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Faux Wicker Garden Decorations with Foam Noodles!
© Stephie McCarthy
— watch the video here — coming soon!
— click to watch the video tutorial — coming soon!
Basket Raised-Bed
If you love a cottage garden, our faux-wicker garden decorations will match your style.
Baskets, wattle fences, and wicker won't last outdoors very long, but this faux wicker will.
These garden decorations look like real wicker.
But are made from durable foam!
— raised-bed basket made of foam noodles! —
Our raised-bed basket is lightweight, not expensive, weather resistant and took just one hour to make. Plus, we weave in a bit of real twig vines for great effects.
This foam product, called 'backer rod,' is a lot like pool noodles but skinny and sold by the foot. It's used for filling cracks in constructions projects. It comes in many different diameters.
We're using 1/2" and 5/8" backer rod for our basket and arch projects, purchased on Amazon.
We wove the backer rod into metal fencing so our decorations would have strength outdoors.
Shown above is the area where we wanted an oval wicker raised bed. We cut a length of short metal fencing and pressed it into the ground in an oval shape.
We used very inexpensive short wire fence from HomeDepot. You'll need wire cutters to cut it. It's super-squirrely, typical of outdoor wire fencing, you've got to show it who's boss. Once it's anchored into the ground, it will tend to stay in place.
Mixing various diameters of backer rod and just a bit of natural twig-vine salvaged from the local landscape, made our basket look natural. But, if you use one diameter of backer rod and no vine, it will look lovely too!
We cut the backer rod into 5-6 foot lengths so they would be easy to weave. We wove in-and-out of the wire fence in an informal way.
We tucked the ends of the foam in as we wove, but you could also attach the ends with small cable ties.
(The arch decoration is in the background. Read about that here.)
Backer rod is easy to cut with scissors.
In no time at all, the basket took shape. It's amazingly lightweight, but some how durable. There was a massive storm after we finished the weaving, but the basket didn't move a bit.
You can see how barren our soil is in our mountains. The raised beds and mulch are important for any gardening success at all. We'll add good soil when it's time to plant this basket with herbs and flowers, and top it with mulch. Check out our Paper Bag Garden Trick for holding soil in place.
The backer rod looks okay in natural grays, but we tested how it would look with spray paint. This color was Rust-Oleum 'Nutmeg'. Perfect for the wicker look.
Finished basket packed with container plants.
As a final touch, we painted part of a a hula-hoop and added a few curly branches to create a handle effect which will also support taller plants.
See how we made the Wicker Arch Here
— watch the video here — coming soon!
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