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Index : Container Plants & Patio Gardening
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- 2. Take Gardening to New Heights with Pot Pedestals - Top
- Take your plants to new heights with pot pedestals! Elevating pots is a great way to display your prized plants and add interest and appeal to your patio garden by varying potted plant heights. Pedestals provide the perfect perch for cascading plants with long, pendulous stems, like ivy geranium (ivy geranium), asparagus fern (asparagus fern), and burro’s tail (burro’s tail). They’re a great alternative to hanging baskets and plant shelves!
Lots of manufactured plant stand pedestals are available at local garden centers and nurseries. They come in a variety of styles, made from materials including; wrought iron, clay, concrete and wood. Iron stands are sturdy and durable. Tiered iron stands allow pots to be placed one over another. Drainage water from the top pot filters down to water those underneath. Terra cotta pedestals blend well with most pots, but can break. Concrete is stable and durable but heavy. And wood stands are attractive but subject to rotting.
Many items can also be used as plant pedestals. Among them are clay drainage tiles and chimney flue liners set on end. Metal culvert drainage pipes come in a variety of diameters and can be cut to the desired length as can tubular concrete forms made of compressed paper.
It may be necessary to provide stability for clay tiles, chimney flues, culverts and tubing forms set on end. Columns can be partially filled with weighty stones. Or, a small amount of concrete can be poured into the bottom of these pedestals to anchor them. Bags of pre-mixed concrete such as Sackrete or Quikrete are easy to use and available at the home supply stores. Small batches of concrete can be prepare in a wheelbarrow. Just add water to the bag mix and stir with a garden hoe or shovel. As you slowly add and blend in the water, try to form ridges as you mix. If distinct ridges can’t be formed, add more water. If ridges form but sink back down, the mix is too watery.
Be sure to place a sheet of plastic under the pedestal before pouring in the concrete. The plastic will prevent the concrete from sticking to the surface your working on. Also, place a drainage pipe through the concrete layer to carry drainage water out the bottom of the pedestal. The drainage pipe can be a piece of one inch hard (poly vinyl chloride) irrigation piping. Cut it just long enough to fit up through the concrete. This pipe can also be used to run irrigation tubing through to the pot.
Pots on pedestals can be watered automatically using a simple automatic irrigation system. You can purchase container garden irrigation kits at most garden centers and hardware stores or you can make you own. All you need is a battery-operated irrigation controller, a pressure reducer, some half-inch and one-quarter inch poly tubing, compression couplers, barb connectors and some one-quarter inch soaker tubing.
The battery-operated controller screws directly onto an outdoor hose bib. A pressure reducer is then connected to the controller. One-half inch poly tubing is connected to the pressure reducer and run to the patio or other area(s) where your pedestals and containers are located. Barb connectors are inserted into the one-half inch main line to attach one-quarter inch poly tubing to run up the inside of the pedestal pots through the drainage hole. At the top of the pot, another barb connecter is used to attach a ring of soaker tubing. Laser-drilled holes in the soaker tubing deliver water to the plants.
When completed, your irrigation controller can be programmed to deliver water to your pedestal plants on a schedule of your choosing.
Written by John Begeman, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the University of Arizona,
520-626-5161.
- Updated: December 24, 2006
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