Last Updated on February 25, 2024 by Kimberly Crawford
Gardens are a great way to add natural beauty to any space. You can plant flowers or even grow essential ingredients for your kitchen.
They also make for great DIY projects and can be started anywhere. In this article, we look at some ideas for plastic bottle vertical gardens.
How do you make a hanging garden out of a plastic bottle?
To start you off on your hanging garden, you will need some essential materials as listed below:
- Four plastic bottles. Old two-liter soda bottles are perfect.
- A skewer
- String
- Hardened paper. An old cereal box will do just fine.
- A pair of scissors
- Gardening soil. You can get this from a flower store or dig some dirt from your yard.
- Seedlings. You have a wide selection to choose from when you visit your local gardening store.
Step 1
Cut the bottles horizontally on one side and remove the extra piece. The final result should resemble a water trough like the one used by animals on farms.
The plants will grow out from here, and it needs to be large enough for you to be able to work. The area between the neck of the bottle and the base is large enough for this space. Ensure the bottle cap is still on to prevent the soil from draining out once you fill it in
Step 2
Poke holes along the side and base of the container to provide drainage holes. Pass the string through the holes closest to the ends.
These will be used to hang your garden. Line the interior of the bottle with the paper and then fill in the gardening soil.
Step 3
Transplant your seedlings into the new garden and then add the required amount of water. Hand the plastic garden to whatever area that you see fit around your home.
Which plants can be grown in bottles?
Herbs and spices such as coriander and basil, make for excellent plastic garden plants. They root easily and do not require much care once they are established.
A variety of flowers also do well in hanging gardens. Wandering Jew and spider plants are some of the flowering plants that do well in plastic containers.
Some awesome vertical garden ideas that might interest you:
1. DIY Plastic Bottle Gardening Wall
Ever wanted to jazz up that plain boring old wall with something fun, colourful and environmentally friendly?
Why not cut a trough into one side of a soda, pop or water bottle and fill it with soil, plant some seeds, water daily and watch life grow from within? Hang them by a string or screw the bottles into the wall and maybe make a funky pattern from them!
Make as many as you like! A great way to spend a Sunday afternoon with the kids!
2. DIY Plastic Vegetable Garden
Those 5-litre bottles you buy for cooking oil or water often get tossed away but did you know you could use them to create your plastic vegetable garden?Â
Rectangular in shape they lie perfectly flat on one side enabling you to cut open the other side, fill it with soil and seeds and watch as your once drab patio floor becomes a nourishing accompaniment to your favourite meals.Â
Grow anything you like in there; lettuce, herbs, carrots – anything that doesn’t need more than five or six inches for its roots!
3. Bottle Drip Irrigation
Ever wondered why you see corrugated plastic tubes wedged in the roots of trees and plants? Sometimes there just isn’t enough irrigation available to feed the roots below the soil, so a tube is strategically placed to allow water to flow into the base of the plant directly.
To achieve this with a bottle destined for landfill, simply cut your bottle in half and burrow a hole a few inches below the surface of your new tree or plant. Place the perforated screw cap end into the ground and fill up the soil around it to hold it in place. You won’t believe the difference this makes to the speed at which your plant flourishes!Â
4. Plastic Bottle Stone Fairy House
Here’s something else for the kids to make on a rainy day. It’ll require a little visit out to the forest to gather a few things first but at least that’s where the fairies live – so best ask them what you need whilst you’re there!
Simply cut a square hole in the bottom of an orange or apple juice bottle to make a doorway and then using PVA or hot glue begin to stick small pebbles around the outside. You’ll begin to see the fairies dying to get in!
Follow the link below to complete this super cute feature for your garden.Â
5. DIY Hanging Plastic Bottle Planter Garden
Double up your bottle-cutting skills by cutting TWO holes on either side of a two-litre bottle and place your soil and seeds or buds in the base. Suspend them using string around the neck from an overhanging ledge or pergola and marvel as life peers out of either side of the plastic vessel.Â
6. DIY Self Watering Seed Starter Pots
For those who want to save the planet but just don’t have the time to spend watering their botanical babies, cut open a two-litre bottle in half and open the neck end upside down into the base. Pop some wicking fabric in the opening and fill it with soil and seeds.Â
Add some water to the base and when you return from a hard day’s work each day you can watch your begonias thrive in their new recyclable home.Â
7. DIY Plastic Bottle Mushroom Garden
Think you’re a bit of a fungi? Not mushrooms in the house? Then here’s your answer:
Cut open a rectangular bottle and fill it with, wait for it, used coffee grounds and mashed cardboard! A generous dose of H20 and revel in the apparition of oyster mushrooms in your backyard.Â
8. DIY Plastic Water Sprinkler
This won’t need much of an explanation. Simply grab a bottle and, using a pin, prick a load of holes down one side and affix to the end of your hose. There really couldn’t be a simpler, cheaper way to evenly water your lawn.
9. Vertical Plastic Bottle Onion Tower
Love an onion? Who doesn’t?
Using a heated circular metal tool or a craft knife, carefully cut one-inch diameter holes evenly around a plastic bottle and remove each end. Fill the vessel with onion sprouts and tasty soil, water generously, and leave on the windowsill. Before long you’ll have your own vertical sprouting onion garden. Genius.Â
10. Plastic Bottle Tower Gardening
What better way can there be to feel smug and proud of your environmental actions by making a sprouting green wall out of the freshwater that you drink?Â
If you have a trellis in the garden and want plants growing up to the heavens then grab your once-wasted bottles and follow the link below to see what our Dutch friends have devised.Â
11. Recycled milk bottles
12. Green wall made from plastic bottles
13. Making a Plastic Soda Bottle Hanging Planter
14. Plenty of basil growing in vertical garden
15. Succulent in Wall Planters
16. Fence garden
17. A Vertical Garden from Soda Bottles
18. Plastic bottle recycle
19. Vertical garden on Pallet
20. Indoor Bottle Herb Garden – From Recycled Milk Bottles
21. Self Watering Vertical Garden
Source
You can create a self-watering garden by using other smaller bottles. Drill some small holes into the cap of the small bottle and insert it upside down into the soil of your garden.
The water will slowly slip into the garden as the plants need it. Only refill the bottle once the water runs out.
22. Re-cycled hanging container
23. Upcycled Soda Bottle Vertical Garden
24. Small Space Vertical Garden Made From Soda Bottles
25. Vertical Garden Using Plastic Milk Bottles
26. DIY Vertical Onion Planter
27. DIY Vertical Gardening
28. DIY Self-Watering Seed Starter Pot Planter
29. DIY Vertical Plastic Bottle Tower Gardening
30. Plastic Bottle Herb Garden
Source: 101gardening
31. Indian Bottle Face
Source: pinterest
32. Cute Flower Pots
33. DIY Plastic Bottle
Source: theelitehotel
There are many ways you can arrange your plastic bottle gardens. You can plant a variety of flowers and herbs and combine them to create fantastic foliage patterns.
Areas such as your terrace, backyard wall, or even the porch are great places to have these arrangements.
34. Plastic Bottle Planters
Source: ideas2live4
35. Cat Planter
Source: destinationfemme
36. Cat Flower Pot
Source: icreativeideas
37. HedgeHog Planter
Source: dipfeed
38. Hanging Flower Pot
39. Plastic Bird House
Source: prakticideas
40. Planter Made From A Milk Container
41. Cute DIY Face Planter
Conclusion
Plastic bottle gardens are not only a cheap way to decorate your home but also help in reducing pollution in the environment. Do your part and recycle to make your area cleaner.