We’ve had hanging solar lights on our deck for several years. And while I still like them, they’re not really practical anymore. Besides the fact that they’re nearly all dead, they’re made of cracked glass, which tends to break easily. Not good with a 3-year-old around.
I looked into replacing them with lights I could DIY out of Ball jars, but I ran into snags along the way. I looked into getting plastic lights, but they were too expensive. Finally I decided to go simple with hanging plants. I wanted to fill them with plants mosquitos hate, but I couldn’t find the plants, so I went with a classic. Impatients.
The project took about 90 minutes total (including hanging), but I already had the hooks up. If you need to add hooks (I have 14), plan for an extra hour.
Materials:
- Small buckets (I got mine in the $1 section of Target, but here are some similar pails)
- Potting soil
- 2 flats of plants
- Trowel
- Cordless drill with a 1/8 – 9/32
Drill a couple holes in the bottom of each bucket. Side note: ordinarily I would take the label off but they were the annoying kind that are perforated and I had to get this done while Miss O was napping.
I didn’t take pictures of the next step because my hands were dirty. Basically you put the plants from the flats in your buckets, and fill in the empty space with potting soil. Voila!
This isn’t a long-term solution. The buckets will rust, the flowers are annuals… However, given that I spent about $30 on it, I’m okay with that. I like to change things up regularly and this was a pretty easy little project.
