For more of my DIY planters to help you decorate with plants, check out this post!

Make a Hanging Indoor Garden

If you’re bringing plants in from outside to use, learn how to debug them first in this post.

This project started out as a hanging herb garden, not a hanging cactus/succulent garden. I’ve wanted to have a garden for a long time now. Unfortunately, apartment living and no convenient community gardens leaves me with herb gardening as my best bet. We tried to start an herb garden a few years ago, but we weren’t successful.

Now that we’re in an apartment that gets a bit more sun, I was hoping that this time we could keep the plants alive. However, our cat Henry LOVES chowing down on plants, so we have mostly fake plants. The first night I brought an herb plant home, Henry ate so much of it that he threw up. We woke up to a disheveled plant and a pile of cat vomit on the floor. Yes, my cat is an asshole.

I started researching ways to mount an herb garden to a sunny wall that is out of Henry’s reach. Would you believe that I didn’t find anything on the Internet that I liked? Me either. I didn’t want anything to do with mason jars, because they don’t have drainage and I’m generally not a mason jar decor kind of gal. So I spent an evening searching for inspiration and came up with a plan to make a hanging indoor herb garden. Here’s how the finished product looks:

Wow, those are funny-looking herbs, right? That’s because I gave up on my herbs. It turns out that there isn’t anywhere on the wall that gets enough sun to keep herbs thriving, and the window sill isn’t an option with our little plant feaster in the house. So I decided to go with something a bit lower maintenance (and something that is less appetizing for Henry if we want to move the plants to the window to get some extra light on a sunny day).

Although I was sad that the herb garden didn’t work out, I really like how the planter looks with these plants in it.

Want to learn about plant propagation? Check out my guides on propagating pothos plants, snake plants, peperomia, string of pearls, succulents, prickly pear cactus pads, and monstera!

Here’s what I used…

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• 1″x6″ piece of pine cut to the desired length
• 4″ hole saw
• Rust-Oleum wood stain in Kona and a finish of your choice (I used this)
• Hand sander with 100-grit sandpaper and one piece of fine sandpaper (I used 220-grit)
• Terracotta pots with a 4.5″ diameter opening
• Krylon chalky finish spray paint in Colonial Ivory and protective spray in Clear Matte
• Gorilla Glue and plastic beads (like these)
• Measuring tape and pencil

And here’s how I did it.

(Remember to wear a mask and eye protection while sanding and working with wood, and wear an appropriate mask while working with paints, stains, and finishes. Follow the directions and warnings from your particular brand. Do not use any tools without proper training, precautions, and supervision from a professional. Read my full terms of use here.)

Step 1: First I picked up a piece of pine. I got a 1″x6″ inch piece (cut to 20″ inch) because each of my pots has a 4.5″ diameter at its opening, and I wanted to have a bit of shelf left on each side after cutting the circles. I measured and marked the center points for each of the three circles.

Step 2: I used a hole saw to cut the holes. Actually, my dad did it for me with his hole saw. 🙂

We used a 4″ hole saw and pots with 4.5″ openings because I wanted the pots to sit in the holes without falling through. If the holes are too big, the pots will fall through.

Step 3: Once I cut the holes, I used my sander to give the entire piece a good buffing. Then I used my fine-grit sandpaper to smooth out the inside of each circle, as well as the edges of the shelf. Shout out to dad for this rare action shot he took of me at work sanding.

Step 4: I stained the shelf and apply a finish coat just as I would any other staining project (read more about how to stain wood here). I used a dark stain because I thought the contrast with ivory-colored pots and dark soil would look nice.

Here it is with two coats of stain (left) and then three coats of poly (right).

Step 4: I attached shelf brackets to the shelf and hung it on the wall. Pop the pots in. Viola!

Drainage…

Now, you probably see the saucers on the bottom of each pot and are wondering how they work as  drainage. Drainage is really important because you don’t want water sitting in the bottom of the pots, rotting the roots (especially if you’re growing herbs).

The drainage for this garden is really simple. First, I needed to get small saucers. I made sure they were big enough to hug the pot’s bottom but also small enough to fit through the shelf’s circular holes. After I’d painted the pots and saucers to match, I grabbed a few cheap plastic beads and Gorilla Glue.

I squirted three dots of the glue into each saucer and press a bead on each. After that dries and had bonded completely, add a dab of glue on top of each bead. Then, press the pot down into the saucer. The idea here is to raise the pot off of the saucer to create an area for a bit of drainage. I chose to use beads because they are super cheap.

This option is great because I can always take the plant out of the shelf to dump any excess water from the bottom. Here’s how the drainage looks finished:

I love how it looks and am really happy to have it as an addition to the room!

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