I usually have no trouble maintaining my garden but this border has been a pain in the butt for years. With all the rain we have been having here in Australia my flower beds have been overrun with weeds and grass.  Every year this flower bed gets stripped of grass and weeds and every year it all comes back.  So this year I wanted to create a low maintenance flower bed using bicycle tyres and logs to make planters.

The second issue I have, is my new fur babies don’t like my garden to have succulents.  And have taken it upon themselves to dig them all up.  So to save my succulents I had to transfer them to the front of the house. They are cute but so naughty. The summers here in Australia can be very hot and my succulents that are around the front of the house tend to struggle with the all-day sun.  The idea was to have the bicycle tyre planter in the flower beds most of the year and during our peak hot months, I could lift the bicycle tyre planter up and move them to a more sheltered area.

How to make Low maintenance garden

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Prepare the flower bed

I am ashamed to say this is how my flower bed looked after all the rain stopped.

It was an easy task to pull all the weeds out because the ground was so soft from all the rain. Once all the weeds were out I used roundup weed killer and sprayed a generous amount over all the soil.  This will kill any grassroots left behind.

To stop the weeds from growing back if there were any I missed, I put a sheet of good quality weed mat over the soil.  You can buy the weed mat pegs that hold the mat down to prevent lifting over time.  I bought some large stones from our local garden centre to put on top of the weed mat.

How to Make a Bicycle Tyre Planter

Because I have so many succulents, I wanted a large round shallow planter, which proved hard to find.  So I decided to make my own planters from old bicycle tyres.  Car tires were too deep for what I had in mind. I had these bicycle tyres in my shed and thought they would work perfectly as planters.  I sprayed the tyres with brown spray paint before I started.

To open up the tyre I used broken clothes pegs and glued them to the inside of the tyre.  This just makes it easier to work with.  The soil will eventually hold the shape. The idea was to have a stand-alone planter just placed in among the stones.  But I also had to stop the soil from running out and causing more weeds to grow in the flower bed. To keep the soil in I started by adding a layer of chicken wire to the tyre.

You can drill holes in the bicycle tyre and attach the chicken wire using cable ties and scrap wire. I folded all the excess wire inside to prevent injury when lifted.

To prevent the soil from falling out of the tyre planter I used a piece of old yoga mat at the bottom.

Because the planter will be shallow, I added a lining from a hanging basket.  Succulents don’t need much water but soil this shallow will dry out quickly.

Next, add soil suitable for succulents and add your succulents to the planter.

I did not add too many because I wanted space for them to spread out.

To give my area a nicer look I added some wooden logs that have been hollowed out and filled with succulents.

These logs give the flowerbed a great and unique look.

For some added decoration, you can add some smaller pots with succulents.

You can also add some garden ornaments to the area. And that was my bicycle tyre planters completed.

One year on

Because I have so many projects on the go at the same time it does take me ages to catch up on the tutorials.  It has been almost a year since I added these planters so I have added some updated photos of how well they have grown.  I did have some casualties in the log planters but the majority of the succulents thrived. Please ignore the lopsided bush trimming. I had to stand on the back of my sons truck to reach.  And due to the heavy rains again this year I did not think my neighbour would be too happy if I drove on her lawn.lol

This log planter did not fare too well, I only had two plants that survived.

This was the only succulent that survived in the small pots all the others died.

More Planter ideas

One of my tree ferns died and I felt it was too much work to dig it up.  So I turned it into a succulent tree.

If you have some scrap wood lying around, you could try your hand at this simple planter.

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