Cactus Planter

I'm really into cactus right now and wanted to have some in the yard. However, our soil is clay-like and very damp. Horrible for cactus. So, we attempted to create a little bit of desert in a container.

I picked out the cacti from Home Depot. As I was looking over the selection, I found it suspicious that there were flowers on many different varieties and that the flowers were the same size and shape on all of them. I muttered to Steve, "I think these flowers are fake." Looking closer, I saw that they appeared to be attached with hot glue and there was this message on the carrying strap (circled in red):

It says "Dried flowers may be added as an enhancement."

I didn't think the cactus needed enhancing, but I suppose someone did. We made some selections anyway. We even picked two with "enhancement."


We got the container from our friend's garage purge. It was from Ikea. I don't know its original purpose, but we decided it would be fine for our container desert.

Steve drilled holes in the bottom for drainage.

We mounted a small length of PVC pipe to the fence with conduit straps. The pipe can slip in and out of the straps.

We threaded the pipe through the decorative curled edge of the planter.

We used cactus mix potting soil and are hoping that there will be enough sun on the fence to keep the little plants happy. Since we got a Home Depot gift card from our friendly neighborhood State Farm agent, the whole project including cacti cost less than $5, so we figured it's worth a try.