Monday, June 10, 2013

How to Build a Flower Tower

I’ll let you in on a little secret.  Remember the vertical garden we built as part of a sponsored program for Home Depot?  Well, we were assigned the project.  We weren’t super excited about it at first with but we ended up really liking it after it was built.  That’s the inside scoop.

Where am I going with this?  Ah, yes.  What I really wanted to build was a flower tower!

How to Build a Flower Tower {DIY}

I mean, it’s a tower of flowers.  It has a cool name.  I love Home Depot’s commercial where the wife is all like “This won’t take long.  Will it?”  THAT’S TOTALLY ME.

I had to have one. So we headed to pick up our supplies.  I quickly began to realize that these little ol’ flower towers aren’t exactly cheap.  Like those people in the commercial with 15 of them in their backyard must be loaded.  Like Justin Bieber or drug dealer loaded.  Not pharmacist and accountant loaded.

But I had to have one.  You know how that goes. I compromised and limited myself to one tower instead of the 27 I had imagined in my head.

These towers are ridiculously easy to build.  Like I did it mostly by myself.  Whoa.  That’s going to be the theme for this week.  Michelle actually does stuff.  Alert the media.

Gather your supplies. (The reason this project is expensive is that they don’t sell small quantities of some of the materials.  Like you need 3-4 feet of wire fencing and it comes in a 50 foot roll.  Nice.)

    • 4-foot galvanized wire fencing with 2-inch x 4-inch openings (~$30)
    • Landscape fabric (~$10. We had this left over from the vertical garden.)
    • 6-inch black zip ties (~$2)
    • flower pot (Price varies.  We used one we already had.)
    • Dirt (~$13 for a large bag.)

Gather your tools.  (We had all of the tools.)

  • Utility knife
  • Aviation snips or tin snips
  • Scissors
  • The Home Depot recommends gloves when working with the wire. I skipped them but thought I’d throw it in for safety purposes.

Step 1: Create a cylinder with the wire fencing that you will place inside your pot.  Allow an overlap of one fencing section to allow for a more stable seam.  Cut the fencing using aviation snips.

  DIY Flower Tower

Step 2:  Overlap one section of the wire fencing and use the zip ties to tie the sides of the cylinder together.  I used a tie in each section from top to bottom.  Trim the zip ties to about 1/4”.

DIY Flower Tower

Step 3:  Wrap the landscape fabric around the outside of the tower to measure how much you’ll need.  Overlap an inch or two to ensure that soil doesn’t fall out through the seam.  Cut the fabric to size using scissors or a utility knife.  Slide the fabric inside the wire fencing.  Cut the excess fabric from the top of the tower leaving about 2 inches extending from the top of the tower to help secure the fabric to the tower.

DIY Flower Tower

Step 4: Fold the two inch flap over the top of the tower.  Use your utility knife cut small slits through both layers of fabric just under the metal rim.  Cut one slit in every third rectangle of the fencing.  Insert the zip ties through the slits and tie down the top of the fabric.  Cut the ends of the zip ties to about 1/4”.

DIY Flower Tower

DIY Flower Tower

Step 5:  Place fencing in your flower pot.  Fill the tower about 1/3 full with soil.  Add water to settle the soil.  Add another 1/3 of soil.  Add more water.  Fill to about 1 inch from the top of the tower with soil and add water.  Lightly press the soil once it is full to prevent sinking.  I repeated the last water and pressing step a few times.  Also add soil to the inside of the container just outside of the tower.

DIY Flower Tower

Step 7:  Cut a vertical slit in every other rectangle and stagger on your way down the tower.  (The Home Depot instructions suggest making a cross slit.  I found that the flowers were sturdier if I only made the horizontal slit.)

DIY Flower Tower

Step 8:  Add your flowers.  I chose petunias because they grow like weeds in sunny locations.  Use your finger to create a little pocket behind the opening to place the plant into.  It should fit snuggly but you don’t want to shove it in there and ruin the poor little plant’s roots.  Once the plant is inserted into the tower, make sure the flaps of the landscape fabric close around the stem of the flower to help keep the soil in while water.  Don’t forget to plant flowers in the top of the tower as well.

It doesn’t look like much at first.  I’m not going to lie.  It’s pretty hideous for the first two weeks.  I’m pretty sure the neighbors were wondering what the heck the monstrosity by our garage was. 

DIY Flower Tower

DIY Flower Tower

Step 9:  Water and cross your fingers that the thing lives.  As long as you chose petunias and you water them, the tower will live.  I’m certain of it.

Our tower has been growing for about 3 weeks and it has filled in nicely.  There is still time for you to build one for the summer!

Flower Tower

DiY Flower Tower

How to build a Flower Tower {Decor and the Dog}

How to Build a Flower Tower {DIY}

Any fun outdoor projects planned for the summer? Do your neighbors wonder what the heck you are doing on a regular basis?

Linking up to: Home Stories A to Z

34 comments:

  1. It looks so pretty now that it is all filling in! Love it.

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  2. I love how that's filling in! Cute! xo Kristin

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  3. Gorgeous... You are one handy pharmacist! I would probably kill all of the flowers in one day, that's just how I roll....I blame it on the crazy TX heat.

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  4. that is an awesome tower of flower power! i could stare at it for an hour, while your amazing homemade donuts i devour. and we sit, chat and drink a whiskey sour.

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  5. Looks awesome. I'm surprised how few flowers produce that really dense looking final product. This just bolsters my theory that if you add "tower" to anything it makes it better (flower, pancakes, cash, etc).

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  6. I'm really impressed at how much it's filled out in only a few weeks. Were you totally bummed when you first finished it? I am always disappointed when I first plant my flowers because they always look a little sad. My flower pots on the fence are the same way. They looked miserable a few weeks ago and now I"m pretty sure they're the best in town.

    Good work on the flower tower! Those flowers aren't cheap, yo.

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  7. The tower looks great. I love the red and white flower choice. It looks so pretty against your blue house. I would've been totally bummed when I finished it and it looked so sparse, but it looks great now!

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  8. Wow that's... pretty darn impressive.

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  9. That looks awesome! I'm also amazed at how few flowers are used . . . I guess I figured you just stuff them in to make them look so full, but just a few grow in so nicely. Great work, it looks fantastic!

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  10. Your flower tower looks great! I am still waiting for my flower tower to fill in a bit!

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  11. I love it! I want one of these so badly! Too bad not cheap usually equals no for this accountant's wife. :/

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  12. These are so adorable and add a great pop of color to your home! Wanna make me one, and send it on to NJ?!? ;)

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  13. That thing is amazing! I didn't know you didn't have to fill in each and every flower yourself! I need 27 of these now. So thanks for that. :)

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  14. They look great. I want to try it.

    psst.....{whispering to you so no one else hears} you skipped step 6 :)

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    Replies
    1. Bahaha. I was just making sure everyone was paying attention. You pass. :)

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  15. SO PRETTY!!! I love that commercial that you are talking about. :-) It looks great! Now we know the Home Depot commercials target Justin Bieber and druglords. ;-)

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  16. Oh wow, I'm surprised that they spread so much! I would have filled each hole in and wasted money and time! Absolutely beautiful, the perfect pop for the front of your house!

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  17. Oooh, very nice! It filled in really well in only 3 weeks.

    You know what would be awesome? If you planted purplish blue flowers. Then it would resemble Marge Simpson's hair. You could even paint her face on the planter. I bet Nate would LOVE that.

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  18. It looks great...it filled in so nicely! Do people make jokes about you being a drug dealer because you are a pharmacist? Rick gets that a lot.

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  19. What size pot did you use?

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    Replies
    1. I'm not exactly sure of the size. It's a faux whiskey barrel so it's fairly wide.

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  20. That looks so good outside your house! I love it. I saw that commercial and chuckled; that would be me too ;) I wonder if Kevin could get a second job to fund a few for our backyard.

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  21. i like those a lot but i am not great at keeping flowers alive in the first place let alone a tower of flowers!

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  22. Am I the last person on the planet that has not seen flower towers??? And they filled in so great in only a few weeks. I'm doing something wrong with mine and they are just in regular pots.
    Bliss

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  23. I have been looking forward to this post since I saw the teaser photo on instagram. I love that commercial because I too would do that and a couple hundred dollars later I would lose interest and have tons of supplys around the yard. Yours turned out great. I bet you will come up with some clever projects for the rest of that roll.

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  24. this is so pretty! I love how it looks filled! :-) you did a great job! :-) I love petunias; the red is beautiful!

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  25. Your gardening skillz run so deep! I am in awe over you. I suck at mowing the lawn. I think we're lucky if it gets done once a month. Our neighbors hate us.

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  27. It's just like the one on the commercial! The one with the bearded guy which always strikes me since I enjoy beards but civilized society tends to... not. Except yours looks better. Ohhhhh yes it does!

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  28. I need to make this. It actually looks easy enough for me to try! I truly kill all plants, but it's so cute that it's worth the attempt

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  29. Wow. This filled in so nicely! When I saw the picture of the freshly planted flowers, I was like, no way is that the same tower. And, yes, I love that commercial!

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  30. Can't wait to try it in my backyard garden, so creative.

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  31. wow!! Now that looks great....to answer your question...yes the neighbors think I am nuts with my landscaping...our house is only 3 years old and so we started from scratch and every year I add something different...but hey we are retired and they aren't..not my fault if their jealousy is showing....I really love your idea will steal it for next year K? no room this year!!LOL!

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