A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon this hanging succulent garden on Pinterest. I pinned it. I Facebooked it. I obsessed about it for days. Yep, I had to make one, and it had to be done immediately.
The only problem was that I have two black thumbs and wasn’t willing to sacrifice the lives of a few dozen sweet little succulents for what would end up being a gorgeous, but temporary, display. Luckily for me, Hobby Lobby had all of its faux succulent picks for on sale for 50% off last week. I’ve already used some in my office, so I knew that they are very realistic looking – the only kind of fake plant I will allow into my house.
So, I built a display frame and added what seemed like eleventy billion fake succulents. The result was pretty awesome.
My faux succulent hanging garden took longer and cost more to complete that I was expecting. I put together a tutorial on the project as I was going along, and I will give you some tips on how to save money if you choose to put together your own.
How to Create a DIY Faux Succulent Hanging Garden
1. Find a frame to use for your project. You will want it to be somewhat thick so that the succulents don’t completely cover it. I purchased an unfinished frame from Hobby Lobby (at 50% off), but you can easily find one at a thrift store or in hanging out in the back of one of your closets, right? You’ll remove the glass and the backing, so don’t worry about it if those items are missing or damaged.
MONEY SAVING TIP: I bought a frame with a 16″ x 20″ opening. Although it looks amazing once completed, it took A LOT of succulents – and a lot of time – to fill it densely. I recommend a smaller frame opening unless you have ample time and money to blow.
2. Build a plywood base that fits into the frame where the glass would normally go. At Hobby Lobby, I found some 1/4″ thick plywood strips that were about an inch and a half wide and 3 feet long (it was in the section with the hobby wood and wooden letters, if you go looking for it). I used two of these pieces for my frame.
I cut them so that they would form a box and then used some JB Weld to bond the corners. I clamped each of the corners with a corner clamp and the JB Weld set in 6 minutes. I’m sure there are better ways to do this, but the wood was so thin that I didn’t think I’d be able to screw it together. The JB Weld worked great, but epoxy or even wood glue would probably work.
3. Next, you’ll sandwich some mesh between your box and your frame. I used what’s called “Hardware Cloth” from the outdoor section at Home Depot. I put a very thick bead of high melt hot glue around the inside of the frame (where the glass normally goes) and pressed the hardware cloth into it. Once it was dry, I put a really thick bead of hot glue on top of it and smushed the wooden box on top (I put some scrap 2×4’s on the top of it to weigh it down while the glue dried). I also hot glued around the edges so that it would be really sturdy.
MONEY SAVING TIP: You might be able to skip the Hardware Cloth and only use the foam core described in Step 4. It will depend on how thick your plywood strips are compared to the inner lip of the frame – i.e. if there is any lip left to glue the foam core into.
After the glue was dry, I painted the frame and the box. Obviously, you can use whatever paint you want. I used Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint Flow Blue mixed with Kitchen Scale and “glazed” it with some left over stain I had from my herringbone wood wall project.
4. Cut a piece of foam core and wedge it behind the Hardware Cloth. I used black because it was what I had on hand. If you do need to go and purchase some, a dark color works well because it will blend into the shadows of the succulents once they are in place.
5. Start at one corner and push the realistic looking fake succulent stems through the foam core, varying sizes as you go. You’ll likely have to trim the stems so that they don’t stick out too far past the box, but it can be easily done with a pair of scissors or wire cutters. If the larger, heavier succulents try to fall forward, you can always use a dot of hot glue to hold them in place. However, I found that I could just wedge them into place with some smaller plants.
6. Continue adding succulents to the frame, keeping them as close together as possible and having the leaves overlap the edges where the mesh meets the frame.
7. Hang the frame on a wall or prop it on top of a table. Regardless of how you decide to display your new faux succulent hanging garden, keep mindful of the natural light it will receive. A real hanging garden will need plenty of natural light, so make sure your fake version receives good light to make it seem more realistic.
My garden hasn’t found a permanent home. It will likely go somewhere in the area we are working on now, but I don’t know exactly where. After I took the photos of the finished project, I took the frame off the wall and placed it on the middle of my dining room table – on top of the modern ruffled table runner. I was surprised to see how awesome it looked there! I’ll take pictures of it there soon so you guys can help me be the judge of if it should stay there or be moved elsewhere.
Have you been obsessing about hanging succulent gardens? Try your hand at my DIY fake version!
I just LOVE this. I have a knack for killing plants. But I love having them around. And I’ve loved these succulent gardens, but was always afraid it would die. You have made my day! 🙂 I’m going to do this this coming weekend! Thanks for the great DIY!
Yay! I’m so glad, Celeste. My mother in law was telling me about a friend of hers who has a beautiful hanging garden…and then she said, “But he’s a Master Gardener.” LOL Faux is the way to go if you are anything like me!
Turned out awesome! I’ve seen the real version but your faux one is a great idea for those of us who stink at taking care of plants and/or just are too lazy/don’t have the time to take care of live plants.
Thanks, Jessica! I look at it as saving lives. Succulent lives, but lives nonetheless.
OMG!Perfect for my pair of black thumbs! Even I can’t kill fake plants! I love this! Am not a great DIY’er but this looks doable even for me. No Hobby Lobby here will have to sub Michaels Crafts. Thanks for the info!
You can do it! I haven’t checked out the succulents at Michaels, but I bet they are probably good, too.
I’ve always wanted one of these too – looks amazing!
Kelly
Thanks, Kelly! 😀
I LOVE it! The live version is on my To Do list but this one seems Way easier to handle…How much did this project cost?
Well, the GIANT frame required about $100 worth of succulents (at 50% off). ACK! It’s awesome and I will love it forever, but it was hard to stomach. That’s why I recommended going smaller. 🙂
If you wanted to do one super cheap, succulents propagate VERY easily. Buying 10 real plants, and cutting them into 4 or 5 pieces each and allowing them to grow for about two months would be an excellent budget choice.
And I sell succulents in my antique booth, knowing I will only be there once a week to water…they thrive! Really are the easiest plant ever.
Yours looks really good! Very full! Love it!
Yes! I am certain that my fake ones cost more than real ones. But really, I can’t even keep succulents alive. I have bought many over the years and only have two that are barely hanging on. It’s sad, really. I’m hopeless.
Love this project! I’ve been looking for some artificial succulents for a different project and am having trouble finding what I need. Can you tell us where you found the “plants”?
Hi Cindy! I found my succulents at Hobby Lobby. Do you have one near you? They have the online, too, but I’m not sure if they do sales on the online items: http://shop.hobbylobby.com/search/?keyword=succulent&perpage=12&match=AND&F_Sort=2 They look so real and natural in person.
I love Hobby Lobby! The nearest one is about 4 hours away, but I always make time to browse when I’m headed somewhere that direction. Thanks for the information. I’ll look at their web site, too!
Go to Amazon I bought mine from them and very realistic and cheaper then HL!
Ben Franklin has them. I bought mine on sale from them.
Very cool Lindsay! I love the texture it adds ;-).
Thanks, Britt!
I sort of love the first pic with just a few succulents. It would be cute on chicken wire as a memo board!!
I love it like that, too! I almost stopped there. 🙂 It would be cute on a chalkboard, too.
Very innovative! I love the way your mind works.
I LOVE this!! I have been trying to find a unique piece of art for one of my walls… This might just be it!! Thanks so much.
Thanks, Suzi! It’s different for sure!
OMG I love it! This is such a great idea Lindsay! They look so real {giggles}… Thanks for sharing this project!
LOL – You are talking about my plants, right?. 😀 Ha! Hope you are feeling better!
Giggle…I don’t know…am I?
This is beautiful! My real succulents luckily have survived until now, but I’m considering making this anyway.
Thanks, Sabine! Maybe you should try it with real ones? Succulents really are supposed to be easy to keep. I just have special plant-killing talents.
I have a bunch of them in a flower box on my balcony and they are well, but I think the fake one’s woulde be less messy when hanging them. By the way, I linked this post on my blog, I will be online tomorrow.
http://nocreationwithoutchaos.wordpress.com/
Great idea! It turned out beautiful !
Thanks, Bethany! I appreciate it.
This is stunning! I love how you saw it and wanted to make one yourself immediately. Thanks for the detailed description!
You are welcome, Paula. Thanks for your sweet comment!
I have had my eye on this type of project for a while and you may have given me the push I need to start one! Hope you can stop by the enchanted oven to say hi.
xo,
Lisa
Yay! It’s an easy one, so get started! ;D
Oh wow!!! Amazingly beautiful!!! I would like to try this also. Thanks for sharing this great idea. Now my house will have a taste of a little garden stuff.
Thanks so much, Chelsea!
OMG. I am totally obsessed with succulent displays. You will have to try your hand at a real one sometime. They are totally easy to care for…We’re actually having a class at SNAP!
xoxo
I definitely need to take that class!
WOW!! Simply wow, nothing else will do!!
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A taste of gardening… ahhh so refreshing! This is really cool and I know you created this post a few years ago, but its super valuable and I wanted to let you know that I wanted to figure out how to make a hanging garden as a gift for my daughter’s new house. So thanks, this helped and I’ll be on the lookout for more of your content.
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