Top tips for lining your wooden garden planters (2024)

FAQs

Top tips for lining your wooden garden planters? ›

- Pond liner or geotextile fabric provides excellent durability and helps prevent wood rot. - Measure the interior dimensions of your wooden planter and cut the pond liner or geotextile fabric to fit. - Place the liner inside the planter, ensuring it covers the bottom and sides completely.

Plastic sheeting works well to protect the wood. For a cheaper alternative, you could use an empty compost bag, just cut it open and staple the bag to the inside of the box. Treating the wood with a sealant, waterproof paint, or wood preservative will protect wooden planters from rotting.

Line the planter with porous landscape fabric: The landscape fabric will allow water to drain out of the container while preventing wet soil from directly contacting the wood and reducing its lifespan. The fabric also will prevent soil from escaping through any wide gaps in the wood.

One of the best things to put at the bottom of a planter for drainage is broken pieces of pot. You can use any unwanted plant pots or chipped crockery for this – simply smash them up into small to medium-sized pieces. Adding a layer of broken pieces of pot like this will prevent compost loss out of the drainage holes.

Depending on what type of wooden box you have, and how you would like to use it, you will most likely need to add a liner before planting. Crates with large gaps between the boards need a liner to stop soil and water from running straight out of the crate.

- Landscape fabric allows for proper drainage while also preventing soil from escaping through the gaps in the wood. - Place the landscape fabric inside the planter, making sure it covers the bottom and sides, with excess fabric hanging over the edges.

As a final reminder, avoid lining your garden beds with plastic. Doing so prevents drainage and could drown your plants' roots with too much water. If you have a weed and pest problem, consider installing a combination of metal mesh and fabric or hardware cloth and cardboard to address both issues simultaneously.

The bags are also not made for this purpose and are susceptible to UVA rays and will very quickly degrade. Taking in to account adverse weather this makes for an unsightly mess. Bin bags also easily rip if stepped on and this may allow weeds to push through any gaps once laid.

Roots can grow into the wood of a raised bed or into the soil below. The liner blocks any toxins that might be in the ground or in the materials used to build the bed. Liners can help prevent burrowing pests such as voles, moles, gophers, groundhogs and groundhogs.

Rocks in the bottom of containers do not contribute to better draining soils and healthier plants. Instead plant roots encounter saturated soils that don't drain efficiently. It all has to do with something called a perched water table.

Is it okay to put Styrofoam in the bottom of a planter? ›

However, because landfills are overfilled with non-biodegradable products, many Styrofoam packing products are now made to dissolve in time. It is not recommended to use Styrofoam peanuts for potted plants now, because they may break down in water and soil, leaving you with sunken-in containers.

Plastic sheeting is the best material for lining a planter with. Pond liners work well for lining the bottom of planters as they are robust and can easily be shaped into the perfect size to fit the dimensions of your planter. Pond liners are also thick enough to reduce any evaporation of water from the soil.

Then , apply a coat of wood sealer or primer to the inside of the box , making sure to cover all surfaces . Next , use a waterproofing sealant , such as polyurethane or linseed oil , and apply multiple coats , allowing each coat to dry completely before adding the next .

As a final reminder, avoid lining your garden beds with plastic. Doing so prevents drainage and could drown your plants' roots with too much water. If you have a weed and pest problem, consider installing a combination of metal mesh and fabric or hardware cloth and cardboard to address both issues simultaneously.

Liners can help prevent burrowing pests such as voles, moles, gophers, groundhogs and groundhogs. The padding suppresses weeds that may grow from the ground under a raised bed, but this is only necessary if your bed is under 6 inches.