Last year I blogged about finding a set of half-circle shutters at a vintage sale. I wanted to emulate my friend Baylor Chapman’s succulent-planted shutters that grace her outdoor terrace in San Francisco. Since then, a few folks have emailed to ask if I EVER finished that project? Much to my embarrassment, those dusty shutters sat in the garage, untouched for nearly a year!
But finally, now that we’ve settled into a permanent residence, I’ve been able to work on this project. The shutters have been cleaned and given three coats of exterior paint. To turn them into vertical succulent planters I mounted both pieces with wood screws outside my office windows and then stuffed the openings betweeen each slat with sedums and sempervivums. Let’s see how they look:
Step one: Paint the shutters. I used semigloss acrylic berry-red, the paint used for my home's exterior trim
Step Two: Staple landscaping cloth to the back of both shutters.
Step Three: Mount shutter and fill the "slots" with potting soil.
Step Four: Plant with hardy sedums and other succulents.