DIY Plant Hanger

This past weekend brought the return of Spring weather to SW Ontario – and with it, the annual “Spring itch” to get out into the sun and plant something…

but we have an urban legend in our area – that you should never plant anything until after May two-four weekend.

You see, we’ve been known to get snow right into May, but more often than not, we have evening frost – so it has been determined that our national Holiday – Queen Victoria’s Birthday – is the marker for safe planting.

The “May two-four” name comes from the fact that it’s the first long weekend of nice weather, so everyone buys a 24 pack of beer and goes camping (May two-four doesn’t always fall on May 24th). Happy birthday your majesty!

Not to be deterred, I decided that even though I couldn’t plant, I could still bring out some green into my winter-beaten yard.

Enter Sherri from Details Renovations and her super-uper-schmooper-easy building plans for this DIY plant hanger.

(Click on any of the images to be taken to Details Renovations to see Sherri’s gorgeous work)

This project is SO EASY, that if a parent cut the wood, the kids could do the rest of the work and build Mom a fantastic gift for Mother’s Day.

I used up some extra wood I had in the garage, so my DIY plant hanger isn’t 27″ wide – but rather 24″.

Glue and screw your frame together – checking for square.

My base is a 2x 6 piece of wood, but if you get a bit of wind on your front porch or balcony, you might want to use a 2 x8 as the base.

Centre your frame on top of the base – in 1 1/2″ from the short sides and in 1″ from the long sides – then screw into place coming up from the bottom. 2″ – 2 1/2″ deck screws work best because they are galvanized and won’t rust out. If the kids are building this for Mom, use wood glue and galvanized nails to put it together and they can have fun hammering away.

I used a bit of wood filler because I knew I was going to paint my piece – and gaps are for more of a ‘rustic look’ and not as attractive otherwise. If you don’t want to paint or stain your DIY plant hanger, use cedar as your wood and it will age to a beautiful grey over time.

I couldn’t resist Behr’s new Spring palette and tested out the Larkspur Blue to bring some sunshine to my front porch.

I decided my DIY plant hanger needed a bit of something to set it apart, so after I added the centre screw hook for hanging your plants from, I used contact cement and attached a solar pathway light to the top of the frame. (Mine was about $6 – and you can find variations in bronze, copper, chrome etc)

It’s bright and cheery during the day, and gives the porch a soft glow in the night.

I’m still debating on whether I’ll paint the solar light blue as well?

Vern-the-fern is still new, so he will continue to spread and droop as the season progresses – and for our pre-May-two-four weather, I can still bring it inside at night and return it out in the morning.

This simple (ahem great-for-Mother’s-Day) DIY plant hanger gives me my Spring fix before we’re really allowed to ‘celebrate’ Spring at all!