Handy Housemom: Vertical Garden

Y'all... if you're anything like me, surfing Pinterest and finding fun ideas is SO MUCH FUN. However, if you're even MORE like me, you've pinned a gah-zillion (yeah, I know it's not a real number... but you get the point) things and actually made, eh 10?! It's a super fun dream world to live in. I'm NOT knocking it. In fact, I'll continue on my merry way pinning every NEAT thing I see.

I wanted to share with you a vertical garden that a friend of mine pinned, and... ACTUALLY made! I saw her pictures on Facebook and immediately asked if I could post her pictures. She graciously gave me permission. Now, I bring you... THE vertical garden from Our Washington Life...

"We decided to hang our garden on the brick wall at the back of our patio. We used clay pots we bought last year, some pine boards we picked up from Home Depot, "L" brackets to hold it all together, a little paint to make it pretty, and some thick rope to hang over the ledge of the brick wall, and voila!

As you can guess, this project was really pretty simple, especially since it was completely customizable. My husband, being the "builder" of our relationship, drew out the plans, gathered the materials, and put it all together based on what we thought would work best for our yard (aka, cover up the brick wall). All he had to do was cut the pine board into the right lengths and screw it all together. He used the "L" brackets to reinforce the shelves to the back so that it could support the clay pots and plants. The shelves may not be that pretty from the inside, because of all of the brackets and whatnot, but the paint and plants cover them up just fine and at least it won't fall apart!

He also used some thick rope to hang it over the top of the brick wall. We figured this way it'd be easier to take down to store next fall.

If you want to build a vertical garden just like ours, Hubby gave me some pretty detailed notes to share:Vertical Garden Assembly Instructions. The notes might be too detailed... if that's possible ; ) Oh, and if you are curious about what I did to contribute to this project, besides being inspired by Pinterest, I painted the darn thing! Behr's California Poppy to be exact. It's not the best paint job in the world, but I only used half the quart I bought for it so at least I can touch it up year to year.And, you might think that I created the cute little plant labels on the shelves, but I didn't, Hubby totally did. It was his "idea," so I gave him the supplies (white spray paint and a blue acrylic paint pen) and he went to town with some scrap wood. He even made little label stakes for our herbs in the ground.

Our back "yard" patio definitely looks complete now that we have something fun hanging up on that brick wall. And, in case you are in awe of our awesome Adirondack chairs, Hubby definitely built those, from scratch!