From Scratch: Coming Up Roses

Spring's main event: battling the concrete jungle! Transforming a New Yorker's only outdoor space, a dinky deck three stories up, into a vibrant oasis.

Here's what we started with in March:

A few dead plants, grill left by the former tenants, and a mismatched iron table and chair set from the local junk store.

In an unfortunate twist of events this April, the building inspector had the landlord pull up the lovely wood floor boards and replace it with fireproof corrugated metal, leaving us even worse off:

"This just will not do!" exclaimed my poor, scalded feet. So my accomplice and I marched down to Home Depot and returned with this beauty:

Theoretically, it seems pretty tacky. And maybe it's a little tongue-in-cheek. But when you're coming from corrugated metal, it's like walking into the garden of Eden. So green! So lush! So warm and inviting! I never thought I'd be endorsing artificial turf, but really. I love it.

Next step: Planters.

Nice wooden planters run pretty steep, so Jessi and I built our own, custom sized to fit our space. We built 3 boxes, each 36" long, 8" deep, and 10" tall. All in all, we spent around fifty smackers on wood.

The Tools:

Measuring tape

Ruler

Pencil

Hand Saw

Sandpaper (coarse grain)

Hammer

Nails (common, 2 1/2")

3 - 6'x10"x3/4" pine boards

3 - 6'x8"x3/4" pine boards

For each box, measure and cut two 36" x 10", one 36" x 8", and two 10 3/4" x 8" pieces of wood. We used a couple chairs as a saw horse.

Wood expands and contracts with moisture. Chances are, the wood you bought is pretty dry, and chances are, your planters will get pretty wet in their lifetime. Something I didn't do, but now realize I should have: make sure your wood grain is running in the same direction around all sides of your planter. Wood may swell significantly when wet, but it will hardly lengthen. If you keep your grain running the same direction, the pieces will swell together.

Sand off any rough, uneven edges. Wrap your sandpaper around a square scrap of wood to keep your surfaces flat and even as you sand.

And nail them together...

Unless you know where your wood is coming from, we'd recommend you line your planters with a high-grade plastic liner. We used contractor bags, split open. Most commercially sold wood is pressure treated with chemicals that, when wet, may risk leaching into your soil. We drilled some holes in the bottom of the box and slashed the plastic to aid drainage.

Voila! Quick and easy, inexpensive, handsome looking planters.