40+ Easy DIY Planters For Any Budding Plant Parent
Have you always dreamed of having a miniature garden on your front doorstep or just outside your back door? Have you, like us, been lazy and not done a single thing to achieve this dream? We get it; planting and gardening can be very intimidating but, apparently, very much worth the effort. Your green leaves and beautiful flowers don’t need much to survive and thrive—just a little love, care, and sunshine will do the trick. The aesthetics? Well, those are entirely up to you!
Keep reading to learn some easy, affordable, and unique ideas to bring into your garden. Whenever you read a book by your cacti or play fetch in the backyard near your pansies, you’ll marvel at how good your DIY game is.
Wood Planters
These look so organized, and we bet that if you walked into Ikea or your local shop right now, you would be shocked to hear the price for something like these. But here is our little secret; these are second-hand used drawers!
All you have to do is sand the inside surface down after removing the drawers, put in your soil, have a couple of tiny holes at the bottom for the water to seep through, and some steady sunlight! We imagine you can use smaller drawers for mini plants!
Watering Can
We can decide in a minute whether or not you are actually a cool person or not depending on your reaction when you see the image below. If a sprinkler plant is your thing, you’re cool. We think you’ve understood the rest.
Really though, in case you had a huge garden at some point and were keen on growing it with your equipment but don’t find the time or energy anymore, grow a hybrid mini garden in your favorite tool, the watering can! It’s so adorable.
Wall
Do you like the idea and look of wall hangings? Can you trust yourself to remember to water your hanging plants and not just view them as a decorative item? If yes, you might need to add this to your home decor now!
It seems simple enough to make and can be made either with plaster, cement, or a simply taped-up frame or mold. If you’re using sharp objects or sanding paper, be careful! We can’t wait to see your beautiful plants.
Upside Down
There are some beautiful wallpaper and wrapping paper options available these days, and in case you’re anything like us, sometimes using really good wrapping paper for someone who will rip it open can hurt our sensibilities. Here is an alternative!
Use your collection of scraps of cloth and wrapping paper to make a collage or a single-piece plant. Most suitable for climber plants, this hack works with a plant that doesn’t need much soil. Watch as your plant grows from your ceiling, making your house look like a fantasyland.
Tissue Holders
Believe it or not, these adorable little planters were, at some point, tissue holders and dispensers! Similarly, if you have any adorable ceramic or cement tissue storage containers, you might want to consider repurposing them as a home for your plants!
The easiest way to do this is to make sure you’ve got your angle and weight right; a dispenser too heavy might lean forward just a bit more than needed and could topple over, bringing the plant down with it. Other than that, match your aesthetic!
Tires
If you have a garage or a backyard shed with a spare bike you never ride around town anymore, this might be the perfect opportunity to do some reusing and recycling! Don’t these tire planters look awesome? We would love this in our homes.
Once you’ve grabbed your tires and cleaned them out, figure out how you want to tie them to the ceiling. The material has to be strong enough, but it also has to look cute or cool as you’re trying to make it. You can’t go wrong with some simple rope!
Tin
Are you angry or frustrated about something but nothing you do seems to help you release it? Open to suggestions? Get yourself a tin can of either old food or just an empty can and crush it with your hands.
When you’ve kicked it about and made enough dents in it, paint it your favorite color, like metallic gold like in the photograph above. Put some soil and water, and nurture your plants with all the love you have inside!
Throne
If you think only human beings deserve a seat, you’re highly mistaken! While sitting and lying down on the ground and floor has its own benefits and comfort, if you want to add a touch of subtle class, raise your plant higher.
A pale brown stand made of wood with a matte finish, nothing too blingy. It fits any room with ease and is gentle on your eyes! We think this would be a great addition to your living room. Try it for yourself.
Stone
If you’re crafty, you more than likely have some amount of plaster of Paris (gypsum plaster) or cement lying around. If not, you probably have been waiting around to find the easiest cement DIY hack you could find so that you can see what the hype is about.
Here you go! Take scraps of sturdy cardboard and tape and glue it in a nice shape with a solid base. Put up a cup or a glass in it after pouring a little cement to create the space for the plant. Wait for it to set, and voila!
Skinny and Long
Love potted plants and the vibe they come with but have absolutely no space for any indoor plants that are cute AND sleek? Say goodbye to all your concerns because we’re here to remind you that the rectangular shape exists!
Long legs, broad chest, and spiky grass; nope, we are not describing a cute person! This plant decor right here will take your living room to the next level without taking up too much space from the center or corners of your home.
Semi
If you were wondering, what looks like a sphere going into the wall in this picture is actually just a hemisphere. Yup, the back of these cute little planters is flat and rests quite easily on the wall or any surface.
Contrasting the white pots with dull brown ropes of varying shades on a dark blue-ish black wall is the perfect way to design the entrance of your home or the kitchen! We can imagine a cute bowl waiting on the side nearby for the keys to be dropped in.
Tiny Seat
Maybe you can’t, for whatever reason, give your plants a proper throne, or you don’t want them at eye level. It could also be that your plants are really tiny, and you want an appropriate seat for them. No worries!
Get yourself some wooden blocks and thin rope. Find a shoelace pattern that you can effectively use around blocks of wood and start designing perfect cage-like patterns on which your plants can sit. It’s like a hammock for your succulents!
Plaster
Get a tub or a bucket in which you can fit your arms comfortably. Add silicone mold liquid to the bucket and pose with your hands in this offering pose till the silicone sets. Pour in your cement or plaster.
And now, we wait! When your material has dried in a day or two, you can pop out your hands from the tub and choose to place plants on them directly or paint them to look funky or hyper-realistic. There are so many ways to do this!
Wool
If your aesthetic is a lot more light and soft in terms of colors and concept, you might be leaning towards this particular idea. Do you have a lot of light filtering into your room and like light pastel tones? Yup.
Take a piece of jute or a woven cane basket and a knitting needle or straw to poke some wool through the basket’s gaps. This results in a very pretty decorative addition, adds a personal touch and looks like you bought it from the freshest catalog.
Plywood
Take your hot glue gun out and some scrap pieces of plywood because it is showtime! Draw a tentative design in mind and get started. Measure the pieces you would need for this abstract design of your choice. We hope you’re handy!
Trim and sand the plywood down carefully or with the assistance of a professional to avoid any injuries. Glue the pieces together and wait for them to dry before placing the potted plant on it. We’ll be honest – you can also use popsicle sticks.
Paper Towels
You might have seen brown and white paper and tissue rolls that are meant to be for the kitchen and washrooms. Very often, these rolls don’t end up getting used for anything once the paper is gone. We have an idea for you!
If you have these lying around, or even plastic bags of the same color perhaps, you can weave these through together to make a rustic-looking and airy container for a big leafy indoor plant. Aren’t these pretty? They don’t look DIY, right?
Pant plants
We don’t know about you, but we’ve got plenty of jeans and pairs of other kinds of pants that we either don’t wear, don’t like, or can’t fit into anymore. Unfortunately, some of these may not be suitable to donate either.
No worries! Take a mannequin leg, cement, wood, or a lot of plastic stuffing to make the legs stable. Then, add soil from the waist down and plant your seeds. Water and sunshine should do the trick! You’ll have a funny and cute planter.
Door
When refurbishing, redecorating, or making construction changes that involve the disposal of old wood and cabinet doors, you might want to keep those with you till later. Why? Because here is an idea that we bet you haven’t thought of.
In any open space such as your backyard or garden, take four sides of a cabinet or door and make them stand against each other to create a shape. Push them into the ground securely, add soil, and plant a new seed!
Ombre
An ombre painting pattern looks stunning when paired with the right colors and placed against the perfect contrast. This may seem hard, but there is actually an effortless way to do this. Take a bucket. Obviously, that is step 1.
Then find either a barely useable ink pad, a dried-up brush, and some paint or ink in general of the color you want. Using one stroke, cover the bottom bit as much as you can, and as the brush dries, drag it upwards.
Old Clothes
Let us guess; you just realized that your cupboard is full of graphic t-shirts you no longer wear, and you also got a little bit obsessed with plants this week. We get it; we’re in the same boat. Let’s have a little chat. You need scissors.
And, of course, the will to ruin your clothes. This is not for the faint-hearted. Cut your shirts into strips of cloth and then tie them securely with one another to create a web of sorts. Balance the plant you want to hand and ta-da!
Geometric
Just realized you have a lot of scrap cardboard lying around in your garage, or maybe some pencil holders you forgot you had? Don’t throw them out! Grab some sandpaper and get to sanding. Then, paint or spray paint any color you like.
Once these have dried, you can set them against any wall on any table or floor that you like, and your plants inside them will look glorious. You can choose to go our route and pick a bright metallic shade or a pastel one!
1980s
You just might be a fan of 1980s pop culture, whether it comes to fashion, style, furniture, people, or plants! We respect that. Take a look at these funky dots and designs you can achieve with just bold colors and black.
If you have an artist in you waiting to come out at just the right moment, call them out now because this is it! Let your creativity flow and paint some cheap ceramic pink, cyan, and black, or whatever your artist eyes see!
Black
You are modern, have good taste, and love matte black undertones in any and everything you purchase and keep around you. If that is the case, why should the plants around you be any different? You don’t need to love pastels to have plants!
With a sleek and finished look, this rectangular planter is tall, solid, and very sophisticated. It is absolutely perfect for a monochromatic aesthetic, and you know you want to get your hands on this or DIY it as soon as possible!
Marble
Are you bored of your existing pots and want to breathe some life into them? Get some white paint, rubbing alcohol, ink, or some watery paint! This particular hack is super easy to follow through and will give you amazing results.
Coat your potted plant in a solid color, preferably light in a tone so that the final effect can shine through vividly. Then, spray some rubbing alcohol and splatter some ink onto the alcohol before it dries. Pretty, isn’t it?
Mannequin
Quite frankly, we don’t know where you could get your hands on a mannequin head, but in case you do know where to get one… please tell us, thanks. What you need to do for this one is scoop the brain out.
Yup, you need to hollow out the mannequin head, put soil, seeds, and water, and give the plant some tender love and care in the sunshine! Maybe, if you’re lucky, you might see a seed germinating through the ear or nostrils.
Boots
Almost all of us had these chunky rain boots growing up, and almost all of us have no use for the ones we had when we had tiny feet anymore either. You can easily upcycle and use them to decorate additional pieces for your home!
Pour in some soil after poking a few tiny holes in the sole of the shoe. Plant a few seeds and flower cuttings, and watch them bloom as you water the boots! They’re so pretty, and maybe you can do a color scheme like these purple boots that have lavender growing in them!
Buckets
This may look confusing, but once you understand how it is built, you will realize that this might be the best hack on this list. All you need are some wall hangings, stitched bowls, and of course, your favorite plant!
Find an appropriate angle at which one side of the bowl is parallel to the floor; this might mean making the top lean forward a bit. Then, balance your potted plants in the middle of the bucket’s base so that once left, they pop out this way.
Silos
Want a boundary across the edge of your house but don’t want a full fence or a cemented block of ugly? Get yourself something that looks like half silos, or takes scrap sheets of metal and wrap them around a base frame.
Spray paint them whatever color you like, and fill them up with soil, flower cuttings, and saplings! As they nourish in the sun and rain, you more than likely will have to do very little caring for them if you water them adequately.
Glass
This is far simpler than it looks, trust us! All you need are a few screws, metal fittings, and a solid plank of wood. Take out the time to do some measurements, and let’s get into it! Don’t forget your mason jars.
You want to wrap each mason jar with a metal fitting such that will allow you to hang it off the wooden board. Once that is done, fill each jar with water, and put your flower cuttings and sapling in them!
Gift Wrapping
Not going to lie; this one needs some planning on your part and some patience too! If you don’t want to DIY this, we suggest you buy it from several hard-working local artists that may live and work around you.
But don’t give up if this seems tough. Plan out your actions and steps, and you’ll have a potted plant that looks like a crumpled paper bag in absolutely no time. Or maybe in two days, considering the cement would take time to dry.
Hangers
We get it. We have extra hangers that we have nothing to do with too. Don’t just let them lie and waste away in your closet, though! They have aspirations like us, and if not being used for clothes, put them elsewhere!
For example, as you might have guessed from the overall theme of this list: planters! Hangers! Plant hangers! Yup, most steel hangers are flexible and can be bent with ease to take any shape you want. Use that to your plant dream advantage!
Plan
You want something smooth and easy to make, something with no intricate patterns that can just sit and look pretty and soft to the touch and the eyes? We’ve got you covered, as always. All you need is a mold and cement.
This donut-shaped addition would look great placed on top of the rim of pre-existing planters or just on top of bowls to provide a small exit for the plant as it grows taller and stronger. If you’re feeling experimental, you can make two and join them to make them the main body of the pot!
Doodle
This might be the simplest DIY idea on this entire list, and you have to give it a go! All you need is some paint, a thick paintbrush, and some pots to plant your beauties in! You can, of course, paint whatever you want.
But if you’re looking for something simple and hard to get wrong, we suggest semi-circles and half-circles! They look adorable, can be drawn naturally, and don’t have to be perfect to look good. You can go crazy with the colors too!
Bottle
If you like bright pink and pigs, you can create this bottle where the bottle’s neck is the snout. We imagine this would look just as adorable if you were to paint it a dark grey and give it some whiskers!
In fact, go ahead and make a gallon-sized bottle into any animal you love, or even a car or train! Anyway, this would look adorable and would also be a great showpiece in your garden or backyard hangout area. And it’s especially fun for kids!
Disco
Regardless of whether or not you live in a small dorm with 3 other roommates or are just a party animal while you’re home alone, everyone deserves to have this half disco ball plant hanging from their ceiling. It’ll liven up any space.
Imagine, you’re dancing to the beat of your favorite song, the lights are flashing, and while you and your friends, or your pet — we don’t judge — are dancing, this ball is not just giving you vibes, but also plants!
Toys
Everyone has a little kid in them waiting to come out and play, but the world created by us adults is obnoxiously stiff. Never mind that! If you have some of your old toys from when you were younger, this might be your favorite idea.
Carve out space within your toy where you want you plant to sit. Paint it whatever color you like — but use several thick coats which may take days to dry — and plant your cute sapling in it! It would be a great conversation starter.
Bake
If you have an oven at home and some clay or polymer around, you’re already halfway done with making this simple but elegant DIY planter for your succulents. Mold some clay in your hands till it’s warm, and then…
Shape it however you like with a knife and a spoon to smooth it out and bake the clay till it hardens. Paint over it if you want, or leave it bare, and all you have left to do now is add soil, water and keep your succulents in a cool room!
Drawers
If you don’t have a chest of drawers of this kind or smaller but really want this idea to work out in your living room, we suggest you buy a second-hand one! You just need to sand the edges and surfaces down if you want to repaint.
Once that is sorted, figure out your arrangement of which plant goes where. Some of us have a chest of drawers lying horizontally on the floor with knee-high grown lemongrass. It smells heavenly, and we can’t recommend it enough. Give it a go!
Boxes
If you have the experience of working with cement and are quite frankly bored of the texture it leaves behind, we’ve got a hack for you. Try with either a comb or folk, and while your cement is just about setting, work the magic.
That doesn’t mean doodling and drawing; if you want, you can just quickly poke the wet surface to create raised dots and texture. When you paint it, be careful to cover as much as you want. After that, go ahead with potting ever after!
Burlap
Grab the nearest cloth you can find. Okay, not what you’re presently wearing and not what is actually nearest to you. What we mean is that this hack can be done with almost any kind of scrap cloth you own!
Make sure it’s as big as your plant to be, and cut it in a sun shape with small spikes and a large circle core. Gather the points to the top and tie the cloth around a pot or can together before adding your soil.
Bubble Wrap
We’ve all seen those videos of people popping every bubble on the bubble wrap sheet just to hear the best sound in the world, and honestly, we don’t admit it publicly, but some of us have finished rolls of wrap when packing by doing this.
To those of you who have never tried to make cement or soap with unpopped bubble wrap paper? What are you so possibly busy with that you haven’t lived at all? Make some pots for your plants now! We’re serious; thery’re so cute.
Books
You may think that succulents suck (hehe), but books don’t! While it may pain some of you to see the image below because of your absolute love for reading, this idea is neat, and we can’t wait to see you try it!
You can always choose one of your least favorite books, or maybe even an instruction manual or an old phone book if you don’t want to cut into a favorite. The point is that this looks cute and classy.
Belts
Some people don’t have extra and excess hangers just lying around waiting to be used to hang plants, but in case you have belts that you don’t use or like anymore, bring them over! Make sure they’re sturdy and wide.
Belts can help lessen the surface tension of the pot while hanging, making it easier for the potted plant to, well, essentially hover over you while you cook or bathe! Neutral tones for belts might be the best bet. You can paint them, of course.
Swing
The list of things you need will sound and look astonishingly small because most of this you probably already have in some corner of your home. You need scrap pieces of wood or panels, ropes, and a hammer! A plant also helps.
We’re assuming if you have a hammer, you have some nails lying around too. Make sure the rope and wooden panel are well attached and secure. You may need to sand the wood back to make sure it sits on the wall properly!
3D Printed
Unless you’ve been living under a rock like Patrick from SpongeBob Squarepants, you probably know that 3D printing technology is the tool of our future, and it has taken the world by storm. Do you know what this means for us?
More cool ways to produce pots and holders for plants! With the tools of illustration and production both at your fingertips, or maybe with the help of an expert, you can have this kind of a pot created mechanically in less than 30 minutes!
Prize
Look, some of us are competitive. Would we make our plants compete against each other? Most likely not, but that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t! In case you do have a favorite you want to crown 1st place, here you go:
If you don’t care for superiority like us but just want them to be at the same level or any other order of categorizing, feel free to get or build this metallic pipe and wire fixture to provide support to your plants when you can’t be there for them.