SIZE: The Sweet Stump Box is 27" x 27" in plan. Inside, the box is 22” wide and 10” high. It overlaps a tree trunk by about 3 inches. Our prototype trunk was 20” wide in its maximum dimension. Your tree trunk will vary.
FEATURES: The Sweet Stump Box:
Makes an ugly tree stump a thing of beauty.
Has a bottom and a plastic liner with weep holes like any good outside planter should.
Is designed to be fabricated in a shop & assembled quickly in the yard.
Is composed of fabricated parts of manageable sizes and weights.
Uses material that is frugal, available in local Home Centers, and is combined in simple ways.
Has a custom Installation Collar for fixing poor chainsaw jobs.
Includes a color selection and application process for gardener customization.
BACKSTORY: The Sweet Stump Box is number two in a family of planters designed to solve unique garden problems and yield high quality outdoor containers. Like everything else in our Etsy shop, it does this beautifully. Neighborhoods that have robust tree canopy also have a sea of ugly stumps. Within several blocks of me, I can count ten stumps that display various gardener-attempts to make them pretty, with unfortunate results. The Sweet Stump Box planter is designed to turn such lemons into lemonade. Houston: we have the answer!
This Making Guide will show you how to make a planter that uses economic material in sophisticated ways. The list of supplies in this Guide includes small quantities of 1x6, 2x4, 1x4, and 2x2 pressure treated boards. And not much else, except labor. Our Sweet Boxes are made of parts that can be made in a shop, stained inside or outside, be transported in manageable chunks, and then be assembled quickly in the yard. Making Guides include drawings for building side panels separately, as well as for visualizing the completed product. In the Sweet Tree Box (another Etsy Shop listing), the bottom panel is omitted so ornamental trees can send roots into virgin soil.
Unique to the Sweet Box product line is its attention to colored stain selection and application. Even though high-end Garden Centers tend to show weathered grey wood (roached and rotting mostly), pro property managers use fiberglass or concrete planter products. These of course cost a bundle. Our Sweet Box line blinks at this trend and makes the vessel as beautiful as the tree it holds, while remaining within the toolset of DIY gardeners. We have chosen a “sea foam green” and “coffee” wash on beta boxes to blend both plant and soil hues. But many gardeners will jump at the chance to put some popping colors on their containers. This Making Guide gives them a process to mock-up creative combinations without having to redo any of their hard work.
The downloaded Making Guide is for a 20 page color booklet with the following contents:
Tools For Building It
Materials List
Safety and Codes
Assembly Process (with photos)
Design Credits
Construction Drawings (2 scaled 11x17 foldouts)
