Industrial Farmhouse Garden Decor

One of the most popular ways to incorporate the industrial farmhouse look is in your flower garden. I have been anxiously waiting for warmer weather to share this industrial farmhouse decor item from my recent Round Top flea market trip. I have kept this fun find tucked away with the ideas swirling in my head! The industrial farmhouse look is definitely still in and I am loving all of the creative ways to repurpose these items.

Flea Market Finds

Around these parts of the country, we usually don’t even think about planting flowers until Mother’s Day. One year, I brushed snow off my roses on April 30th! We’ve had some crazy weather including more snow and ice than we’ve seen in a very long time. We are truly ready for warm weather! Today, gave us that taste of spring that we needed and I headed to the nursery to buy flowers for my special project.

I’ve shared a few of my purchases from my Round Top flea market trip. You can read more about it at Round Top Round-up. This particular item is the one thing that sent us looking for a UHaul on our trip. It filled up the back of my SUV with just this one purchase. Technically, it wasn’t on my list, but it was on my mind. Does that count?

My husband and I came upon this booth filled with chicken nesting boxes of all sizes. We began to visit with the owner and became fast friends. We were both from the great state of Texas and even from the same part of Texas. We both love the industrial farmhouse tin. She had such great ideas on how to use these items and she had a great sense of humor too!

I have one of these nesting boxes in my dining room. They have recently become popular and have so many fun uses! Here you can see that I simply use it to add the farmhouse look in my dining room above the buffet. It does actually have some spools of seasonal ribbon hidden in the boxes, but that’s a secret…at least it was…

This year I decided I needed to purchase one of these beauties to create an adorable outside garden feature. Our fence is actually 8′ tall so it required me to purchase a very large nesting box. One of the tips I recently shared in the Spring Door Decor post was about scale. I think it is always better to use an item that is a little bigger in your decorating/staging.

I purchased a “10 holer” for my 8′ fence thinking it was going to look HUGE! Sadly, it filled up the back of my SUV the first day of the Round Top flea market(my reason for looking for a UHaul). But you won’t believe how it turned out on my giant fence. It looks like the perfect size. Anything smaller would not have made the impact that it does.

The suspense is probably killing you! I am so happy with how it turned out! As the flowers grow it will just keep looking better and better. So here is how we did the project.

How to Create a Nesting Box Garden

It all started with this authentic chicken nesting box. I love the wood pieces that are still in good condition.

Now this might surprise you, but I am not a chicken expert, so I clearly have no idea what their intended use is.

But, they can be used to set your potting soil on when creating this beauty. Or, you can use it to hang dish towels from if this is used in a kitchen. The list is endless. I am just getting started.

This 10 box unit cost me $135 plus tax. I thought it was a great deal compared to others I have seen lately. In some parts of the country, you can probably find these MUCH cheaper!

Next, we (my husband) measured the fence for the right height and length to hang the box. With my brute strength, I held it up while he screwed it into the fence. Sometimes I just don’t know what he would do without me! Haha! We made sure to anchor it into the fence in plenty of places. Let’s just say, if this thing comes down, our entire fence is coming down.

I was able to pick out some plants from local nurseries that I believe will do well in this spot. It gets mostly morning sun, but it needs to be able to tolerate the dry heat of my climate.

I decided on potato vine, lantana, and verbena. All of these should do really well as long as I remember to keep them watered.

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Next, I made sure to add some nutrient rich garden soil to the nesting boxes. By trial and error, I quickly discovered that I needed to add a good amount of soil to the box before adding the plant. There really is not much room to work around the plant once it is in the box.

After adding the potting soil, I removed the plant from its original container. If you prefer, you can leave the plants in their original containers and just set them in the boxes. My pots were too large to go in the boxes and I wanted to give my plants room to grow. I placed the plants in the boxes with the flowers pointing out of the boxes.

Next, it is important to carefully add additional soil to the nesting box. This will probably need to be done by hand so that you are careful to not break any branches on your plant. This is where those wood shelves came in handy! I placed a pot filled with garden soil on top of the wood shelf and carefully added the soil making sure to cover all of the roots of the plant.

I filled 5 of the 10 holes with a beautiful mix of flowers for spring and summer. As they grow, they will fill in the other spaces and spill over the nesting box. I also didn’t want it to become too heavy. I think it turned out amazing! It gives so much character to this corner of the yard. I can look out my dining room window and see these beautiful flowers every day.

It is definitely a conversation piece! It got the neighbors talking! Do you have any fun, creative things you like to use in your garden? I would love to hear your idea! Share them in the comments below.

Coming Soon….

I have some more fun decorating ideas for your porch coming soon! I’ve been collecting some creative things to pot my flowers in this year and I can’t wait to share them with you. Here is a quick sneak peak of one of those fun items! How cute is this vintage scale?! Can you tell I am just a little excited about spring, summer, and warmer weather? Happy planting!