As part of our home improvement projects each year for our annual Halloween party (yes, we are Halloween-motivated), Drew and I wanted to create our backyard oasis. We knew when we were looking for our first home, we wanted backyard space for (1) our future fur baby and (2) to start a garden. Neither of us really have a green thumb but since we had the space we wanted to give plant life a try.
The Space and Base
About 12 months prior to our DIY weekend, we purchased our new bedroom furniture and got rid of our old furniture. I had a feeling that the base of our old bed frame could be repurposed and used somewhere else in our home. Naturally after I have an idea, it sat in our garage for 12 months until Drew insisted that we do something with it or it’s being tossed out.
We had this open wall in our backyard that looked like it should have been fitted for a fireplace. Because we didn’t have a fireplace in our living room, we wanted to use that space for something else. It stuck out into our backyard and served no other purpose. I had an inkling that the bed frame base would fit perfectly, and low-and-behold I was right! We brought the frame from the garage and it was the perfect fit. Once the fit was confirmed, Drew got started on putting it together.
Spoiler: In reality, the frame sat out there for a few months until Drew really got started on our backyard oasis transformation.
The Process
The Bed Frame Base
To get the garden wall started, Drew went to Home Depot and color matched the light brown framing of our house. We then painted the outer metal framing of the base to match the framing of our house. Using a large paintbrush, we painted the outer frame and painted any metal in between the wooden slats with a smaller paintbrush. We did two coats, or three in areas that we knew would be more visible. We then stained the wooden slats with the same color we used for our fence because consistency, am I right? Once we let the base dry overnight, Drew screwed the outer metal framing of the base to the siding of our house.
The Pots and Planters
As frequent Ikea-goers, I had some pots in mind that would have worked perfectly for the space. We also knew that we wanted some “texture” and variety with the containers we used. The Ikea pots were round, white, metal and came in three different sizes. Drew found some planters or “window boxes” on eBay that were square, black and metal and some on Amazon that were square, white and wooden. To make sure water would drain from each planter, we drilled holes at the bottom of each pot and planter.
Because we were planning on hanging these planters from the wooden slats of the base, Drew had to create and attach metal “hooks” to the back of each pot and planter. We went to Home Depot to get metal brackets for the back of the planters. Drew bent each one and screwed the “U-shape” metal hooks to the pots and planters. For the round pots, he used one hook and for the rectangular planters he used two hooks.
To provide some additional support for the rectangular planters, we attached some shelf supports to the bottom. We only really needed these for the longer black planters. Note: We added these shelf supports after we finalized where we were going to place the planters.
The Design and Plants
In order to visualize the layout of the garden wall, we did a little “photoshop”. Aka took pictures of the base, cropped the stock photos of the planters and placed them in different layouts in Word to see which one we liked the most. I was leaning more toward symmetrical while Drew wanted more of an “organized chaos” look. After playing with the design for an hour or so, we agreed on using Drew’s vision because it allowed us to have plants of different shapes and sizes. Once we finalized the layout on our computer, we placed our pots and planters onto the base. Now the fun part could begin: Plants and flowers!
Obviously, all things in our lives revolve around Gordo, so we had to get plants that were dog-friendly. Let me just say: THAT WAS NOT EASY, NOR CHEAP. Well I realized that plants in general were not cheap (and honestly, gardening is not cheap), but here we were. My problem was that I wanted plants that were dog-friendly, but also pretty. Unfortunately for me, all of my favorite flowers or plants were poisonous to dogs. I searched for a few plants and took screenshots of ones that were dog-friendly and I felt would match our garden aesthetic.
We went to Home Depot and a local garden center, Buchanan’s Native Plants, to get plants and flowers for our garden wall. Home Depot had a huge garden area with lots of plants, grasses, succulents and flowers. I thought we could easily grab the plants I had found online, but in reality, we ended up having to look-up every plant we saw to make sure it was dog-friendly for our boy. Fast forward two hours, we ended up getting some grass, succulents, a few taller plants and all of our potting soil. To be honest, I was bit disappointed and frustrated that there wasn’t a dog-friendly indication for each plant but we got what we needed and went to our next spot.
Thankfully at Buchanan’s they had an area dedicated to dog-friendly plants. We grabbed all of the plants that had unique colors and shapes including my favorites, the Chinese money plant and zebra plant! Buchanan’s had many options for us to choose frame and made it super easy to find plants we were looking for. The plants here were, however, pricier than Home Depot.
The Final Placement
Once we got all of our plants and flowers, we did a preliminary staging of the plants. I kept each plant in their original pot and placed those into the pots and planters we had designed to see which would look good. After we settled on final placement, we depoted each plant into our pots and planters. For the pots, we placed one plant in each. For the white planters, we placed two plants and for the black ones we placed three plants.
I tried to style them based on the space in between each pot or planter and based on how “wide” the stems and leaves branched off. I wanted the garden wall to look full and lively, with more petite plants and succulents to fill in any gaps. Unfortunately, we don’t have the best sunlight in our backyard so we tried to put plants that needed more light in sun-heavy spots and the low-maintenance ones in the more shadowed positions. Luckily, we could water the plants top-down and water would trickle to the lower plants.
Overall, I am extremely happy with how it turned out! I’m new at the plant life but it brings some welcome warmth into our backyard space. Hopefully I can keep the plants healthy through this winter season so we can enjoy them for the rest of the year. The best part about the wall is that each planter is movable, so if we wanted to switch up the layout or add more plants, we could!
Material Summary
These are the specific materials we used to create our garden wall, but hopefully it can inspire you or guide you in creating your very own.
Base
- Bed frame base (you could also build this with planks of wood)
- Paint
- Paint brushes (large, small)
- Wood stain
- Cloth
- Nails
- Drill
Pots and Planters
- Round pots (6 large, 4 medium, 4 small)
- 3 White window boxes
- 3 Black window boxes
- 26 Angle corner braces (1 for each pot, 2 for each window box)
- 3 Shelf bracket (1 for each black window box)
- Potting soil
- Gardening tools (shovels)
- Bucket (for potting soil)
Plants
- Chinese money plant
- Zebra plant
- Plants with drape-y leaves
- Succulents
- Grasses
Happy planting!
