I'm interested in building some inexpensive planters for our driveway.
I want them to be about 12' long, 2' wide and 2' tall, with open
bottoms for drainage. They don't HAVE to be square but that's probably
the easiest shape to work with?

Windsor stone is too expensive and doesn't make square planters
without a lot of extra work breaking stones in half.

Someone in another group suggested hypertufa ( a combination of
concrete, peat moss and sand or perlite ) but that looks like a hell
of a lot of work to make them that way. You have to build molds etc
and for this size the molds might cost a lot too.

I thought of making them with 8x8x16 concrete blocks which are a whole
lot less expensive but they'd be pretty ugly that way, wouldn't they?

So have any of you solved this kind of problem? How can I make my
planters inexpensively and with as little work as possible? ( I have
too many other things to do! )




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How about wooden planters? 2 ft tall is certainly easy to build...just
lagbolt boards of something moderately rot-resistant to uprights. Paint
if you want. Fancify the joinery if you want.

[quote=Popcorn Lover]I'm interested in building some inexpensive planters for our driveway.
I want them to be about 12' long, 2' wide and 2' tall, with open
bottoms for drainage.

I thought of making them with 8x8x16 concrete blocks which are a whole
lot less expensive but they'd be pretty ugly that way, wouldn't they?

--
- Popcorn Lover
QUOTE]
Concrete can be painted to make it more attractive. It's worth remembering that it's a very alkaline material and consequently would raise the pH of the soil in the planter (this would be a problem if you were hoping to grow lime-hating plants). Could you maybe use treated timber, lining the inside of the planter with thick polythene to prevent the wood coming into contact with the compost? I know they wouldn't last forever.

"Kay Lancaster" wrote in message
...
How about wooden planters? 2 ft tall is certainly easy to build...just
lagbolt boards of something moderately rot-resistant to uprights. Paint
if you want. Fancify the joinery if you want.

I made a great planter once from an old redwood picnic table. It lasted
about 5 years before rotting.
I was going to facetiously suggest stacking up old tires
Frank

Ornata wrote:
Popcorn Lover Wrote:
I'm interested in building some inexpensive planters for our
driveway. I want them to be about 12' long, 2' wide and 2' tall,
with open bottoms for drainage.

I thought of making them with 8x8x16 concrete blocks which are a
whole lot less expensive but they'd be pretty ugly that way,
wouldn't they?

--
- Popcorn Lover
QUOTE]
Concrete can be painted to make it more attractive. It's worth
remembering that it's a very alkaline material and consequently
would raise the pH of the soil in the planter (this would be a
problem if you were hoping to grow lime-hating plants). Could you
maybe use treated timber, lining the inside of the planter with
thick polythene to prevent the wood coming into contact with the
compost? I know they wouldn't last forever.

What a weird ass way to post Ornata.

--

Travis in Shoreline (just North of Seattle) Washington
USDA Zone 8b
Sunset Zone 5

In article says...
I'm interested in building some inexpensive planters for our driveway.
I want them to be about 12' long, 2' wide and 2' tall, with open
bottoms for drainage. They don't HAVE to be square but that's probably
the easiest shape to work with?

I make 2'x8'x(1'high) planters out of regular 2x4s and 1/4" plywood. I'm
building 3 new ones for Spring planting. Just build a 2x4 (or rip the
2x4s into 2x2s) frame for the bottom with (in my case) 1' risers every
two feet. The risers at the corners don't need much support but in the
mid span I connect the two sides about 6" up to prevent bowing. Screw
the frame together, cut the plywood to fit the sides and screw that to
the frame. On the bottom piece drill 1" holes for drainage.

I then prime the entire box with a good primer like Kilz and then use oil
based paint that they use for porches on everything. For 12' long you'll
have to piece together the sides since plywood comes in 4'x8' sheets.

It's not necessarily cheap, wood is getting expensive nowadays. If I
were to cost out each of my boxes it would be:

1 1/2 sheets of plywood at $15/sheet = ~$22
5 8' 2x4s @ $3/each = $15
1/4 gal Kilz = ~$3
1/3 gal oil paint = ~$8

For a total of about $50. Again, not that cheap but it's a big box and
no stores sell planters this big. I estimate it takes me perhaps a total
of 6 to 8 hours of labor to assemble and paint each box. This year I'm
building 2 that will cantilever off a roof which will require a little
more lumber and engineering to figure out loads making sure it doesn't
collapse.

So my plywood box survived all of last year and this winter unscathed and
looks as good as when I installed it with no degradation to the plywood.
I think the oil based paint had something to do with it. I was thinking
of experimenting with exterior latex paint since oil paint is a real PITA
to deal with when cleaning brushes and it gives off toxic fumes making it
difficult to paint indoors.

To see this version of the box that I made go to:

http://www.brandylion.com/images/front_box.jpg

Note: I forgot to add that since the box is suspended, there are 2' 2x4
"joist" beams screwed underneath below the bottom every 2 feet to keep
the plywood bottom from sagging.

I'll be building my new boxes later this month so maybe I'll put up a
photo diary as to how they get put together.

In addition to painting, you can also try parging:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/leonard57.html

Or ask your hardware store and see what they have for exteriour stucco
and tiles. Home Depot had a faux brick stencil for concrete walls a
few years ago. There was a pattern for stone as well. The cheapest
planter is just a raised bed.


Ornata wrote in message ...
Popcorn Lover Wrote:
I'm interested in building some inexpensive planters for our driveway.
I want them to be about 12' long, 2' wide and 2' tall, with open
bottoms for drainage.

I thought of making them with 8x8x16 concrete blocks which are a whole
lot less expensive but they'd be pretty ugly that way, wouldn't they?

--
- Popcorn Lover
QUOTE]
Concrete can be painted to make it more attractive. It's worth
remembering that it's a very alkaline material and consequently would
raise the pH of the soil in the planter (this would be a problem if you
were hoping to grow lime-hating plants). Could you maybe use treated
timber, lining the inside of the planter with thick polythene to
prevent the wood coming into contact with the compost? I know they
wouldn't last forever.

I've been looking into making some rather large planters for the yard,
a couple that would be 2'x12'x2' tall.

I've been modeling various materials in AutoCAD ( I'm a registered user
and ACAD drafter ) to help me do the work eventually and figure out the
relative materials costs.

It started out with Windsor Stones but would have cost around $650 to
do my project that way. They're nice but expensive, and they also don't
make square planters without having to cut some of them in half.

So then the discussion turned to railroad ties, but I was told by the
tie company that they're 8-9 feet long and weigh 150-200 lbs each. NOT
for me, when I'll have to be doing this work myself.

But they told me that they had highway guard rails which are 6 feet
long and only weigh around 75 lbs. I could handle that, but some of
them would have to be cut up to fit my plans.

Then they told me that they sell cut up guard rail blocks that are
8x8x14" long and only weigh about 15 lbs each. $1.50 each. GREAT!

AND it actually works out to the lowest cost of all with those, around
$238 plus delivery charges, probably around $300 total. Not bad.

My only question is, how do you secure those? With the ties and long
guard rails, you can spike them in place, but can you do that with
these smaller blocks? They won't split or anything? Seems like a lot of
spikes though, if you used 2 spikes per block. And a lot of work.

And then I found out today that spikes cost about $1 each too. I thought of
maybe using liquid nails under the top layer of blocks but they said the
creosote may screw that up, that creosoted ties won't take paint, for
example.

I'm not sure what to do now.



--
- Popcorn Lover
If you love popcorn too, there are no popcorn groups on usenet but
there IS one in Yahoo Groups:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Popcorn_Lovers
The internet's first-ever-in-the-world popcorn group!
Share the word on making great popcorn - come join us!