A dash of brawn. Hah. Who am I kidding? I couldn’t even lift my arms up over my head to pull my hair back this morning. It was worth it though. I have been on the search for a planter, about 6-8 feet wide, 2 feet tall – not too deep, but just deep enough. All of them I found? Either too small, too big, and all of them too expensive.

I had to do something, because when we replaced the windows, we ended up short on siding. Some of the siding was relocated, some of it is the closest match we could get. The relocated siding has about 6 years of sun fading, and it’s quite visible right now, so we had to conceal that so the rest of the siding could catch up. Also? I wanted a huge, and by huge I mean spectacularly big showcase of gerber (gerbera) daisies because I love them so much. They bloom all summer, they’re huge, they never disappoint – well, only in that their annuals. I wish they were perennials. So every year, I’ll be buying boatloads of ’em, which I don’t have a problem with. I also added some wave petunias so they’ll cascade down the sides and conceal the rest of the faded siding.

I drew the blueprint. Hubby wrote up the supply list, and down to Lowe’s he went. $33 later, he was home and breaking out the circular saw. He spent about 6 hours on it, and even got the girls involved in hammering and drilling the nail holes. It was all fun and good, and a perfect day here for being outside. We’re both sunburned and sore, but man. The payoff.

Before:

After:

One more after, we added a little decorative thing to the front of the planter and shutters! Yay!

Now, you might notice that not only is there a planter, but while hubby was hammering his little heart out, I was digging like a madwoman and extending the small corner of old fashioned iris, adding landscaping trim, relocating the iris to the front of the area and then filling the back with new pink tulips and transplanting some purple and red tulips from other areas in the yard.

I’m a burned, blistered and physically spent woman today, friends. I dug and dug, and dug some more. And we’re not even done with the landscaping yet. I also planted a rose weigela, and then went down to my girlfriends and dug up some monstrosity of a plant that I can’t even identify and transplanted it to our yard. It jabbed me in the leg and made me bleed, so I might not get too cozy with this one before I yank it and trash it. :raspberry:

Some details for you, because I know you’re dying to see more:

The planter:

The photos I’m gonna get this summer:

The planter measures 6′ wide by 21″ tall and 15″ deep. There’s a bottom on the interior that’s only 12 inches deep so it doesn’t require as much dirt to fill it to the top (uh, 4 wheelbarrows worth, ow.) I put plastic sheeting on the inside to hold the dirt and poked holes to drain the water. We also put a front and back ledge on it just for the sake of being pretty and finishing it off a bit more. Seriously, $33.

Here’s the supply list:

• 15 – 6″ green treated dogeared fence board, 5/8″ thick x 6″ wide
• 5 – 2″ x 2″ x 42″ square baluster for the legs
• 1 lb. galvanized steel rustproof nails

First we cut off the dog ears on the fence boards, then cut the balusters to size – nailed the long sides to the balusters leaving enough space on the ends for the side boards, then cut & nailed the side pieces to the front pieces, and although I just wanted a support for the dirt, hubby made a full bottom using 3 more pieces of wood and the baluster leftovers and there’s a full bottom inside of the planter. It was really so easy, and so much cheaper than buying one at the prices I saw.

Tomorrow, they’ll deliver the serious lumber. The stuff that’s 16 feet long, 12 inches high and an inch thick. That’s a whole ‘nother project.

Today I need to get some seeds in the ground if I ever expect to grow my annuals in the backyard. I may need a nap first. Dang. I’m already tired and I just got up!

I hope you’re having a great weekend, too!