A few of my plants outside in my deck planters still had some life in them as the weather turned cold, so I scrambled to find a pot and a way not to kill them inside. (If you know me and my history with live plants, you know this is a challenge!) Two weeks in, and these plans are still alive, so I think I can safely say this works!
Supplies:
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- Pot for plants
- Christmas light spool
- Dirt
- Plants
Tools:
- Scissors
- Drill and bit (or just a knife or even the scissors will work)
Step 1: Gather supplies…all 2 of them. I had a deep pot that I liked a lot, but I didn’t want to put drainage holes in the bottom of it because I was afraid I’d break the whole thing. I also didn’t want a tray under the pot to catch water because I didn’t have one that matched and the stand that this pot would sit on is really pretty. Also, I didn’t need the pot to be as deep as it was, so I needed to come up with a way to make a hidden drainage reservoir in the bottom that would take up some space. If YOU pick a pot that has holes in the bottom, you’ll have to cover them to make this hidden reservoir because the water will still flow out the bottom unless the holes are covered well.
After looking through all the junk I keep for “some project someday,” I found this plastic Christmas light spool that gave me the perfect idea! We tend to have a few of these things lying around after Christmas when a strand of lights goes dead…or we just don’t feel like wrapping the lights back around them and end up throwing the lights in boxes. Anyway, since this one was free, I claimed it for my project. I was the perfect height to take up some room at the bottom of the pot, plus that space between would give excess water a place to go.
Step 2: Cut to size. The top of my pot was wider then the bottom, and I set the spool inside to see that I needed to cut off an inch or so in order for it to fit down in the bottom of the pot. By using just ordinary scissors, I cut the plastic bottom side of the spool slightly smaller than the top side of the spool to sit in the pot correctly.
After testing the size a few times, I got it to the size it needed to be. Did I cut it perfectly even all the way around? No. Didn’t matter, so don’t worry about that.
Step 3: Make drainage holes. In the top side of the spool, I used a drill to create a bunch of holes that would help water drain down into the “reservoir.” It doesn’t matter if you accidentally poke through into the bottom side too, but you only have to do the top side that will touch the dirt.
Step 4: Fill pot with dirt and plants. Setting the spool inside the bottom of the pot, I made sure the side with the holes was facing up.
With that ready, I dumped in some dirt. Some of this dirt slipped down between the sides of the pot and the cut sides of the spool, but it wasn’t so much that it filled the big “reservoir” space, and a little along the sides helped to hold the rest on top.
With the dirt in, I took my plants out of their other planter and put them in my new pot. After a little watering, they were happy and ready to be indoor plants.
This worked ridiculously well, really, and I know there’s plenty of room for water to drain out of the dirt.
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