Book planter

Trawling through the internet, which I do quite regularly, I stumbled across a website that showed the work of an Italian site called Gartenkultur. As I don’t speak Italian I was unable to understand anything that was on the page! I was, however, able to figure out the pictures. It showed old books being used to house plants. Quite an interesting idea.

Now, this did inspire me to create my own version of this. I didn’t just want to copy what I saw, I wanted to add my own unique twist to it. This meant that I had to insert some humour into the design such as putting a Trumpet Pitcher plant into a copy of Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham or a Cactus into a book on the Mojave desert. The first of my attempts, though, was to grow a peace lilly in an old copy of that Leo Tolstoy classic, War and Peace. It’s that level of humour that you will come to know and love!

To start, I had to create a rectangular trough. Cutting through most of the pages of a book, especially one as long as War and Peace, can be a most boring pursuit. I suggest putting some music on or getting a loved one to serenade you with a medley of songs, anything to alleviate the boredom of cutting about 1300 pages! Patience is a virtue and it will be rewarded eventually.
The tools I used were a sharp Stanley knife, a steel ruler and a cutting mat.

Once the trough had been cut, the next step is to seal it. There are a couple of ways to do this. You could either source a plastic dish that is roughly the same dimensions or you could seal the pages with PVA glue. This is by far the easier option and doesn’t necessitate trawling the shops to find a suitable pot.
A couple of coats is sufficient to create a waterproof barrier. Leave it to dry for as long as possible before attempting to stick soil in it!

The final stage in the planter design is to create a hole in the book cover. I settled on a simple circle as I didn’t want to lose the majority of the cover in trying to match the trough I’d created inside the book.
And that’s it, finished. Once you have transplanted whatever it is that’s going into the book you could cover the top with small pea gravel just to add an extra visual dimension.