Specialty Gardening: Making my 2" Thick Foam Planters, 0 by GordonHawk

GordonHawk wrote:
Well.. I was asked by a friend here..how I make my foam planters.Dolly.. this is for you . these are made of 2" thick foam.. much thicker than the insulation in your refrigerator.. it has the advantage of isolating the day heat to the roots of cooler loving plants.. like your brugs and perhaps clemantis plants... when you water with the 65* water..it keeps the roots at this temperature for a prolonged period during the hot day.. These palnters also will insulate the roots in case of a freeze.. and will also minimise premature thawing in the spring..when the late winter's hot sun wants to cause them to break dormancy ina thin plastic planter..only to freeze the following evening.. causeing stress..
first I start with a 2'x8 ' foam building panel... this is the pink or blue foam available at Lowe's.. and Home Depot... it's not the white styrofoam.. whichis made of the compressed white pellets.. although OK for use.. it isn't quite as strong.. but it is cheeper..
I figure out the layout and size of the pieces needed.. to make my desired sized planter.. I've made them many sizes .. lengths..widths..and heights from 2' deep and8' long... and some times only 8" wide to smaller ones.. for this project I wanted to get as many as big as possible from my 2' x 8' pannel. I'm making two planters... each 2' long x 1' high... and 16"wide outside..// I cut 8 1' wide pannels across the 2' width of the pannels.. getting 1'x2' planks.. removing the overlapping or indexing tabs on the edge of the 2x8 plank.. shown

This message was edited Oct 21, 2008 12:20 AM