Looking at accenting your yard or garden with some height? Here are some tips on planting a tall planter.

Here are more gardening tips from someone who is not a gardener. But if I can do this, so can you.

I wanted to upgrade some of the planters in my yard. We have a very small yard and unfortunately, the location that has the most sun, does not have any actual garden, but it does have a small deck and so we’ve tried to add pots to the deck to take advantage of the sun.

I did have some really old pots with some favourites in. It was time not only for an upgrade of the pot, but for those poor plants to get some new soil as well. I told you, I’m not much of a gardener. One plant in particular, a beautiful yellow tree peony has hung on for 15+ years in the same pot and soil. So it, along with a couple of other items deserved an upgrade.

But let me be the first to tell you that plant pots are not cheap! Then you have to add in the soil and so this seemingly simple little project can be pricey.

I’ve been wanting a tall planter for a while for my front door. Then I realized that some other plants that I have would also look good in some tall planters as it would add height variation to our hard. Everything I looked at in gardening stores was so expensive! But then I found these great planters at Costco. They measures 22 inches high and are 14 inches square at the top (they taper to the bottom). They were reasonably priced and so I ended up getting 4 of them.

The Challenge with Planting a Tall Planter

While these tall planters look great, they pose a couple of challenges – one of them being, the fact that they are tall. Now what I mean by that, is that it can take a lot to fill them.

A tall planter requires a lot of soil to fill it. If you fill it up with soil, not only can that be costly, but it weighs a ton!

I tend to rotate things on my deck and like my planters to be movable. Plants that have finished blooming, in spring, I like to move and replace it with a planter of summer plants. Moving a tall planter full of soil is not easy – so what are some solutions?

Prepare Your Planter

First off, I had my son drill through the designated holes on the bottom for drainage. This was easily done with a drill. The holes were specifically marked and it didn’t take long.

So we’ve determined that we don’t want to fill up the whole planter with soil. Depending on the size and the plant, figure out how much depth you actually need. Then, all you need to do is fill it up with something else up until that point and then add your soil.

What to Fill a Tall Planter With

Okay, so what is lightweight, but takes up space so that you can partially fill up your tall planter? Here are some suggestions.

Other plant pots, turned upside down
Since my planter tapered, I didn’t really have anything that would work for this particular planter. Here’s a good idea of why you may wish to keep some of the pots your plants come in – but not too many if you don’t have a lot of space.
Packing peanuts
If you recently received some sort of shipment or delivery with those packing peanuts, they work great as well. Check out your workplace – they may have some as well. Pack them into a bag before inserting them into your tall planter. This way, whenever you switch it out, they won’t be flying everywhere. Trust me on this – I have a neighbour who did this a couple of years ago, and to this day I still find packing peanuts that have flown into our yard.
Empty plastic containers
Think yogurt containers or milk jugs – stuff like that. Make sure they are clean – I would worry about rats, personally. Some people use pop bottles, but hey I can get money back for recycling that, so I’m not going to use those. Again, depending on the size, you may wish to bag them to keep them contained.

This is a great way to recycle or reuse some items you have laying around.

I found that 2 4-litre/1 gallon milk jugs worked perfectly for these tall planters. Since there were only 2, I did not contain them in a bag. It didn’t seem necessary. I also used some unused plant pots.

If you do not contain your filler in a bag, as I did, you may wish to cover the top with some weed control fabric. This prevents the soil from falling through the cracks. It keeps things nice and tidy.

I got weed control fabric from the dollar store. It is a huge sheet of fabric. Since I wasn’t planning on using it for anything else I decided to double it up. It is easily cut with scissors and I cut it slightly larger so that I could tuck it down the sides.

Now your planter is ready for soil and planting.

Look at how much nicer my tree peony looks in the new planter.

I am so happy with my tall planters. They look great. My plants are happy because they got an upgrade of fresh, new soil. These planters don’t weigh a ton so they are movable. They’re still a decent weight – they won’t be blown over easily.