Upside Down Hanging Planters
I know it seems crazy, but upside down planters are all the rage in Europe and the trend is making its way to this side of the pond. Once I got over the initial shock of seeing everything topsy turvy and looked into the trend a little more, I started to see that it actually made sense in a lot of situations. They are ideal when floor or table space is limited, where there are pets or small children, or where you want to have easy access to the greenery yourself - just think upside down herb garden hanging by the kitchen window! The plants don't mind at all and in some cases grow better that way (no staking your orchids since the blooms just tumble downward.) The store bough European planters that are made for this are quite expensive, so here's a little DIY to get the same look for a lot less!
MATERIALS- A container with a pinched or tapered neck with a drainage hole in the bottom. If you've got the perfect vessel with no drainage hole, you can always drill one.- Rope for hanging, something similar in size to the hole works well.- Thin plastic tray, the kind you buy for $.40 to go under your house plants - it needs to be thin enough to cut with scissors and slightly larger than the diameter of your opening.- Your plant.STEPS
1. Cut your rope to the desired hanging height and insert through the drainage hole. Tie a large knot at the end. Presto, you now have an upside down hanging planter. (Now wasn't that easy!) Now we have to get the plant to stay in....
2. Cut a slit in your saucer to get to the middle and cut a hole out of the center, making sort of a plastic flat donut. You want the hole to be roughly the size of your plants stem.
3. Fill your vessel for dirt and prep your plant for planting just like planting anything else. Before you slip your plant in, take your saucer and slip it around the base of your plant. Then crunch the saucer together (let the edges where the slit is cut overlap each other) until you can slip the entire saucer into the planter and push it down until it's below the neck of the planter....then let go. The saucer will then open back up creating the barrier that will keep the dirt from falling out.4. Hang! If you've got more than one drainage hole in the bottom (or the rope is smaller than the hole), you can water the plant through those while hanging. If not, simply take it down once a week, turn right side up and water it in the kitchen sink.
