How to Make an Adorable Succulent Hedgehog Planter Out of Trash.

4 Materials
$10
1 Hour
Easy

Hedgehogs are one of our best-loved mammals here in the UK, and most people would be delighted to find one snuffling around their flower beds. Since they are both nocturnal and in decline, it is sadly a rare treat to catch a glimpse of one in the wild. But there's nothing to stop you making your own little prickly friend. Here is how to make an adorable hedgehog out of succulents and a beer bottle and a couple of other bits of trash!

All the items I used for my hedgehog other than the succulents were rubbish. In fact, the idea came to me while I was putting the bottle into the recycling. The chicken wire is left over from my chicken wire, moss and succulent toadstool and the piece of landscape fabric has already been used once in the garden.

I knew I wanted the bottle's neck to stick out as a nose, so I used that to anchor both the fabric and the wire. I decided to place them in a cape like configuration with most of the wire and material behind the bottle ready to fashion into the body as I didn’t want to end up with lots of wire and fabric underneath my hedgehog. It is probably easiest to see what I mean but looking at the photo above.

To add the soil, I popped everything upside down into a pot to support it.

As I added the dirt, I started shaping the wire and landscape fabric into a rough body shape to hold everything in place.

And twisted the chicken wire into itself to secure everything underneath.

I then removed my form from the flower pot and gave it a soak before planting.

Initially, I was going to leave the bottle's neck as glass so started planting my succulents. I also originally planned to use two matching succulents for eyes.

But I wasn’t that happy with the eye placement and how it looked so went back and wrapped another strip of landscaping fabric around his snout and currently have two bottle caps positioned as eyes. I also added a random stopper to end the end of the bottle to stop unsuspecting creatures crawling in and getting stuck.

Once the succulents establish hedgehog should have a beautiful prickly body. And as you can see he already looks quite at home hanging out in our garden.

If this has wetted your appetite for cute hedgehog crafts, check out our teasel hedgehogs – they’re super easy to make!

Suggested materials:
  • Succulents   (garden centre)
  • Chiclen wire   (home)
  • Landscape fabric   (home)
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Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Donna Wilkie Donna Wilkie on Apr 21, 2021

    Do you cut slits in the landscape fabric and place the succulents in the cut spaces in the dirt & if so, how far into the dirt?

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  • Shelly Moore Shelly Moore on May 07, 2022

    Love These! So Adorable!!! In Oklahoma where my mom's family lives and here in Kansas as well, we call these Cockle Burrs. My Grandmother had some back in the 60's that were painted and glued together like this. Some looked like poodles or lamas I think, long time ago. Now I need to find some to show my grandkids!!! Well make some!

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