DIY Upcycled Brick Planter Box

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Believe it or not, I just found these beautiful old bricks hanging out in the backyard, hidden in some bushes! I was pretty much ecstatic when I found them! I thought “Oh my gosh… Oh the great things that I can do with these bricks!”

First thing first… I had to actually crawl into the bushes (four rows thick of mixed, mature, cedar and spruce trees), throw the bricks onto the lawn, and then finally fill up my wheel barrel, load by load, to salvage these beautiful bricks. It was a lot of work, but seriously – Look at how gorgeous they are!

The very first project that I decided to make with my bricks was a make-shift patio, between where our deck ends and the barbecue area. This area was all filled with sharp, pointy gravel, and well, it just really hurt my bare feet!

After I finished the patio, we came across a LARGE number of actual patio bricks, abundant enough to do the area by the barbecue, the area between the house and garage and wrap around behind the garage, as well. With these new all-matching bricks, my gorgeous, old, upcycled bricks became available once again…

This time, I decided that I would make a raised planter box and put it near the pool, where the hose is already hooked up… My logic being that maybe I’ll water everything a little more and not kill it??!

To start out, I laid my bricks in a rectangular shape. I then just started layering them on top, so that each row was offset by half a brick from the previous row.

The one end wall ended up being doubled, in order to make the pattern turn out evenly. At first I wasn’t too crazy about the asymmetry, but it actually turned into a pretty cool shelf!

After I had my bricks stacked to the perfect, random height, I started wheel-barreling some soil from our backyard into my planter. (I chose the soil from our backyard rather than potting soil not only because it is free, but because here in this area is supposed to be some of the nicest and richest soil in Ontario!)

I must say that my planter was looking pretty darn cute, by now! However, I still needed to stabilize and secure it. This may sound scary and a little tricky, but really, I used the easiest and simplest method possible!

All I did was buy these stakes from the dollar store.

Next I pounded them through the holes in my bricks, and straight into the ground.

I then took hedge clippers and clipped off the excess part of all of the stakes…

Added a pretty trellis, and that’s pretty much it! Big style, for very little time, money and effort!

14 thoughts on “DIY Upcycled Brick Planter Box”

  1. What a great project. Love the way it turned out.
    I found some bricks in our yard as well, but not nearly enough to do something like your planter.
    Looks great!!!!

    • You might check with your local ReHab Stores. They sell them by the pallet load. Also, here in Central Texas Home Depot sells them in the early spring for $.25 each. I always need a dozen or two seems like. It is a great planter!

      • Thank you for the information regarding the bricks. I think I will check at Home Depot this weekend.

    • Thank you so much Denise!!! You totally could make mini-planters??! A little herb garden, perhaps?! 🙂

  2. I absolutely love this idea and want to thank of you posting because I have been trying to think of a way to inexpensively build up something for my husband. My landscaper and gardener. He loves to tend to the landscape he just doesn’t have a creative mind and he won’t pull the weeds he uses the weedeater to chop/spin off the weeds but of course leaving the roots to continue to grow and get stronger and thicker. I can’t get on my knees like I used to so I thought if I got “him” something up higher he could still have his fun but on good physical feeling days for me I could sit nearby and actually pull weeds out of the planters. My question is why would you not put in a layer of plastic or weed fabric to keep the outside grass/strays from pushing their way in; and the roots of what you are planting from wanting to find their way out through the sides? It seems to me a layer just up to the top brick where you could lay the final brick over the plastic to help keep it up while filling with your filler/soil of choice and then plant?

    • Hi Connie! Thank you so much for your wonderful comment! All I have to say is… Duh! Why didn’t I think of that!!! I so should have lined the top or even the bottom! I use landscaping in all of my other flowerbeds, lol… I’ll definitely have to update my planter box! 🙂

  4. You are on the right track about stabilizing the brick walls by driving stakes through the brick holes into the ground; however, the wood rods you used will quickly rot out & the brick walls will topple. Best to go to hardware store and purchase steel rebar, get them to cut it to length for you, then drive it through the bricks in place of your wood sticks. Should hold permanently.

    • You are totally right!! I will definitely be switching over to rebar once the time comes to switch out the wood! Thanks so much for sharing! 🙂

  5. This is a very neat idea & excellent use of the bricks. My only comment on your construction is that if you used rebar in the holes instead of wood it would last a long longer because in time the moisture will rot the wood and your stabilization will change. You could still get some rebar and put in through some of the other holes in the planter, and it would be a much longer lasting build.

    • You are so right, Carey! Thanks for sharing… I will definitely use rebar when I eventually have to replace the wood! 🙂

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