How to Turn Your Old Grill Into a Planter

After twenty-two years or so, our Globe Café Grill finally stopped working. My husband didn’t really want to set it out on the curb for trash pickup, so he asked me what we could do with it. Of course, since I turn everything into a planter, that was my response…”Let’s turn it into a planter for the backyard.”…so that’s what we did.

Step 1:

We decided where we wanted to place the gril in the backyard, and then we looked at it from all angles to decide what we wanted to see when it was done. Here is a front view and a side view of the grill before we did anything.

Step 2:

Once we figured out what we wanted, we made of a list of the plants and supplies that we would need, and off we went shopping. Some of the plants and supplies we found at our local lumberyards and other plants and supplies we found at our local greenhouse. (Since the place we chose is in full sunlight most of the day, we made sure that we selected plants for full sun.)

Our Shopping List:

1 Piece Window Screen (this will keep everything from falling through the hole where the heating element was)
1 Coconut Shell (This will help keep the soil in the grill globe)
Pea Pebbles (provides drainage to help prevent root rot)
Moisture Control Potting Soil (usage self-explanatory)
1 Metal Rod (to hang the wind chimes in the lid)
2 Small Wind Chimes (every garden, no matter how small, needs the tinkling sound of wind chimes)
3 Pots of some kind
2 Self-Watering Plastic Pots (we didn’t want to put a lot of weight on the swinging doors, so we decided to use lightweight, self-watering pots. Self-watering pots have a water reservoir below the actual pot, which makes the use of pea pebbles unnecessary.)
2 Spike Plants (These will be planted in the back of the grill globe so we wanted something tall)
4 Different Sweet Potato Ivy Plants (These will be planted on the sides of the grill globe because they’ll grow over the sides and down to the ground)
2 Different Coleus Plants (These will be in the center of the grill globe because they bush out and will provide color)

Step 3:

Back from the store and ready to plant:

First, we put the piece of window screen in the grill globe.
Next, we put in the coconut shell.

Step 4:

The pea pebbles went in next and then the potting soil.

Step 5:

As the potting soil was added the lumps were worked out.

Step 6:

Once the soil was ready for planting, we placed the plants where we wanted them and then stood back and looked at the grill from all angles to make sure it was the effect we wanted.

Step 7:

We made impressions in the soil so we’d know approximately where to place each plant.

Step 8:

We started with the two spike plants first, since they were in the back row.

Step 9:

Next, we planted the four sweet potato ivy plants along the sides of the grill globe.

Step 10:

Last, we planted the two coleus plants in front of the spike plants and in between the potato ivy plants.

Step 11:

After all the plants were planted in the grill globe, we added soil around all of the plants and firmly patted it down to give the plants support and stability.

Step 12:

After we planted all of the plants in the grill globe, it was time to plant the pots. When we were out shopping, we did not find any pots we liked for the grill top. We decided to look around the house to see if we had anything we thought would look good. We found a couple of pottery pieces and a watering can. We put them out on the grill and again, looked from all angles to see if we liked the effect.

Step 13:

Next we planted marigolds in the self-watering pots. These were placed on the swinging doors of the grill. We chose marigolds because we wanted bright colors. Also, marigolds will bloom all summer. Again, we stepped back and looked at the grill from all angles to make sure we liked what we had done so far.

Step 14:

At this point, I lost my planting partner, so I wasn’t able to do step-by-step photographs of the rest of the creation process. I started planting the pots that go on top of the grill pots. First, I planted the round bowl. Since this bowl doesn’t have drainage holes, I made sure that I put down a good layer of pea pebbles for drainage before I added potting soil and the plants.

Step 15:

Second, I planted the other ceramic pot. It doesn’t have drainage holes either, so I put a good layer of pea pebbles in the bottom before I added the soil and planted the plants. You may notice as you look at the next series of pictures that the watering can has been replaced by a third ceramic pot. The watering can was given to my husband by one of his mowing clients when he was a teenager. Neither of us could bring ourselves to use it for a purpose that would make it rust so we went shopping again and found a ceramic pot that complemented the other two ceramic pots. At this point, my planting partner returned. We drilled two small holes in the dome lid, and inserted a small rod with the two wind chimes hanging from it. We walked around the grill and decided something was missing, so we went to our garden shed to see what we could find. We found my Nerdy Birds and my gnome water gauge. These made excellent additions to the grill top. Still, something was missing. The front of the grill between the two door shelves was very bare, as was the bottom shelf of the grill. We went back to the greenhouse and found a hanging planter large enough to fill the space between the door shelves. We drilled a hole in the center of the grill handle and then bolted the hanging planter to it. We put a washer next to the plastic on the front and back to add strength to the plastic hanger. Then we went back to the garden shed and found four cement garden friends to add to the bottom shelf area.

Step 16:

As I was taking the final pictures of the grill, I realized I wasn’t satisfied with the wind chimes in the dome. The chimes just didn’t fill up the space, plus, their sound wasn’t quite what we wanted. So, we went shopping one more time. We found a larger wind chime that we put in the center of the two smaller wind chimes. Now, it was complete and we were very happy with our creation.