The Mini Pallet

Wed, 08/22/2012 - 9:21am — Laura Thomas

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Pallet gardens are popping up everywhere. From city streets to community gardens, this almost-free planter is a great way to feel good about recycling while doing some cutting edge gardening, too! Early this summer I set out to make my first pallet garden. A bold, cheeky planter right at my front door. It has become a serious topic of conversation with the pizza boy. Who knew he was so into flowers!

Tips for building a pallet garden:

Pallets come in a standard size, but they aren’t limited to it. When choosing a pallet be picky. My pallet was petite. By design these gardens require a lot of plants and soil to hold together. A smaller pallet mean saving a small fortune in soil! A girl’s got to stay on budget!

Drought tolerant plants top my list. Pallet gardens lose moisture quickly! Plants that’ll do well in this garden need to thrive on neglect and laugh in the face of summer’s heat. I used Proven Winners Luscious^® Berry Blend^™ Lantana and Blushing Princess^™ Lobularia both new selections I’m trialing that will be available in 2013. The Lantana is super tough, and once established needs little watering or attention. Blushing Princess^™ is a workhorse in the pallet, thriving in the dry areas.
Big blooms and bold colors keep the planting interesting and full of flowers throughout the summer. I used the continuous and vigorous blooms of Supertunia^® Bermuda Beach Petunia and Sweet Caroline Bewitched Sweet Potato Vine to fill my pallet.
Laid flat for 2 weeks, the pallet grew. Here the main task was upkeep, primarily by keeping it hydrated and refreshed.
Finally my pallet was hung with heavy-duty hangers and industrial bolts. So once it went up, I knew it wasn’t coming back down. All that soil is very heavy!

Source: Life on the Balcony

Pallet Gardening

Anonymous Sat, 01/26/2013 - 9:30pm

I was just at your blog, but it wouldn't let me comment :(
I had heard a bit about pallet gardening, but your information & photos are BY FAR the best anywhere! Your pallet looks beautiful! Thank you for taking pictures throughout the process & explaining it all so well!
I think you were incredibly brave to hang it on the wall -- although it's hard to tell from the photos how big the pallet is, it must weight a ton with soil & water! Approximately how big is your pallet?
I have access to almost unlimited pallets where I work, but they're all about 2-3 feet square, so they will be very very heavy when planted! I'm thinking of planting some of the big ones, then leaning them up on the wall so they'll vine all over the place. I'm kinda tossing the idea of doing one for tomatoes, one for cucumbers, one for herbs and one for peppers around in my head right now... so that I can get a handle on the actual garden that got over-run with weeds the last few years, ugh. That way I can just pull, stir, cover the garden itself & still have veggies (I trampled some plants last year, whoops). I'd like to put some PVC pipe with holes drilled so I can just fill them with water, or maybe a couple of milk jugs with holes drilled? I'm going to have to think about that one, haha.
Thank you for sharing this ... I am going to get a glass of wine & start reading your blog!
Erin in Sherwood Park, AB