Rustic wedding. That was the plan, my job was to be on the lookout for décor ideas. In my travels I have picked up a couple galvanized buckets. As luck would have it a stop at an antique store netted six more at $5 each. With my 8 buckets, one for each end of each row of seats, I had a plan.
Galvanized Bucket
I did not want to put the dirt directly into the buckets. I worried that they would get too wet with no drainage- and I didn’t want to drill holes in the buckets.
After some brainstorming, I had an idea.
I wanted to make some inserts that I could remove from the galvanized buckets to water.
The first step was to cut a square of chicken wire. I happened to have some that I bought for chickens and before I used it, it rusted. It was in my “useful someday” storage pile.
My buckets are about 2 gallons, so I roughly measured the size wire I would need. I used a pair of wire cutters to cut a piece of chicken wire into a square. Then I used the wire cutters to remove a square from each corner. This way I could bend the wire into a basket shape.
chicken wire form
With a little folding and bending the basket shape fit into my bucket. I used the loose wires along the side, from cutting out the corner, to loop through to secure it in shape.
Next, I needed some sort of liner so that the dirt would not fall through the large holes in the wire. I have sheep and lots of waste wool, so I lined my baskets with brown wool. It also has the benefit of retaining moisture, so that the bucket does not dry out as quickly. If you do not have a source for wool, burlap would also work. Our farm store sells burlap bags, or it is usually reasonably priced at the fabric store.
Using the wool, I tucked it in around the edge as I worked my way up filling with soil. The soil helps to hold the wool in place.
Wool Filled Wire Basket
Finally, I added my plants and before putting the wire basket into the bucket I watered them thoroughly with water that had added fertilizer. Once they were no longer dripping wet I slid the baskets into the buckets.
Wire Baskets with Plants
Each week I pull the baskets out of the buckets and soak with water/fertilizer mix. Except for one bucket that a skunk decided to dig up, they all are looking pretty for the big day.