If you like to cook with fresh herbs or fill your kitchen with flowers, here’s a charming wheelbarrow garden craft to serve the purpose perfectly. Made with a metal, wood or plastic wheelbarrow from a craft or hobby store, this wheelbarrow garden craft can be made as small or as large as you like. You can plant rosemary and purple sage for a beautiful fragrant herb garden, or plant seasonal bulbs for a wheelbarrow flower garden. Ideal for decorating a kitchen or bathroom counter, a rustic entryway, or a cottage living room table, the wheelbarrow garden craft is charming and easy to make. It all comes down to finding the perfect miniature wheelbarrow then decorating it to perfection.
What You’ll Need for the Wheelbarrow Garden Craft
* Miniature wheelbarrow
* Rust Oleum spray paint
* Rubber craft stamps
* Plastic bag (optional)
* Mulch
* Herbs
* Silk flowers and plants (optional)
Here Are the Steps for the Wheelbarrow Garden Craft
Step 1. Find the Perfect Miniature Wheelbarrow
Miniature wheelbarrows come in metal, wood or plastic, and all are beautiful and perfect for the wheelbarrow garden craft. It is just a matter of your preference and the wheelbarrow you manage to find. The size of the wheelbarrow is more important than the material it is made of. A larger miniature wheelbarrow garden will look beautiful in the corner of your entryway. A smaller miniature wheelbarrow will look charming on a kitchen counter or by a bathroom sink.
You will likely find very small, wood wheelbarrows at hobby stores. Larger, metal miniature wheelbarrows can be found in the garden centers of retail stores or online by querying “miniature wheelbarrow planter” (such as this one). Plastic miniature wheelbarrows can be found at toy stores. And craft stores are likely to have miniature wheelbarrows as well.
You can spray paint the wheelbarrow garden craft to any color you like, so don’t worry about the outward appearance of your wheelbarrow at this point.
Step 2. Paint Your Miniature Wheelbarrow
Much of the beauty of the wheelbarrow garden craft comes from the external appearance of the wheelbarrow. If you don’t like the original color, use Rust Oleum spray paint to alter it. You can give wood a metallic finish, or create a vintage wheelbarrow garden using the Rust Oleum’s crackled paint kit.
Go to a home improvement store and look at all the Rust Oleum colors and finishes until you find the perfect one for your wheelbarrow garden. And use rubber stamps of flowers or leaves to decorate your wheelbarrow further.
Step 3. Make Holes at the Bottom of the Wheelbarrow
To allow for proper water drainage, drill a circle of holes through the bottom of the wheelbarrow. In future, remember when you water your wheelbarrow garden to place a sponge or a small plate under it to collect water drops.
Step 4. Line Your Wheelbarrow Garden Craft
If your miniature wheelbarrow is made of plastic, you do not have to line it for protection against moisture; but for wood or metal wheelbarrows cut a plastic bag to fit the inside of the wheelbarrow and line it to the top.
Step 5. Plant Your Wheelbarrow Garden Craft
Fill your lined wheelbarrow with potting soil and plant your bulbs, flowers or herbs. Create a dense appearance of foliage as the rich potting soil will easily sustain all the plants. If you’re planting a herb wheelbarrow garden choose hardy herbs like rosemary and sage. If you are planting bulbs or flowers, consider interspersing herbs among them to give your wheelbarrow garden a tantalizing scent. Cover the top with mulch to conceal the wheelbarrow plastic liner and keep the soil moist.
Step 6. Enrich Your Wheelbarrow Garden Craft
Add charm to your wheelbarrow garden craft by twirling silk ivy around the handles. Ivy can drape from the wheelbarrow or twine around the front wheel. You can also add silk flowers here and there to keep your wheelbarrow garden blooming at all times, even while your plants are growing new flowers.
Step 7. Sustain Your Wheelbarrow Garden
After three months the potting soil in your wheelbarrow garden will lose it’s vital minerals. Buy plant food appropriate for your specific plants and replenish the soil. You can also buy potting sticks that you slip into the soil. The sticks will release minerals with time as you water your wheelbarrow garden. The wheelbarrow garden craft is so simple to make kids enjoy creating their own wheelbarrow garden for their rooms. Be sure to keep your wheelbarrow garden near a window (or preferably on a window sill) to give the plants plenty of daylight exposure.
