Pinspired By: Gabion Planters

Its that time again!

 

 

I think the first time I heard the word gabion I was watching an episode of Yard Crashers a couple of years ago. I instantly fell in love with them, but had no idea how I could work them into my life (aka tiny microscopic back yard). Originally they were built to give soldiers something to hide behind so as not to get shot. It seems pretty logical, large basket type thing, fill it with rocks, no bullet holes (as long as your standing behind it). Since I among battling in a rival gang dispute my gabion is a little more on the decorative side. Oh, and here is my inspiration (it looks like the listing is no longer available), and more gabion pins are on my outdoor board!

Here's mine! I love how it turned out, and that tiny succulent is just so adorable!

 

 

Ok, now that you've see the finished product, go grab a snack because there's a lot of pictures, and probably a lot of words to go with them! First you need tools and supplies.

• Hardware cloth (wire grid stuff)
• Needle nose pliers
• Dremmel tool with metal cutting disk (not completely necessary, but very helpful)
• Large-ish river rocks (check the aquarium section at the pet store)
• A plant or candle
• Gloves (I didn't use any, obviously)

I decided the size of my planter based on the size of container I wanted to put in it. You want a minimum of two squares between your plant and the end of your gabion. Once you've decided how big the top should be go ahead and cut your first piece of hardware cloth. I know in this picture I have a top and bottom piece that are cut the same way, but after working through this I would suggest leaving the fringe wires that go past the squares you need on the piece you use for the bottom. Just to help clarify, the four on the top are my side pieces, then the bottom row are top/bottom pieces and the long one is for the tube in the center.

 

 

After you cut out your pieces you'll need to put the sides together. I started by pre bending the fringe wire to make connecting them a little easier.

 

 

Line them up like so. Oh, and excuse my grimy fingers, I had been doing this a while already.

 

 

Once you have two sides lined up like this use your needle nose pliers to bend the fringe wires around the perpendicular wire and back onto itself.

 

 

Do that to connect all four side pieces. When you're done it will probably look a little off like this.

 

 

Don't worry, once you close up that last corner it will be nice and box shaped!

 

 

Now that you have the outside done you need to save room for your plant in the middle. Grab your long piece and your top piece.

 

 

Use the fringe wires to join your long piece end to end and mould it into cylinder.

 

 

Now center you top piece on your wire cylinder. To attach them together I started with the north east south and west intersections. Wherever the wire meets up with the circle I would cut and bend the fringe wire around.

 

 

 

 

The corners here were just a little bit inside of the circle. To leave myself enough wire to wrap with I used my pliers to break the bond that holds them together before wrapping them around the cylinder piece.

 

 

Tad a!

 

 

Now that you've got the top pece put together, insert it into the box and fold those little fringe wires around just like before. I noticed that the wires in the very corners of the box were in the way, so I just cut those off with my dremmel.

 

 

Now turn it over and fill it with some rocks.

 

 

Finally, you can close the gabion up with the bottom piece. I chose to pre bend two sides of the bottom piece because the fringe wires that were not bending around the perpendicular wire that they were attached to had a tendency to break off. Bending them ahead of time seemed to minimized that a lot.

 

 

Now drop a plant (or maybe a candle if your thumbs are of the darker variety) in there and admire your handy work.

 

 

 

I'm so excited for spring to get here already, I think this will be great in the back yard. Sadly our yard is filled with snow at the moment, so no outdoor shots. :(

 

 

 

Welp, this concludes my Pinterest Challenge (winter edition) project. What did you make this time around? Wanna see more pinspired projects? Oh, and be sure to go check out all the other Pinspired projects at Young House Love, Bower Power, The Remodeled Life, and Decor & the Dog.

 

Nikki Kelly