If you’ve got the space in your yard, structures like arbors, trellises, pergolas, pillars, benches and planters are perfect for focusing attention on certain parts of your garden and highlighting particular plants. Such features enhance the home landscape, adding visual interest to your garden and providing a fabulous backdrop for your flowers.
Make your roses (or other prized container plants) a featured part of your landscape by providing them with a beautiful focal point. A garden bench planter draws attention to the plants and their flowers by bringing them close to the admirer.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/Robert Dolezal
This illustration helps detail the bench construction project.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/Hildebrand Design
When it comes to adding garden structures, your options are nearly endless: You can build your own gazebo or pergola yourself or purchase a kit (although some may require complex construction skills or expert help). Trellises or stand-alone planters are typically easy to build and incorporate into a landscape. Arbors – those beautiful garden gateway arches – are ideal for climbing plants (like roses) and are easily constructed from wood or purchased prebuilt as simple-to-assemble metal or wood kits. Pillars are simply decorative posts, providing support for mounding and pillar roses. And then there’s those beautiful garden planter benches that provide inviting spots to rest and enjoy your garden. Combining some of these features together make for striking gardens that offer more to enjoy than just plants.
So let’s try that planter bench on for size: Every gardener deserves a quiet, restful place to sit and contemplate the beauty of all those blossoms. This garden bench with built-in planters is ideal for compact mounding rose varieties or miniature trees, and it’s a perfect starter project. Simple construction skills and common carpentry tools are all that are needed. A weekend should be enough time to tackle this project – including gathering materials, cutting wood and assembly. Just take the step-by-step instructions shown in the following pictures and described in their captions, and you’ll be on your way to accessorizing your garden in a beautiful – and useful – way!
Materials
| Quantity
| Item
|
| 7 |
2 x 4 x 57 3⁄8-inch lumber (for inner rails) |
| 2 |
2 x 4 x 93 5⁄8-inch lumber (for outer rails) |
| 16 |
1 x 4 x 6-inchlumber (spacers*) |
| 2 |
2 x 4 x 16 1⁄8-inch lumber (ends) |
| 6 |
1 x 6 x 16 1⁄2-inch lumber (baseboards*) |
| 4 |
2 x 4 x 15 1⁄2-inch lumber (sleepers) |
| 24 |
1 x 6 x 15 1⁄2-inch lumber (sideboards*) |
| 8 |
2 x 2 x 17 3⁄4-inch lumber (corner braces) |
| 8 |
2 x 2 x 11 3⁄4-inch lumber (bottom braces) |
| 16 |
1 x 3 x 15 3⁄4-inch lumber (ledger trims*) |
| 8 |
1 x 3 x 11 1⁄2-inch lumber (base trims*) |
| 8 |
1 x 3 x 16 1⁄2-inch lumber (45° frame trims*) |
| 2 |
1 x 4 x 96-inch lumber (long fascia) |
| 2 |
1 x 4 x 19 1⁄2-inch lumber (short fascia) |
| 2 |
1⁄2-inch threaded rod with nuts and washers |
| 100 |
No. 8 x 11⁄2-in. galvanized flathead screws |
| 100 |
5d galvanized finishing nails |
| 32 |
1⁄8 x 4-inch galvanized deck screws |
*Assumes all 1-inch lumber is planed 11⁄16-inch thick. Adjust measurements if you use 3⁄4-inch lumber.
