This vertical garden has given me so much pleasure over the
summer months and it took all of 15 minutes to put together.
It requires a pallet in good condition, some woven plastic
membrane and a staple gun. After that, just add soil and plants.
This pallet was donated to the allotment site by the
builders next door. And it’s an ideal shape and size: 1) it will stand up on
its own, 2) the horizontal struts at the base make good plant containers with
minimal reconstruction, 3) it’s aesthetically pleasing: rustic without looking
too decrepit. If you are going to re-purpose pallets, it really does pay to be
very fussy. After all, they’re free.
I cut some strips of membrane to fit, and stapled pieces to
the underside of each strut, as shown. This made the planting pockets. Next, I
filled the pockets with multi-purpose compost and found a good place to site
it. Finally I planted up the seedlings and watered them in. Without irrigation,
it’s important to put the plants that are most drought resistant at the top and
those that need most water at the bottom: plants on the top tier of a vertical
garden are very exposed and will lose water very quickly. At the bottom,
however, all the water gathers and the plants here are also often in a certain
amount of shade.
I had calendula, cornflowers and eschscholzia Jelly Beans in the top two rows, and nasturtiums along the bottom as well as tumbling over the upper tiers.
This kind of shallow-pocketed, non-irrigated vertical garden
works best for a single season. After that you can decide whether to redo the
planting for another year or to re-purpose the pallet again. As I said,
they’re free.
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