involved does). If done by one adult, it takes about 2 hours.

Photo of the final result (i.e. plants rooted, pallet hung etc) will follow.