Palette Planter

Have a wooden palette lying around? I've been seeing succulent gardens everywhere and I love the succulents outside in my yard, so it was time to bring the outside in. It is super easy to propagate most succulents. I have ground cover outside my house and if a piece gets broken off, it will root anywhere it lands. I was ordering succulents to make gifts and knew I'd have extra, so lucky hubby, I came up with a project.

Our project dimensions were 7 "wide x 20" long x 3" high. This was purely based on our table size. Make sure there is plenty of room for plates and drinks, so you won't have to move your planter if you don't want to.

Hubby constructed the box for me. He took the palette and pried off the boards, which happened to be roughly 3" wide. He used nails to assemble it (to give it a more rustic look) and calked the inside seams to keep the box from leaking. Once I got my hands on it, I sealed the inside using Plasti-Dip. Hubby picked up blue, but I linked to the clear version. The Plasti-Dip is to further protect the wood. I found this as a suggestion on the internet somewhere... As you can see from the pictures, I taped off the box with painter's tape before I sprayed. This took about 4 coats. Leave plenty of time for the calk and Plasti-Dip to dry. It's also super smelly!

Filling the box... The bottom layer is rock, I actually used rock meant for fish tanks. The rock is to provide drainage for the plants. Next I layered Activated Carbon, you can also find this at your local pet store. The Activated Carbon keeps the icky plant odor away. Next came dirt, there are special succulent mixes available at your local nursery. The succulents came from Ebay, there are plenty of good vendors out there. Finally the top layer is river stones. Easy peasy and beautiful (which I can say so myself because hubby did all the hard work). Sorry in advance for so many pictures, there were some beautiful moments!