Make Giant Pots(Styrofoam, Gravel) for Bigger Plants, With Cement!

I find that some long grown plants in my terrace garden does not fit to the pot or they are grown and attained a big size now. And been a while, i searched for appropriate pots for my plants at nearby nursery. Those pots does not seem to fit my plants and i may end up spending more and more in due time.

So i decided, to make my own plants with easily available Portland cement.

In this instructable, i would be sharing the plant pots that's been made by me:

1. Styrofoam cement pots, with stand and side handle for wider and thin stem plants like mexican mint.

2. Big Size Gravel pot

And at the end of this tutorial, if the making in this instructable has impressed you - Do vote for me :)

Portland cement

White cement

To make the Styrofoam cement pots, we would need:

1. Grated Styrofoam chips

2. Cement

3. Water

4. Construction utensils - Trowel etc

5. Small gravel chips, to make the basement

6. Cooking oil

7. Plastic sheet

8. Thick PVC pipes cut into smaller pieces

9. Aluminium U-shaped clamp

10. Sand

11. White glue

12. Paint brush

13. Small wooden stick

I used a old grater, to just rub the Styrofoam and get the Styrofoam block into rough pieces. This will provide texture to our pot structure.

Do make sure to open the Styrofoam pieces in no wind area.

We are gonna do the work, in a PVC sheet. So i coated the sheet, with cooking oil and arranged some wooden stick at the sides so that they do not fly.

And the outline(overall size of the pot) was drawn using charcoal, as we have coated the sheet with oil.

We would need the base to bit strong(Styrofoam, is quite light weighted material), so for the basement i made a mixture of cement and small gravel chips in 2:1 ratio. The cement should be more a glue like finesse to the mixture so that the gravels does not separate in the construction.

To make the structure to be square shaped with edges straight, i used a wooden stick at the sides and spread the mixture on the PVC sheet. The wooden stick helped to make the sizing at the sides.

A Trowel was used to tap the basement mixture to get evenness.

Before the basement dry out, make sure to make some holes like structure to the basement. This will be the drain holes for the pots(I missed to take a picture for it).

At my side, i started with the structure made with Styrofoam+Cement(part) then flipped it(after drying) and worked on the stand part. You may also do, like drying the basement, flip it and work on the stand part then start with Styrofoam structure as well.

To make the stand, i used strong PVC pipes cut evenly into four pieces.

Process:

1. Once the basement is dried, flip the basement. I used PVC sheet, spread sand and placed the basement upside down.

2. I made some roughness to the basement with nails and iron rod. Gently tap to make the roughness, need not apply strong force which might break the basement. This roughness will help to bind the cement which we gonna apply on top of it.

3. Clean the basement with paint brush, to remove the fine particles made by making roughness.

4. Then i coated few wooden sticks, with cooking oil and inserted to the drain holes. This will help to retain the drain holes when we add additional basement.

5. Cement + water is used to stick the PVC pipes into the basement.

6. To the remaining cement mixture, i added some sand. This will be filled into the hollow area of the pipes, for additional strength.

Before i make the additional basement, i arranged bricks to the sides of the PVC sheet such that the sand we spread around the basement raise to the level of the basement.

I added some more wet sand to aid in raising the basement.

Then i spread the gravel + cement mixture for the additional basement and used a straight wooden stick to size the sides.

Once the basement is dried, i flipped it in original position and started making the body.

Now, to make the mixture i made a composition of cement + Styrofoam chips in 1:1 with water to make it thick consistency.

Here, I used a large old tub to make the mixture and kept a big size drum cover on top of it, as i did the whole work in my terrace.

1. We are gonna take small part of the mixture(something that you could hold inside your palm), press it inside your palm for tight holding of the mixture. Then place it inside the other hand, and gently make into elongated oval shape.

2. And start placing it on the edge of all the 4 sides, one by one. You can choose any size depending upon your design or choice.

3. You have to be very careful in stacking these shapes as there must not be any space left. Make sure that all the shapes placed adjacent to each other must stick or join each other.

4. This step is actually time-consuming because you have to make oval shapes each time to complete all the sides, in addition to that you have to stack the rows each time.

If you wait for the basement to dry and then start to work for the body part, then make a white glue+cement+water mix and apply over the basement where you gonna place the oval structures. This also hold, when you leave the work in half-way for a day and start over the next day. This mix will help to make the new construction stick well to the already dried ones.

After few stacks, using the same oval shapes make a partition of the square base.

I am doing this because I want two planters on the base so that I can grow two plants on the same planter.

The height of the second planter will be larger than that of the first one so that there must be a height difference in the planters and plants can be easily visible.

Repeat the rows of stacking one by one.

For the second divided planter, I increased the height to 4 steps so that there must be a good height difference between the first and the second planter.

Before adding the handle, i put the planter to dry to the size i have made. Else, the handle may not stay straight and might move to the below level.

For adding handle to the planter, i used a U-shaped aluminium. To the sides of the handle, i added the oval shaped piece of the mixture so that the sides of the handle are not explicitly seen. The handle that is mounted on the sides are added with bricks at the sides for support.

And the stack is continued on top of the handle until our designated size of the planter is reached. This handle could be placed at the bigger size of the two planters, so that it is appropriate to the whole planter.

If you wait for the basement to dry and then start to work for the body part, then make a white glue+cement+water mix and apply over the basement where you gonna place the oval structures. This also hold, when you leave the work in half-way for a day and start over the next day. This mix will help to make the new construction stick well to the already dried ones.

To the completed work(or if you left for the day, to continue another day) sprinkle/spray water all over the dried construction. This will add more strength and durability to the planter.

For the big size gravel pot, we would need the below supplies:

1. Big size tub, any old one would do

2. Wet sand

3. Gravel chips

4. Cement

5. Wooden sticks

6. Water

7. Gloves

For the work area, i have used a PVC sheet and placed an old tub upside down.

Then i spread wet sand around it and levelled the sand to the size i require for the pot.

To the gravel pot, we would use gravel + cement in a 1:2 ratio as we would need the gravel to stick properly with the cement so that there wont be any cracks in the completed ones.

The mixture should come as ball, when we hold in the palm. Else, if it is loose it will fall down from the applied surface.

When we do the basement we need to keep wooden sticks and spread the mixture around the stick. The holes made by sticks will be the drain holes for the planter. We can apply two layers so that the basement is strong enough, as the planter is gonna be wide.

The sticks should be retained until the work is completed and the planter is dried. We can lightly shake the stick, when the basement is half-dried so that the holes are put properly.

To make the body, we can take the mixture(using gloves) and spread over the surface by slightly tapping on it. By tapping the surface does not take the hand impressions, as it contains gravel.

After the full body of the pot is constructed, we would be applying thick paste of cement + water all around the body. This will provide additional strength and increase the durability of the pots, for good finishing as well. We can make design patterns on top of the cement paste as well.

Let the complete one, get dried for 3-4 days and do spray water all around the construction atleast twice a day.