Tabletop & Small Container Gardens

You probably know my DIY limitations by now, I don’t like to spend a lot of time fussing with complicated projects inside or outside. I like to have fun in the process (and mostly, I’m just itching to enjoy the finished product!). That means any DIY projects I attempt can’t take too long or I lose interest and end up distracted by other things. Just being honest with you, am I the only one who is like this? Eeesh. I’m like a two-year old.

So, the perfect type of gardening project for me is basically a five minute container garden.  The other cool thing about these gardens (and the freshened up pallet garden I shared yesterday) is you can have them even in a very small space, and they are perfect for renters too since you don’t have to own or dig up any ground!).

Today I’m sharing five of my own 5-minute mini-gardens!

I’m so in love with these little gardens, I can’t even tell you. They make me smile every time I see them. Most importantly, I smiled the whole time I was making them too. No melt-downs, break-downs or any unsavory words were uttered. No half-finished projects left for months because I ran out of time to complete them. Five projects that were all fun and no stress. 

5 Minute Garden Idea #1:

You cannot go wrong with this adorable little garden in a pot filled with Corsican Mint (which smells divine!!), and embellished with a wire topiary ornament. CAUUUUUTENESS, right? Right. It probably took 2 minutes. Tops. Took me longer to photograph and blog about it.

And if you don’t have a little wire topiary thing, try something you DO have. A little porcelain bird or critter of some sort would be just perfect perched in the mint. The pot is from Lowe’s.

5 Minute Garden Idea #2:

So you don’t have any ornament for your pot? Fine. Don’t use one. Just as cute without it. This is just a puff of moss (I think this one, above, is called Emerald Isle Spikemoss) in a pot. No ornamentation required. One minute. My pot came from Lowe’s.

5 Minute Garden Idea #3

This is a little terrarium I got from West Elm when I was at a gardening event at the Seattle store. But you could use any sort of glass jar if you didn’t have one like this.

This weekend I filled my container with dirt and rocks, another soft little “Stepable” type creeping plant (which I believe is called “Scleranthus biflorus, but just look for any cute creeping Stepable plants at your garden store)an adorable little metal chair I found at a local garden store and voila, my terrarium garden was born. Sweet, huh? I might keep this one inside.

Three minutes, people. That is all this takes!

5 Minute Garden Idea #4

This is a garden in a crate. I found my crate last year at my local garden center, but you might find something at a thrift store or flea market or in your garage. You could use a tool box, an old wood drink crate, just about anything to hold your garden! You can put whatever plants you want or other cute things in it.

I had a few random little plants like another of the Corsican Mint and Sweet Woodruff, some rocks and starfish and a blue mason jar with a summery striped candle. It doesn’t really matter what it is, if it is cute going in, it will make a nice little arrangement. Don’t overthink it, it should only take a few minutes.

 5 Minute Garden Idea #5

Last year I put together this little fairy garden in a wood box. This year I freshened it up with some succulents and some flowered grass that will bloom year after year (if I can keep it alive!) called “Victor Reiter Sea Thrift.” It took five minutes last year to create this little garden and to freshen it up this  year took like two minutes. Again, you just don’t want to over think it.

Don’t worry or stress too much about keeping these little gardens alive. I do not have a green thumb so it is all experimental for me but that is part of the fun.

Most of these plants are pretty hardy if you keep them from completely drying out. Keep them out of direct sun, maybe under a porch roof or under your table umbrella. If it is super hot, just bring them inside and put them near a window. Keep them a little moist and they’ll probably be happy. If a plant eventually dies, you maybe lost $3.99. That is like a cup of coffee that you drink in five minutes!

These might be “5 minute gardens,” but they should last ALL summer or beyond. Many of these little plants will come back next year too! If I can do this, anyone can. So, get out and enjoy some gardening! You’ll enjoy it, I promise.

Be sure to check out my new garden post {in the garden: good for the soul} over at (in)courage!

And now, for the winner of the Epiphanie Bag!

Angie, you are the winner of the Epiphanie Bag (if that is your comment, above!)! You will e contacted by email. Congrats to you and my sincere apologies to everyone else! But if you didn’t win, go get yourself one! You deserve it.

So, what do you think?

Are you intrigued by these 5 minute gardens? They are so whimsical, fun and easy to make! I hope you enjoyed seeing them as much as I enjoyed making them!

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pallet garden

Last summer I painted a pallet as a privacy screen for my not-so-private deck. I filled some French garden buckets with some end-of-the-season annuals and hung the buckets on the pallet to create a small-space hanging garden. It was nice enough as a first attempt, but I had visions of adding MORE plants this year!

This weekend was a perfect time to get started, so I unplugged from the computer and freshened up my pallet garden!

I thought it would be cute to actually plant plants IN the pallet, but I wasn’t patient enough to line the whole pallet with landscape fabric and dirt and pack it all in and wait a couple weeks until the dirt settled in before I could put it upright. I kind of like instant gratification and easy peasy steps cause I’m a very lazy DIY’er.

So I tried to figure out a quick shortcut to get this done. I was originally thinking about using burlap to create little planting bags in the pallet, but I ended up using those coco liners like you would use for a hanging basket. I got mine at Lowe’s.

All I did was staple gun the little coco baskets to the inside and back of my pallet, and then filled them with dirt and plants. Done! They were easy to mold and squish into the pallet and they held the dirt in so I wasn’t losing dirt all over the place.

Remember, I do not have a green thumb. This is NOT a tried and true method that I’m aware of, as I am just making this up and experimenting myself! I have no idea if this will prove to be a great idea or a dumb idea, but it worked so far. We’ll see if my plants survive the summer.

While I was enjoying the long holiday weekend, I did a little more updating to my back porch, too! I had so much fun freshening things up. I’ll fill you in this week on the latest!

Have you started gardening yet?

Hope you all had a great holiday weekend remembering those who serve and have sacrificed for our country.