Garden Planters: Bring the garden indoors, or explore container gardening on your patio

~ Built-in Planters ~

One of the first things you need to decide is which type of built-in planter you want to add onto your home.  You can have an interior built-in and an exterior built-in, or both.  The types of interior built-in planters are;

• Picture window planters

• Room dividers-build own short but long frames ‘bin’ type planter

• Other area planters including the bathroom, stairway, and kitchen planter

A built-in planter can be created to fit into any area of the home.  Picture window planters are low long boxes that follow the inside curve of your picture or bay windows.  These types tend to give plants a lot of light.  Room dividers tend to explain themselves.  If you have a large space that you want to break up into smaller areas you can make use of built-in planters.  They work best in that half wall you may all ready have between the kitchen and dining room or can extend from the wall in the living room to create an organic wall dividing the television area from the coffee table space.

Other kinds of planters can be built to adapt to such spaces as the kitchen, especially if you want a little herb garden, the stairway and the bathroom.  A small built-in planter that’s low and long like the ‘bin’ type planters can be bracketed to the wall near a light source.  For those who are a little more advanced at carpentry you can create a staircase planter that fits along the first few stairs.  Or you can similarly make use of the wall space in the stair well by bracketing a few small planters up.  Putting a built-in planter in the window sill of the bathroom window can visually freshen up the area and make it more appealing.

Outdoor Planters

These become a part of the exterior portion of the home.  They add that little homey touch to the place and act as one more stamp of your personality when filled with plants of your choice. 

Two of the most common built-in outdoor planters are Raised planter beds and Window planter boxes.

There are three good reasons for building raised beds along the foundation of a home

1. They act as a screen to hide the foundation.
2. They provide a visual stepping stone between the house and the larger garden. 
3. They serve as a backdrop for flowering shrubs.

Raised planter beds are basically raised beds of soil with a strong retaining wall.  They can be as tall as a few feet or more.  They provide excellent drainage whether you build the bed without a bottom or when raising it more than a foot decide to create a wooden bottom to lift the soil from the ground (so that its more like a table with retaining walls) and holes in it to allow for seepage.  The raised beds can be made of concrete, stone, brick, and durable wood retaining walls.  Simply think about the type of material that would best accent your home.  They aren’t limited to use by the house.  They can be used by fencing or along the border of a patio or sidewalk. 

Window Planter boxes on the other hand can liven up the windows of a home. They offer beauty both inside and outside for the viewer and provide easy access for watering plants from inside the home.  You can build your own out of sturdy boxes with sturdy wood or metal brackets for hanging.  Be sure to paint metal brackets with a rust inhibitor before you hang up the planter boxes.  You don’t want the precious plants to fall or the box to hit someone who may happen to be standing below.