DIY Boot Planter

Okay so the boot planters I made last year as single planters would have survived just fine, even with the windiness of my garden if it weren’t for a certain Mrs. Fox who has her den and the end of my garden and likes to come out to play when we aren’t outside.

For some reason she has taken a fancy to my four boot planters and finds it great fun to bat them around like a dog with a tennis ball!

The upshot of all that is that only one of my succulents survived the repeated thrashings.

So with the sun coming out again I decided to have another go and see if I could create some reinforcement to make my boot planters less attractive to playful foxes.

Here is how I made my four in one stabilised boot planter!

I cut a small piece of pallet wood just big enough for all four of my boots to rest on side by side.

So the basic idea of this is to glue the boots together on the plank of wood. In order to glue the boots to the offcut of wood you need to get your boots good and heavy – so I used some larger rocks to fill them with temporarily (except for the one that still has a plant in it) while the glue dries.

Next I glued the heel of each of the boots to the wood. I had to prop the toes of one pair of boots up with another piece of wood to keep the heel level with the wood. This was because one pair of my boots still had soles and the other pair had had the soles ripped off by the fox!

Once you have them all set up and weighed down leave the glue to dry for an hour or two.

Next of course you have to fill your boots with your plants. I went for succulents again with the same potting method of small stones and potting soil that I used originally.

Lastly, if you are using this outside in your garden, like I did, you want to pick a spot for your boot planter and dig it in to the ground so that the wood is essentially covered by soil and rocks.

It’s just there to provide stability rather than for the wood to be seen.

You could of course adapt this for a front porch or somewhere else and leave the wood visible.

In that case I would suggest using two planks of wood – one for the heels and one for the toes.

So far my stabilised four in one boot planter is holding up. I won't yet declare that I have foiled the fox as that is probably tempting fate but I'm hopeful!

I have lots more upcycled planter ideas on my blog and I'd love for you to drop by and have a look!