Whenever there is a blank wall that needs some decor something with plants is almost always a good option in my opinion. Especially if the plants aren’t real and require no maintenance. So when this lovely wall needed something, I dreamed up a diy wall planter to hold faux succulents and ferns. I was inspired by the succulent walls that Pottery Barn sells and some faux plant installs I have seen in stores and restaurants.This piece has added some lovely color and life to this little corner.
Now I always try to work smarter, not harder (hahaha) so I was hoping to create a piece with as little wood cutting as possible. There are these lovely inexpensive pieces of lauan plywood and the 2’x4′ (like this) was a great size for the space. So I started with that as the base and bought some 1″x4″ ‘s in the lengths I needed to cut the outer frame and create the center X. I decided to add that X feature to break up the plants and help hold them in place, but it’s not necessary. I think I bought five of 1″x4″x6’ pieces of wood, but I was actually just shy of an inch on one of the last cuts for the inside pieces. I fortunately was able to just cut another small piece to fill it in and knew the plants would cover it, so it worked out. I first cut the outer frame pieces at 90 degree angles and used wood glue and my nail gun to put them together. Then I glued and nail gunned the lauan plywood to the back. The inside X was harder for me as I am just not very good at cutting angles. But I managed to make it work! One piece goes completely straight across and the other side of the X in in two pieces. Now, I should have written down what angles I used, but I had to play around with it to get them just right (and even then it wasn’t perfect). But again, plants will disguise the not so perfect. Oh, and there’s wood filler too. I used that on all the seams and it helped create a really nice finished look.
Once it was all together and the glue was dry, I used Minwax Early American to stain it.
I will not lie. All of these plants cost some money, so I suggest waiting for sales and using coupons. If you have the time, you can slowly accumulate what you need too. All of these succulents came from Hobby Lobby and then I found all of the ferns from Michaels. I started by hot gluing the ferns in place first. I used wire cutters to cut plants apart, trim off leaves, or cut off the stems. Some of the ferns were too full, so I used the pieces I cut off as fillers in other spots. Once the ferns were spread out to my liking, I added the succulents. I tried to spread out the similar ones so it was more pleasing to the eye. Then I used moss to fill in any spots that were bare.
Since this was going on a wood wall I just screwed the planter right to it. I wanted to make sure it would be really difficult to pull off since it is in a public place. So far all the plants have stayed in place, except one day some kids were in front of them and I believe their heads hit them and caused them to fall off. But I glued them back on and in worst case scenario, I could use a stapler or nail gun to help keep them in place. I thought about using construction adhesive to keep them in place, but I tried that on another succulent on wood install and it was not good. Many fell off. I also thought about liquid nails, but that stuff comes out so fast and I didn’t want to get it all over the plants if i made any mishaps. All in all I’m very happy with the whole process of putting it together and with how it came out. I think it would be lovely in a home and would really make a statement. Let me know if you make one like this or something similar 🙂 -jess
