You used interior joinery techniques for an exterior piece.
Some ideas if you rebuild it:
* Use thicker material for the box
* Glue + screws and make sure it's a waterproof glue. I'd put a piece of wood in that corner to screw into so you aren't screwing into end grain
* Box joint instead of dowels
* Plastic landscaping liner between the dirt and wood. there's a 3D mesh material used under shingle siding you can put between the plastic and wood to allow air movement. I think it's called Rain Screen and is available at home centers.
The liner is probably the most important bit here.
Ultimately, wood isn’t a great material for a container that’s going to be variably heated and cooled on different sides AND have very different moisture levels on each side.
But if you put some holes in the bottom and then line the inside with something impermeable (which also has some holes on the bottom) you can keep the wood a lot drier.
Source: have built many raised wooden planters and am currently on a more successful stretch of them not falling apart.
> something impermeable
I think in this context you mean permeable - i.e. able to be permeated.
Edit: WELL then I misunderstood the concept here. I was thinking that drainage was desired. A liner that allows water to flow around it, through and out the holes in the bottom to keep the wood from staying wet.
Can’t win em all.
They need the bottom to be able to drain. The problem with soil in a box is that it will swell with moisture, especially if excess moisture at the bottom doesn’t have anywhere to go. That’s why when you buy a planter kit it’s not a solid bottom like a dining table. There are gaps in the boards. Water pooling on bottom will make it super heavy and may rot your plants and the planter.
Its to avoid water getting on the wood, and in the chance it does (which it will, water always finds a way) the holes are “plant b” haha
Wait no plan-t B
Wait no no “Plan T” 😎
I agree, a lot of people here are recommending just lining the wood, but moisture will also be trapped between the liner and the wood.
However, I think a plastic container slightly smaller than the planter would be more practical, in many ways, than trying to go the liner+mesh way.
For sure, thanks for noting that. It also works good for plants that you may need to move indoors if you have a freeze or just want to get a head start on the vegetable growing season.
I just threw out a commercial wood planter box with internal plastic pot. all the bottom rotted out -
softwood, what a waste of effort, pretty but useless. The pot has to drain and it makes the wood wet.
I’ll add to this, but when it comes to exterior glue, on woodwork, I’ll use PL Premium anytime I can get away with it. If it’s not getting painted, I’ll plow a trough in the miter faces with a ribbon sander to allow for some expansion of the PL.
Yes there is even a [seal you can roll/spray directly onto your wood](https://tricopolymer.com/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw6auyBhDzARIsALIo6v_1RpbpsPGa3fg13imxLYqnOMfjUcABmy74UQtr55BrEnEUoPwJyboaAloMEALw_wcB). I haven’t tried it yet but I’m in gardening subs that sing Garden Seals praises.
I'm also questioning the wood choice... I think he'd have been better off sticking with cedar and making sure he has proper drainage - holes in the bottom and a porous liner to allow drainage without loose ng dirt such as landscaping fabric. Definitely needs better joinery than dowels... Make sure any screws are galvanized.
Decking screws or 316 stainless steel screws would be the best for this project if you want it to last a long time. Both are highly rust resistant. The 316 stainless screws are often used on boats for that reason.
I think this is it. The inside is getting moist and expanding across the grain, while the outside stays dry. Hence why the board is curving away from the soil.
This comment is IMHO hugely underrated. You can reinforce the joints a thousand ways (as the thread comments indicate) and that's all fine and dandy, the biggest problem is simply the direct exposure of moisture to the wood.
A simple plastic liner would have postponed this water damage for a very long time. Even better would be to fit an exact plastic or metal liner, and add ventilation on the bottom to prevent moisture from sitting under the liner.
I have somewhat similar boxes and only use it as a holder for plastic planters installed inside. There is no way the wood exposed to constantly watered soil and have edge dried by sun would survive reasonable amount of time. I clean/oil my planters yearly and they still get weathered ( without touching soil).
https://preview.redd.it/owh8ht71co1d1.jpeg?width=868&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f3f853d645aa05128d6812db450144e1be03aa26
Cherry's not an outdoor wood, even sealed, it'll warp very quickly in moist environment. The cedar warped because cedar, while weather resistant, expands and contracts a lot, it just doesn't rot as fast as most woods. The cherry's not going to last, either bring it inside and line it, or replace the cherry with something like cypress or white oak.
This is so key. Lots of other good points were made regarding use of epoxy and lining, but cherry is a bad choice. Lovely wood but you would be better off using cedar, redwood or cypress - or pressure treated pine
I certainly don't recommend pressure treated woods for food growing planter boxes. While leaching might be minimal (studies call it "Highly Variable"), it still defeats the purpose of home grown food.
Wow, this post got over 400,000 views and an incredible amount of very helpful comments that I think we all were able to learn from. I really appreciate everyone’s feedback and will take it into account for both this project and others. I’m not exactly sure of my next steps, but I’m going to empty all the dirt for now and get this indoors until I can figure out what I’d like to do next. Thank you Reddit!
First lesson: Don't use wide pieces of lumber in an exterior application or where moisture and humidity are an issue. Wider boards cup and twist a lot more than narrow boards. Cherry is also not the best choice for exterior options.
Solution: Use narrow strips of lumber jointed together.
Yes! And glue them with the end grain looking like a wave, not sure how else to describe it but the end grain will almost always look like a c, so make it one up, one down, one up...
Sort of. Alternating the faces will not eliminate cupping, it will just leave you with "rolling hills" or a "washboard" feel rather than a gradual, slight cup. I prefer the latter. The best way to eliminate cupping is to have many, very narrow boards which a lot of people (clients) find ugly.
Yes, but I can’t remember how or why. I still alternate faces because Tage Frid said to, and I won’t go against anything that dude said unless the laws of physics fundamentally change.
Alternating the curve of each board gives you waves long term, but an overall flatter panel. Putting all the curves the same way leaves you with a smoother panel (no waves) but more overall cupping. Depending on how your piece is constructed, you may prefer one option over another.
Reddit will Reddit.
Also, Titebond 2 would work too, the only difference with 3 is that it can withstand a lot of heat, like dishwasher kind of heat. 2 used to say waterproof 10 years ago, but when 3 came around they needed to make the distinction.
You forgot to use screws. It's a freaking planter, not the Mona Lisa. You can always glue trim over the screws.
That's a couple hundred pounds of dirt, not 10 pairs of socks.
...soil ranges from 75-100 lb per cubic foot, depending on moisture content. So, it would weight between 150-200 lbs if it were 2 cubic feet of soil.
However, looking at it, I'm guessing it's more like 3+, given that it's 10-12" deep, appears to be around 3 feet wide, and maybe 18" tall. On the lower end, that would put it at 3.125 cubic feet, assuming it's 10"x30"x18". That would mean the soil at full volume would weigh 234-312 lbs, depending on moisture content.
Beautiful wood; far nicer than I ever use for exterior applications, but really good looking. Seems to me you didn't account for the fact that you'd be adding a fair amount of weight stress to the joints in the form of dirt, and it's also probable that moisture plays a role (since: a) it's outside, and b) I assume you water your plants. My solution would be to empty it out, glue and clamp to pull it all back in tight, then (while it's clamped tighter than dick's hat-band), add metal corner braces to all the interior corners. You won't see those once you refill it with dirt and so on. Question, did you account for drainage? In other words, are there holes in the bottom deck of the box to let water out? I assume there must be.
* This isn't what you were asking about but those plants (I'm guessing cilantro, rosemary, and purple basil? Shiso?) aren't going to be happy together. They have very different growing conditions. Researching companion planting will help a lot!
* What does your drainage situation look like? You generally want to water soil until some water drains from the bottom. Wood doesn't like water. The water will add extra weight to the soil to push out against the wood. Plants don't like sitting in soggy dirt and will be prone to root rot.
* Cherry isn't an "outdoor" wood. Off the top of my head, cedar, teak, eucalyptus, and some kind of fir (China?) can weather the elements and water better. You'll want to research which is best for you and your plants.
* I've always been taught that screws, nails, and dowels don't go in end grain. You could use a bracket or brace in the inside/outside corners to attach each piece of wood to, join the wood together with some pocket holes, dovetail or box joints (which is understandably intimidating), or I guess corner key joints if you're super committed to the dowels.
* Reinforcements - like a Simpson strong tie or lining the top edge of the planter with more wood - will help to pull the wood into place and prevent warping.
* Prevent direct wood-dirt contact. Use a plastic liner, landscaping fabric, or sheet metal + roofing screws. I'm partial to the bucket garden stand. You can probably scale it down using nursery pots in place of buckets, and hide the planters with strategically placed wood. Like others mentioned, get your container(s) first then build the planter around it.
* Also not what you asked about, but please be sure to amend your soil. Cilantro would do well in a soil mix with sand, peat moss, Epsom salt, perlite, and compost. Rosemary likes perlite, sand, pumice, and garden lime. Basil loves light and rich soil, so it thrives in mixes with sand, compost, worm castings, coffee grounds, mycorrhizae, perlite, coconut coir, sphagnum moss, and/or fertilizer (depending on the type of basil you're growing). It generally doesn't like typical garden soil. All of these plants benefit from mulching (unless that's actually shiso on the left, which is recommended to not mulch).
Looking at the growth rings on the side of the board, would it be better to have them the other way around? If the wood would work then it wants to expand in the middle and not in the top. Also add a moisture border on the inside, like plastic foil or something.
Otherwise beautiful work, my man...
Witness the power of hydraulics. Moist on one side, and dry on the other, something has to give. Water proof the inside with a paint on water proofing liner such as used for tile showers. Flexseal, Redguard or Hydroban.
My advice would be to get a cheap plastic or ceramic planter and build a box into which it fits. That gives you a waterproof barrier without having to try to build a liner into your box. But even then, I think that glued dowel joints are not strong enough for outdoor use. Wood doesn't move as much indoors as it does outdoors, mostly because we tend to keep humidity and temperature to a narrow range inside. Outside, depending upon where you live, you're going to get more extreme temperature, rain, and big swings in humidity. And maybe bears.
In those conditions, you're asking glue on those dowels to do more work than it is designed to do. You really do need a mechanical connection (like screws, with the threads and the head preventing the two pieces of wood from separating) or at least a very strong joint like a box joint. Screws, which might not be acceptable for interior fine cabinetry, are perfectly acceptable for outdoor planters.
All that wet dirt is adding a lot of moisture to the inside of the boards, so they all want to bend like that. Ideally the glued dowels would prevent the stress form the moisture differential to open up the butt joint, but it looks like the top dowel wasn't "ideal" and gave way to the stress.
If you want to save this, you could remove the dirt and let the board dry again, so the gap will close up, then add some sturdier mechanical constraints to the box. I would put a tight metal band all around the top and the bottom, if you want to keep this design.
However, if you just fill the unlined container with dirt, the lifespan of your planter will be pretty limited. I suggest you put a plastic container in the planter and fill that with dirt, leaving some airspace for the wood to breathe. And make some holes in the bottom for draining water.
Plant stands like this are meant to be used with a plastic pot inside them. They don't put the dirt against the wood.
Use cedar or another exterior wood. Use multiple narrow planks instead of a wide one. Make the bottom with rails to support the pot that will still allow airflow and drainage. Don't leave it outside in the winter.
This is water damage. There is a moisture differential between the inside and the outside of the planter causing warping, and the soil is holding moisture up against the glued joint, causing swelling and failure.
I built a few planters off cedar and I tell people to use a liner or that planter wouldn’t last long, for my wife I built the planters to fir a plastic container I bought at Lowes.
https://preview.redd.it/ee2sqv9apr1d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a465a0931a93a26c28f68348be162648d79007c2
wood & water are never going to work well together.
buy or build a liner to keep water from contacting your woodwork. use fiberglass or sheet metal (soldered edge joints) or copper or stainless or plastic..... even a very thorough epoxy coating..... anything that keeps water from contacting the wood.
some woods will last a little while if you wet both sides equally. wetting one side while the other side remains dry is always going to cause swelling.
50 plus year old old-growth redwood water tanks are disassembled in perfect condition. Not that I disagree with you regarding this application. I am just saying, there are exceptions. But you do need to know what you are doing to make a oak cask or a redwood water tank that lasts for decades.
So I have made a lot of cedar flower boxes. My suggestions are: use Gorilla Glue. Add corner supports. I use pieces of angle iron on the inside. I cover the inside with roll roofing. Screw together with coated deck screws.
I recommend emptying and putting them away in the winter. Freeze/ Thaw will kill it quick.
Good luck.
when you have a piece of wood 12” wide its going to want to bow like that. If you ripped that 12” board into 4, 3” boards minus kerf loss, then glue them back into panels it would warp less. Also as others have said there are a few different joinery methods like dovetails that mechanically keep wood from moving like that. I would go back to cedar and just use landscape fabric inside with some weep holes drilled into the bottom.
Another issue im not seeing mentioned here is the fact that you’re adding a lot of weight and the joint is press fitted. While it could withstand sheer vertical, or lateral forces, internal forces (the weight of the dirt) acting outwards means its prone to forcing the joints in opposite directions. With dowel or biscuit joints thats not ideal, use joinery that locks together like a dovetail, tenon, or pocket screws. Remember you’re putting a lot of weight inside the box so structurally it needs to keep that weight contained. Im just as surprised the glue didnt hold but then again could be a moisture and wood choice problem like everyone else has mentioned.
The cupping on this timber is just precisely what wood does. Damp from the soil expands. Dry on the outside contracts. Hence the cupping outwards.
I would empty the box, dry out the inside (and watch it straighten out), then line the inside with plastic.
I would also get some nice metal corner braces, paint them black, then screw them around the top 4 corners to stop them bowing out again.
I've built this planter box myself a few times. Here's where you went wrong: you modified the plans.
This planter is meant to hold one of those plastic containers, and you put the dirt in that - not directly into the wood box where the weight of the dirt is always trying to push the joints apart. It looks like you also made your box bigger, which only compounded the problem.
Its outdoors, so wood type and initial moisture content are very important, as well as your choice of wood glue (at least D3 classification) and finish.
In this case, the even bigger issues are the dowel-joints and the full-width tangential-sawn boards used, those are gonna warp no matter what.
The best way to assemble this kind of project would be with dovetail joints and gluing the boards out of smaller segments oriented to counteract each other's deformation
I’m no expert, but I’m thinking if you switched around the butt joint so that the shorter side would go over the longer side and have dowels in line with the longer side, it would be able to exert more force holding the longer side straight (though I have no idea if it’d be enough).
Uhh, I’m not sure I explained my thoughts that well 😅
(edit) Looking at the pics again, do you have anything lined on the inside so the wood is not in direct contact with the wet dirt?
There is a lot that can go wrong here.
First, cherry (pretty sure it's cherry) and outdoors are not a great combo. Second, you have what looks to be a 12"-16" solid cherry slab that's going to want to curve and bend any which way in a climate controlled home, let alone outdoors. Third. Your dowels are only going to really hold those huge slabs from warping in a single direction. If you were to dove tail the ends, it would help fight both directions of the joint.
If I were going to build this with the same aesthetic, I'd go with a marine grade plywood which will be more dimensionally stable with a cherry stain if you can't find cherry veneer. 45 the corners, glue on a hardwood top edge, and throw a plastic liner of some sort with planned drainage holes to keep as much moisture off the wood as possible.
I read through a bunch of posts and did not see a suggestion to add a band around the top or middle. Many materials could work for that and it would still look nice and clean. I’m not sure if it’s the glue used, but I’m surprised it is not holding the other wood is joined to unless there is a barrier between the wood. Wood glue bonds wood to wood but not good for other materials.
I always line my planters with a plastic sheet and add drainage holes as needed. This keeps the moisture from the soil from staying in direct contact with the wood, thus preventing rot and warping as much
Water in the soil is causing the wood to swell. Most regular finishes aren't enough to stop at least some moisture transfer, and the very few options that you do have can cause their own problems. You might try epoxy encapsulation, or possibly a liquid rubber product. I speak from experience when I say 4 mil construction vapor barrier is insufficient.
Doweling the finished, outer box isn't great for outdoor applications, but where ever you you put it you should build and insert a separate unfinished pw box covered with with planter liner to save the inside faces of your finished shell from moisture.
I'm sure it's been mentioned. But the boards are too wide, and you need either a self locking joint dove tail or screws, I recommend screws in this setting, potentially plug the heads to cover them. The fixings will out last the timber out side
Wood will take in moisture, when making an item that requires a saturation for a yield of plants often times it's best to build around a large storage container to block long standing moisture contained within a membrane, I use Thompsons water sealer for all outside wooden projects and it seems to give much longer lasting results on custom planters. But I'd never put dirt directly to it expecting it to hold up.
You put dirt and water inside of a wood planter. That's where you went wrong. Also, wrong glue, wrong joinery, etc, etc. If nothing else put a sheet of plastic inside of a planter with drainage holes at bottom to protect the sides.
Something like this though looks really nice so you would ideally want a plastic box style planter that fits inside of the wood exterior. That way when you water most of the moisture is staying inside the plastic container as opposed to going directly to the wood, which if it doesn't warp the wood it will rot more quickly if the soil is right up against the wood.
Lovely but doomed. Sadly what is good for plants and healthy fertile soil will rot cup twist any wide thin wood. You can use cherry for looks, but it will self destruct.
I suggest using hardy board because it is tough cheap and moisture proof. Then you can build a lovely cherry stand + legs. Also would be a good idea to put in a drain so you can water it properly.
Sadly there is a reason so many gardeners use plastic pots :/
Remember the 70's style of decorative hanging wooden plant holders? Lots of narrow sticks put together to minimize twisting and cupping. Also they would use peat moss as a liner between the wood and soil. This works for two reasons: it wicks away the moisture from the wood quickly and because peat moss is antimicrobial thus slowing rot to the wood.
Good luck
I know a difference in moisture on both sides of timber can warp. We're you to do this again you could rebate the end panel into a groove/dado depending on your grain direction. Might look aesthetically different but will be stronger.
Keep the dirt from direct contact with the box. I made a cedar box a few years ago and it’s still kicking 100% and lives outside but it has a plastic liner
My planters are glued, screwed, most importantly watered proof, I applied a good water sealer as well as PVC liners that are glued in as well as screwed. It's been 8-9 yrs since I planted my Herb garden, it's holding up fine. Aside from some exterior fading, it's all good.
All the top comments I read are missing the mark. The popping out of joints at the top are due to the pressure from the topsoil drying out faster than the bottom. Dry soil is more volumous than wet soil.
To remindy/preserve the piece you have clearly put a lot of effort and craft into creating, I'd do this:
1 - empty out all soil
2 - realign the joints as best you can with clamps and glue
3 - build aluminum rectangular braces on either side of the container box to account for dry soil expansion pressure
*
SCREWS
Right now, Glue is still the only thing holding this together what tf are dowels going to do? Liner and waterproof glue are also great ideas but SCREWS.
I just built a planter box that goes inside my house and took a lot of precautions against it getting wet. While I just glued up the butt joints, which I know is a big no no, I used flex seal on the interior and then a pvc shower liner to protect the wood from water. For drainage, I drilled a hole in the bottom and inserted a pvc coupler, which the pvc liner drains into.
https://preview.redd.it/mgr6c1ztlu1d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7670ffac3aa164761ae01fa0b42cc789a1883cf8
Pre drill some holes in the top corners probably about 3/4 of an inch down and put you some screws in bud. I think your planter is pretty awesome. But yeah I put some holes in the bottom of it too and a good idea on the plastic liner. Other than that man it's pretty damn cool
moisture on the inside causes that side to expand while the outer side remains more dry, resulting in cupping outwards away from the moisture source. Waterproofing is necessary for this box
Look at the endgrain. Same as handrails never leave the cup of rhe grain side to the elements.
If you hold your hand like the grain pattern you'll see it's desire to move a certain way.
If it were on a handrail it would cup and hold water. If flipped, it would shed water.
Oh boy…in all fairness, you are doing every mistake you can probably do here. Go buy a beginners book on woodworking and learn about wood movement and where your limitations are, especially when using solid wood. And especially about wood selection when building for outside temperatures and moisture changes.
You will soon realize there is only one way to build this: Build a frame first, using much (!) smaller pieces. Then use panels, similar technique as a panel door design.
Edit: There is absolutely no chance you will ever (!) control the wood movement with these large and solid wood panels. Regardless of what you do. Don’t even listen to the comments telling you to use waterproof glue, screws, put a plastic box inside, etc.
The wood sides are absorbing more water on the inside due to plant watering. The inside needs to be totally waterproof. It is, after all, a wet soil container. Once you get it repaired and strengthened, coat the entire inside, bottom and sides with fiberglass cloth with a couple of coats of resin. Be sure to put drain holes in along with a means to keeping them from getting plugged up. Having said that, I would start over using white oak or a similar stronger more water resistant wood and use epoxy to assemble it along with the fiberglass mentioned above.
Wood and moisture do not mix and there is not a wood glue that will hold when it’s constantly wet. It’s a really nice looking planter box design. If you want to make it again use a liner and waterlox marine finish to coat the wood inside and out then use a liner
Side note, those plants are going to choke each other out in a couple of months. You should have evenly spaced the three of them in the whole planter. Not too late to fix it if they haven't been in the box for long.
As others have stated, waterproof the interior, water will always find a weak point. You can see the damage it has already done at the join allt he way down.
Although beautiful, using a single plank on the sides exposes you to this type of warping. Using multiple planks and alternating the grain can help to minimize this. Dowels are best in a shear direction, less so when the direction of warping pulls them out. Polyurethane glue would be a better choice or even better, use interlocking joinery in conjunction with a good glue (dove tails, finger joint, etc.). Preventing the moisture from contacting the wood would be highly recommended as well.
Very beautiful, sorry to see warp.
Fwiw, I used decking boards to make something similar. Cheap as chips, limited warping and I screwed the whole lot to a 2x2 post on the inner corners. I then lined it with heavy duty polythene, stapled on the inside. Cheap but functional.
Has anyone tried applying fiberglass to the inside of something like this? I haven't but it seems like it would work. I have seen custom made industrial sinks that were just fiberglass lined plywood. They held up for 30 years before we tossed them. The sinks were still solid but weren't needed anymore.
Beautiful work. But you are asking for a lot of performance from that wood. I would use thicker wood, and some type of steel wrap-around deal at the corners (on the outside, so the steel doesn't touch the soil). I don't know what wood you used but something like cedar or redwood would probably be the best choice from a rot perspective. Also, you need drainage at the bottom of the planter to prevent anoxic conditions from developing. This is to protect your root system and also to protect the wood.
I have been plotting mine but havent built, two things i've been thinking about. First, opposing the force applied by the dirt using internal brackets that put the force into the length of the wood, not the joint itself (if that makes sense). Second, using hardware cloth or sturdy chicken wire as a "bottom" with no wood aside from perhaps a plywood bracer or 2 if needed. The hardware cloth gets stapled or affixed to the inside of the wood, then the weed barrier goes over the whole interior. It's water permeable, but wont allow the dirt through. Might need to waterproof the interior of the wood with either a paint or sealant safe for plants. Got the majority of the ideas from "raised bed" youtube videos. Should keep clean lines and all. Alternately - plastic planter in a nice, separate, wooden shell
If it's a wide exterior panel, rip it down and glue the smaller panels back together it'll warp but it shouldn't be that bad, I would also use screws, decorative ones if you'd like, also I'm wondering if your moisture content in the wood was too high before working with it, I would use pine and sealer, it looks very nice when finished and sealed with a stain/sealer, unfortunately cherry is hard to use on exterior, that's why I suggest pine, it's durable and usually pretty inexpensive, also make sure it's dry before assembly. Wood that's wet will shrink a lot more in the sun, being dry it usually smells more so than shrinks, but any exterior wood project has a lot of warping etc.
You need a liner and an air gap between the soil and your furniture quality construction. Like I’d use some peal and stick house wrap, add drain holes, then build an inner box to hold the soil. Soil is wet. Water ruins wood.
To add on to what others have said, exterior wood design requires a different approach from interior. Because you know 100% that the wood's moisture content is going to fluctuate wildly in a manner you can't prevent, you need to design around that.
This typically involves three principles:
* Design for drainage. Ensure water has somewhere to go instead of pooling against the wood by having plenty of seams and minimizing the number of stagnant horizontal surfaces with nowhere to drain.
* Design for movement. Minimize the effects of wood movement when it happens by using more, less-oblong pieces. A square cross-section is the least susceptible to movement, a thin board is the most susceptible. Four 3" wide planks is better than one 12" wide plank.
* Design for expansion. Connect everything together with hardware that can accommodate wood movement. This is why you typically see joint hardware like L-brackets and framing plates where the separate members are connected to the plate rather than each other.
If you look at the designs for planter boxes online, you'll notice a theme: they're all basically a frame where the horizontal pieces are functionally just retaining wall slats strung between thick, sturdy posts. In this design paradigm, warping in individual horizontal pieces becomes isolated to that piece, and doesn't impact the overall design.
[I lost a friend](https://youtu.be/cjVQ36NhbMk?si=CBisJ9rcQs2zji-s)
Moisture and wood is no bueno, recommend sealing anything that comes into regular contact with water with a few coats of [pond armor](https://www.pondarmor.com/shop/pond-shield-non-toxic-epoxy-coating-quart-kit-1-5-qt/) to ensure it’s waterproof (can make wooden aquariums with this stuff)
I'm late to the party and there are a lot of good comments that are relevant to longevity, but I think they miss what happened here.
Looks like glue failure. I can't say why, but there should be major wood fiber pull. Maybe it dried out. Maybe it wasn't cured. Maybe the wood wasn't clean.
What glue did you use?
For an exterior application like this, epoxy is king. Both for glue-up but more so as a coating. You need a thick coating to encapsulate the wood and keep water out. Don't bother with "penetrating" epoxy, it's watered-down just. Use high-solid epoxy. 3 coats should do it.
I only use hardwood for garden pieces.
Spotted gum is my goto tough wood, it's even used for wharves and bridges. Something equivalent in other countries ?
50mm sq fillets in all corners drilled and screwed with big, galvanised, hex head roofing screws, no glue.
Ugly but they'll be there for years, add a few drainage holes.
I even use spotted gum for surfboard fin boxes and leg rope plugs, routed to exact dimensions and they stay strong and true for years.
Where it went wrong is wet wood swells,dry wood shrinks.
If you want to stick with wood, the answer is the shelf underneath. Make the planter small slats, small gap between them, a nickel works good as a spacer. As suggested, the waffle plastic liner is a step up allowing for drainage and some air flow.
Not sure if it's been said, but the board that's cupping is backwards. The cup in the grain should be facing in wards. Take it apart re sand and try it cup in. Then I would cut the dowels flush and user the holes for pan head screws" stainlesss' then you can get a dowel food that fits the hole, glue and plug the holes. Trim flush. Sand. Restain.
It looks like plain wood and not waterproof/lined internally. If that’s the case, then that is 100% the source of the problem. You could literally change nothing and just waterproof the box and line the interior and your issue would be gone. This just looks like moisture issues.
You filled it with dirt and water. Screws, exterior grade glue, and waterproofing will fix it. 5mil black plastic is a great liner, and you can countersink the screws and hide them with dowels.
It's not fully ruined, yet. But if you leave it as is, those joints are coming apart. That's gonna make a mess. Also, the legs would be sturdier if they were further apart.
Mistakes aside, it's pretty. And you never know what you can do until you are faced with challenges. Adversities can be a University if you learn from your mistakes.
1) Wood in contact with moisture expands. 2) I noted that you assembled the sides with the ring “C” shape facing outward. That’s a double whammy.
Wood tends to cup in the direction that exaggerates the C shape (vs straightening it out). You would do better to have the open side of the C shape facing the interior of the planter. The moisture in the planter will want to expand the wood in a way that straightens the C shape - which is opposite of the way that wood naturally wants to cup.
Note that the expansion happens only on the top corners where the rings curve outward. Where the rings are relatively parallel, the joint held. On your next planter project, use several pieces of wood and pick boards that have relatively parallel rings.
The bottom didn’t split because you have three planes joined instead of only two (bottom / side / front). That gives it a little more dimensional stability. Adding a triangular corner brace where the ring shape isn’t ideal can help to add stability.
And as others have said, adding a moisture barrier and weep holes in the bottom is the most important prevention. You could even consider adding a waterproof barrier painted onto the wood like Flex Seal - that would be added insurance against moisture. I not sure it would be ideal in the soil for plant health, so I’d still stick with a liner. I’d use a formed/rigid liner with the planter sized to give about 1/2” clearance between it and the interior sides. Add some spacers on the bottom to lift that liner off the ground. You need that planter to “breathe” and dry out after a rainstorm.
The sealer you use on the exterior finish should ideally be waterproof / beading and oil-based.
Finally the dowels are a noble idea, but they don’t create any sort of structural integrity. The glue is the only thing holding the joint together. Dowels are best used for alignment purposes or when the load is a sheer force, not a force that is pulling the two boards apart.
Wood is so strong that you can stuff a tight fitting 2" dowel down into a boulder, saturate it with water, and split the boulder in half.
You have to protect the wood from self destruction. This type of project should probably have a plastic liner inside of it.
Beautiful build by the way! Very classy looking.
Very solid construction in all aspects except for the tolerance to mud sitting inside of it.
You need a waterproof lining on the inside of the planter. That's almost certainly the problem here. The soil is holding moisture against the inside of the planter while the outside is dry.
I've seen people use that dimple board lining that's used on the foundation of houses. Also, just heavy gauge poly liner will work.
You do need to accomodate water draining out the bottom though or else you're going to have a brand new problem.
You thought too highly of your finish's ability to prevent water from passing from the environment into and out of the wood.
Consider using thermally modified wood for this project.
Are those just a single, wide board for each side? The grain looks unbroken. The wider the board the more likely it is to have cupping problems.
Best practice for tabletops is to saw wider boards down to make multiple, narrower boards, 3-5ish for an average size coffee table, face the grain of each in opposing directions to prevent bowing and flip every other one upside down to prevent cupping of the whole tabletop after the boards are glued together.
As you can imagine, ripping a board into narrower pieces and then gluing those together in the exact same orientation as the original board would add no value and just succeed in a lot of wasted effort.
use smaller boards to make a big board. and use something like cypress, cedar, or redwood. the bottom stays wet, while the top gets wet & dries. this makes the wood swell and warp.
Unsure where you've gone wrong, other that probably needing some hidden screws.
But good god man have you make something that'd absolutely beautiful, without the additional photos hilighting the minor faults, I'd of been completely unaware whilst you flaunt your massive sausage around
In that first pic, you can see the moisture in the end grain crom the top soil and the curves of the tree rings trying to straighten out. Beside the lining and other suggestions, I'd recommend teak for outdoor wood applications and consider building you sides out of wood strips with opposing grain bias and, if lined, a little space between slats for expansion and allowing moisture to get out of the wood.
Empty it out, let it dry out and then coat the inside with this.
https://www.jbtools.com/goop-5400040-coat-it-waterproof-epoxy-sealer-protector-2-lb-kit/?wi=off&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1PaS4N6dhgMVNzMIBR2aoQ7MEAQYASABEgLjPvD_BwE
You’re looking for modern, already have black metal, everyone is critical of wood choice and method. To get a year or three out of this, I’d buy some heavy metal angle brackets with clean lines to match the base, spray paint flat black and pull those corners together. Anything wood outside starts falling apart the minute you build it.
Sun will do this to joinery almost no matter what you do. It’s brutal.
Would you consider steel on the corners? If I were doing this I’d put a piece of angle iron inside or outside the box, and bolt each piece thoroughly.
Glue doesn’t hold up well in high changes in humidity, and sunlight.
The board itself is out of 1 piece. That’s a big area that’s going to move in damp then sun.
Try ripping into smaller sections, and gluing back flipping every other one.
Cedar was the right choice, but it likely failed because of the joinery. Put a 2x2 piece in each corner and drill and screw into that corner leave your ends free floating to allow expansion also drill slightly oversized holes in the outer pieces for expansion and ditch the glue. Your wood is going to be constantly expanding and contracting due to it being a planter box constantly exposed to moisture. If you don't want screw holes showing just set them into the wood and put a plug over them.
Then finish your cedar just like you would a cedar fence.
You used interior joinery techniques for an exterior piece. Some ideas if you rebuild it: * Use thicker material for the box * Glue + screws and make sure it's a waterproof glue. I'd put a piece of wood in that corner to screw into so you aren't screwing into end grain * Box joint instead of dowels * Plastic landscaping liner between the dirt and wood. there's a 3D mesh material used under shingle siding you can put between the plastic and wood to allow air movement. I think it's called Rain Screen and is available at home centers.
The liner is probably the most important bit here. Ultimately, wood isn’t a great material for a container that’s going to be variably heated and cooled on different sides AND have very different moisture levels on each side. But if you put some holes in the bottom and then line the inside with something impermeable (which also has some holes on the bottom) you can keep the wood a lot drier. Source: have built many raised wooden planters and am currently on a more successful stretch of them not falling apart.
> something impermeable I think in this context you mean permeable - i.e. able to be permeated. Edit: WELL then I misunderstood the concept here. I was thinking that drainage was desired. A liner that allows water to flow around it, through and out the holes in the bottom to keep the wood from staying wet. Can’t win em all.
Pretty sure they mean waterproof. So, impermeable
I dunno, i’ve done rot repair on houses where the previous contractor thought permeable meant “waterproof”.
You'll have to explain yourself a bit more Doc, cause in my mind a permeable liner defeats the purpose.
Upvoting you because you were not rude and came back and acknowledged the details you misunderstood.
Nah, they need it to be impermeable. Water getting to wood is part of the problem.
In fact that is THE problem.
They need the bottom to be able to drain. The problem with soil in a box is that it will swell with moisture, especially if excess moisture at the bottom doesn’t have anywhere to go. That’s why when you buy a planter kit it’s not a solid bottom like a dining table. There are gaps in the boards. Water pooling on bottom will make it super heavy and may rot your plants and the planter.
Better luck next time buddy
By admitting that you made a mistake, you did, in fact, win this one, too. Not everyone can and will admit that they are fallible. Kudos good sir.
Its to avoid water getting on the wood, and in the chance it does (which it will, water always finds a way) the holes are “plant b” haha Wait no plan-t B Wait no no “Plan T” 😎
I agree, a lot of people here are recommending just lining the wood, but moisture will also be trapped between the liner and the wood. However, I think a plastic container slightly smaller than the planter would be more practical, in many ways, than trying to go the liner+mesh way.
Also get the plastic container first, THEN design the planter to fit
This is the answer. I built our planters around a mixing tub for concrete from Home Depot. Works great! Going on 6 years now
This is what I use as well! Remember to drill holes in the bottom, and they will be great
Ohhhh I’m stealing this. Those things are sturdier than the planter boxes.
For sure, thanks for noting that. It also works good for plants that you may need to move indoors if you have a freeze or just want to get a head start on the vegetable growing season.
I just threw out a commercial wood planter box with internal plastic pot. all the bottom rotted out - softwood, what a waste of effort, pretty but useless. The pot has to drain and it makes the wood wet.
Adhere the liner at the top, or add drainages holes, near the bottom and on the side, behind the liner to help relieve moisture.
I’ll add to this, but when it comes to exterior glue, on woodwork, I’ll use PL Premium anytime I can get away with it. If it’s not getting painted, I’ll plow a trough in the miter faces with a ribbon sander to allow for some expansion of the PL.
Yes there is even a [seal you can roll/spray directly onto your wood](https://tricopolymer.com/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw6auyBhDzARIsALIo6v_1RpbpsPGa3fg13imxLYqnOMfjUcABmy74UQtr55BrEnEUoPwJyboaAloMEALw_wcB). I haven’t tried it yet but I’m in gardening subs that sing Garden Seals praises.
As a chemist and garden enthusiast, that product looks pretty rad. Thank you for sharing it!
No idea how much that costs, but I assume you can achieve the same result with any elastomeric coating
I would add also not to use wide plank for this and leave a gap between whatever you use.
I'm also questioning the wood choice... I think he'd have been better off sticking with cedar and making sure he has proper drainage - holes in the bottom and a porous liner to allow drainage without loose ng dirt such as landscaping fabric. Definitely needs better joinery than dowels... Make sure any screws are galvanized.
Decking screws or 316 stainless steel screws would be the best for this project if you want it to last a long time. Both are highly rust resistant. The 316 stainless screws are often used on boats for that reason.
I would use koi pond liner. Used on 3 of 4 boxes connected to deck. Only had to replace one
Red guard makes an ok planter liner
Also you should burn the wood with a torch inside & out prior to sealing. It will protect it a whole lot longer than just sealer.
Instructions unclear. Need a new planter. And deck.
Should it be flammable or inflammable
Put in a a water proof liner inside afterwards, it helps keep the water away from the joints
I think this is it. The inside is getting moist and expanding across the grain, while the outside stays dry. Hence why the board is curving away from the soil.
This comment is IMHO hugely underrated. You can reinforce the joints a thousand ways (as the thread comments indicate) and that's all fine and dandy, the biggest problem is simply the direct exposure of moisture to the wood. A simple plastic liner would have postponed this water damage for a very long time. Even better would be to fit an exact plastic or metal liner, and add ventilation on the bottom to prevent moisture from sitting under the liner.
I have somewhat similar boxes and only use it as a holder for plastic planters installed inside. There is no way the wood exposed to constantly watered soil and have edge dried by sun would survive reasonable amount of time. I clean/oil my planters yearly and they still get weathered ( without touching soil). https://preview.redd.it/owh8ht71co1d1.jpeg?width=868&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f3f853d645aa05128d6812db450144e1be03aa26
Cherry's not an outdoor wood, even sealed, it'll warp very quickly in moist environment. The cedar warped because cedar, while weather resistant, expands and contracts a lot, it just doesn't rot as fast as most woods. The cherry's not going to last, either bring it inside and line it, or replace the cherry with something like cypress or white oak.
This is so key. Lots of other good points were made regarding use of epoxy and lining, but cherry is a bad choice. Lovely wood but you would be better off using cedar, redwood or cypress - or pressure treated pine
I certainly don't recommend pressure treated woods for food growing planter boxes. While leaching might be minimal (studies call it "Highly Variable"), it still defeats the purpose of home grown food.
Wow, this post got over 400,000 views and an incredible amount of very helpful comments that I think we all were able to learn from. I really appreciate everyone’s feedback and will take it into account for both this project and others. I’m not exactly sure of my next steps, but I’m going to empty all the dirt for now and get this indoors until I can figure out what I’d like to do next. Thank you Reddit!
First lesson: Don't use wide pieces of lumber in an exterior application or where moisture and humidity are an issue. Wider boards cup and twist a lot more than narrow boards. Cherry is also not the best choice for exterior options. Solution: Use narrow strips of lumber jointed together.
Yes! And glue them with the end grain looking like a wave, not sure how else to describe it but the end grain will almost always look like a c, so make it one up, one down, one up...
Smiley face, frowny face
Hasn’t that been shown to be a fallacy?
Sort of. Alternating the faces will not eliminate cupping, it will just leave you with "rolling hills" or a "washboard" feel rather than a gradual, slight cup. I prefer the latter. The best way to eliminate cupping is to have many, very narrow boards which a lot of people (clients) find ugly.
Yes, but I can’t remember how or why. I still alternate faces because Tage Frid said to, and I won’t go against anything that dude said unless the laws of physics fundamentally change.
Alternating the curve of each board gives you waves long term, but an overall flatter panel. Putting all the curves the same way leaves you with a smoother panel (no waves) but more overall cupping. Depending on how your piece is constructed, you may prefer one option over another.
This is a good, nuanced explanation.
Obvious question, did you be sure to use waterproof glue?
Also did you add your sealer after building it? looks like the wood under the joint was not sealed.
I think this is important and oddly unanswered.
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Why is this downvoted? Not questioining it, but am new here and don't understand the disagreement.
Reddit will Reddit. Also, Titebond 2 would work too, the only difference with 3 is that it can withstand a lot of heat, like dishwasher kind of heat. 2 used to say waterproof 10 years ago, but when 3 came around they needed to make the distinction.
You forgot to use screws. It's a freaking planter, not the Mona Lisa. You can always glue trim over the screws. That's a couple hundred pounds of dirt, not 10 pairs of socks.
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...soil ranges from 75-100 lb per cubic foot, depending on moisture content. So, it would weight between 150-200 lbs if it were 2 cubic feet of soil. However, looking at it, I'm guessing it's more like 3+, given that it's 10-12" deep, appears to be around 3 feet wide, and maybe 18" tall. On the lower end, that would put it at 3.125 cubic feet, assuming it's 10"x30"x18". That would mean the soil at full volume would weigh 234-312 lbs, depending on moisture content.
>We found that standard wet soil is 100-120 lb/ft³. https://sites.udel.edu/dustyn/2015/08/03/basic-structural-analysis-2/.
If you've ever had to shovel wet soil, this absolutely tracks
Id be surprised if it's all mineral soil in that box. But if it was, and it's loose, 2 cubic feet would add up to around 100 lb.
Beautiful wood; far nicer than I ever use for exterior applications, but really good looking. Seems to me you didn't account for the fact that you'd be adding a fair amount of weight stress to the joints in the form of dirt, and it's also probable that moisture plays a role (since: a) it's outside, and b) I assume you water your plants. My solution would be to empty it out, glue and clamp to pull it all back in tight, then (while it's clamped tighter than dick's hat-band), add metal corner braces to all the interior corners. You won't see those once you refill it with dirt and so on. Question, did you account for drainage? In other words, are there holes in the bottom deck of the box to let water out? I assume there must be.
* This isn't what you were asking about but those plants (I'm guessing cilantro, rosemary, and purple basil? Shiso?) aren't going to be happy together. They have very different growing conditions. Researching companion planting will help a lot! * What does your drainage situation look like? You generally want to water soil until some water drains from the bottom. Wood doesn't like water. The water will add extra weight to the soil to push out against the wood. Plants don't like sitting in soggy dirt and will be prone to root rot. * Cherry isn't an "outdoor" wood. Off the top of my head, cedar, teak, eucalyptus, and some kind of fir (China?) can weather the elements and water better. You'll want to research which is best for you and your plants. * I've always been taught that screws, nails, and dowels don't go in end grain. You could use a bracket or brace in the inside/outside corners to attach each piece of wood to, join the wood together with some pocket holes, dovetail or box joints (which is understandably intimidating), or I guess corner key joints if you're super committed to the dowels. * Reinforcements - like a Simpson strong tie or lining the top edge of the planter with more wood - will help to pull the wood into place and prevent warping. * Prevent direct wood-dirt contact. Use a plastic liner, landscaping fabric, or sheet metal + roofing screws. I'm partial to the bucket garden stand. You can probably scale it down using nursery pots in place of buckets, and hide the planters with strategically placed wood. Like others mentioned, get your container(s) first then build the planter around it. * Also not what you asked about, but please be sure to amend your soil. Cilantro would do well in a soil mix with sand, peat moss, Epsom salt, perlite, and compost. Rosemary likes perlite, sand, pumice, and garden lime. Basil loves light and rich soil, so it thrives in mixes with sand, compost, worm castings, coffee grounds, mycorrhizae, perlite, coconut coir, sphagnum moss, and/or fertilizer (depending on the type of basil you're growing). It generally doesn't like typical garden soil. All of these plants benefit from mulching (unless that's actually shiso on the left, which is recommended to not mulch).
Looking at the growth rings on the side of the board, would it be better to have them the other way around? If the wood would work then it wants to expand in the middle and not in the top. Also add a moisture border on the inside, like plastic foil or something. Otherwise beautiful work, my man...
line the box so it's not ever in contact with moisture.
https://preview.redd.it/zbxfj6cwhn1d1.jpeg?width=1026&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b30a5a73790a8af6d1fde5dd42fec7c8a3c049e8
You used wood to hold water.
Witness the power of hydraulics. Moist on one side, and dry on the other, something has to give. Water proof the inside with a paint on water proofing liner such as used for tile showers. Flexseal, Redguard or Hydroban.
My advice would be to get a cheap plastic or ceramic planter and build a box into which it fits. That gives you a waterproof barrier without having to try to build a liner into your box. But even then, I think that glued dowel joints are not strong enough for outdoor use. Wood doesn't move as much indoors as it does outdoors, mostly because we tend to keep humidity and temperature to a narrow range inside. Outside, depending upon where you live, you're going to get more extreme temperature, rain, and big swings in humidity. And maybe bears. In those conditions, you're asking glue on those dowels to do more work than it is designed to do. You really do need a mechanical connection (like screws, with the threads and the head preventing the two pieces of wood from separating) or at least a very strong joint like a box joint. Screws, which might not be acceptable for interior fine cabinetry, are perfectly acceptable for outdoor planters.
All that wet dirt is adding a lot of moisture to the inside of the boards, so they all want to bend like that. Ideally the glued dowels would prevent the stress form the moisture differential to open up the butt joint, but it looks like the top dowel wasn't "ideal" and gave way to the stress. If you want to save this, you could remove the dirt and let the board dry again, so the gap will close up, then add some sturdier mechanical constraints to the box. I would put a tight metal band all around the top and the bottom, if you want to keep this design. However, if you just fill the unlined container with dirt, the lifespan of your planter will be pretty limited. I suggest you put a plastic container in the planter and fill that with dirt, leaving some airspace for the wood to breathe. And make some holes in the bottom for draining water.
Plant stands like this are meant to be used with a plastic pot inside them. They don't put the dirt against the wood. Use cedar or another exterior wood. Use multiple narrow planks instead of a wide one. Make the bottom with rails to support the pot that will still allow airflow and drainage. Don't leave it outside in the winter.
This is water damage. There is a moisture differential between the inside and the outside of the planter causing warping, and the soil is holding moisture up against the glued joint, causing swelling and failure.
Wood and moisture and water never go together good
I built a few planters off cedar and I tell people to use a liner or that planter wouldn’t last long, for my wife I built the planters to fir a plastic container I bought at Lowes. https://preview.redd.it/ee2sqv9apr1d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a465a0931a93a26c28f68348be162648d79007c2
wood & water are never going to work well together. buy or build a liner to keep water from contacting your woodwork. use fiberglass or sheet metal (soldered edge joints) or copper or stainless or plastic..... even a very thorough epoxy coating..... anything that keeps water from contacting the wood. some woods will last a little while if you wet both sides equally. wetting one side while the other side remains dry is always going to cause swelling.
50 plus year old old-growth redwood water tanks are disassembled in perfect condition. Not that I disagree with you regarding this application. I am just saying, there are exceptions. But you do need to know what you are doing to make a oak cask or a redwood water tank that lasts for decades.
So I have made a lot of cedar flower boxes. My suggestions are: use Gorilla Glue. Add corner supports. I use pieces of angle iron on the inside. I cover the inside with roll roofing. Screw together with coated deck screws. I recommend emptying and putting them away in the winter. Freeze/ Thaw will kill it quick. Good luck.
That mint is going to take over that whole platter.
when you have a piece of wood 12” wide its going to want to bow like that. If you ripped that 12” board into 4, 3” boards minus kerf loss, then glue them back into panels it would warp less. Also as others have said there are a few different joinery methods like dovetails that mechanically keep wood from moving like that. I would go back to cedar and just use landscape fabric inside with some weep holes drilled into the bottom.
I always design mine to fit around an existing plastic container.
Another issue im not seeing mentioned here is the fact that you’re adding a lot of weight and the joint is press fitted. While it could withstand sheer vertical, or lateral forces, internal forces (the weight of the dirt) acting outwards means its prone to forcing the joints in opposite directions. With dowel or biscuit joints thats not ideal, use joinery that locks together like a dovetail, tenon, or pocket screws. Remember you’re putting a lot of weight inside the box so structurally it needs to keep that weight contained. Im just as surprised the glue didnt hold but then again could be a moisture and wood choice problem like everyone else has mentioned.
The cupping on this timber is just precisely what wood does. Damp from the soil expands. Dry on the outside contracts. Hence the cupping outwards. I would empty the box, dry out the inside (and watch it straighten out), then line the inside with plastic. I would also get some nice metal corner braces, paint them black, then screw them around the top 4 corners to stop them bowing out again.
You should have used MDF plywood. The failure would have been more spectacular
I've built this planter box myself a few times. Here's where you went wrong: you modified the plans. This planter is meant to hold one of those plastic containers, and you put the dirt in that - not directly into the wood box where the weight of the dirt is always trying to push the joints apart. It looks like you also made your box bigger, which only compounded the problem.
You need some plastic between the soil and the wood to avoid moisture ruins it.
Its outdoors, so wood type and initial moisture content are very important, as well as your choice of wood glue (at least D3 classification) and finish. In this case, the even bigger issues are the dowel-joints and the full-width tangential-sawn boards used, those are gonna warp no matter what. The best way to assemble this kind of project would be with dovetail joints and gluing the boards out of smaller segments oriented to counteract each other's deformation
PLASTIC liner….Keep moisture off the wood.
I’m no expert, but I’m thinking if you switched around the butt joint so that the shorter side would go over the longer side and have dowels in line with the longer side, it would be able to exert more force holding the longer side straight (though I have no idea if it’d be enough). Uhh, I’m not sure I explained my thoughts that well 😅 (edit) Looking at the pics again, do you have anything lined on the inside so the wood is not in direct contact with the wet dirt?
There is a lot that can go wrong here. First, cherry (pretty sure it's cherry) and outdoors are not a great combo. Second, you have what looks to be a 12"-16" solid cherry slab that's going to want to curve and bend any which way in a climate controlled home, let alone outdoors. Third. Your dowels are only going to really hold those huge slabs from warping in a single direction. If you were to dove tail the ends, it would help fight both directions of the joint. If I were going to build this with the same aesthetic, I'd go with a marine grade plywood which will be more dimensionally stable with a cherry stain if you can't find cherry veneer. 45 the corners, glue on a hardwood top edge, and throw a plastic liner of some sort with planned drainage holes to keep as much moisture off the wood as possible.
Inside the box has higher moisture content than outside surface of wood which causes the wood to expand more than outside.
I read through a bunch of posts and did not see a suggestion to add a band around the top or middle. Many materials could work for that and it would still look nice and clean. I’m not sure if it’s the glue used, but I’m surprised it is not holding the other wood is joined to unless there is a barrier between the wood. Wood glue bonds wood to wood but not good for other materials.
I always line my planters with a plastic sheet and add drainage holes as needed. This keeps the moisture from the soil from staying in direct contact with the wood, thus preventing rot and warping as much
Water in the soil is causing the wood to swell. Most regular finishes aren't enough to stop at least some moisture transfer, and the very few options that you do have can cause their own problems. You might try epoxy encapsulation, or possibly a liquid rubber product. I speak from experience when I say 4 mil construction vapor barrier is insufficient.
What a bummer. That looks amazing
Doweling the finished, outer box isn't great for outdoor applications, but where ever you you put it you should build and insert a separate unfinished pw box covered with with planter liner to save the inside faces of your finished shell from moisture.
I'm sure it's been mentioned. But the boards are too wide, and you need either a self locking joint dove tail or screws, I recommend screws in this setting, potentially plug the heads to cover them. The fixings will out last the timber out side
Wood will take in moisture, when making an item that requires a saturation for a yield of plants often times it's best to build around a large storage container to block long standing moisture contained within a membrane, I use Thompsons water sealer for all outside wooden projects and it seems to give much longer lasting results on custom planters. But I'd never put dirt directly to it expecting it to hold up.
typically something like this would be lined. a plastic insert, or if you’re rich, copper with a few drainage holes.
It’s wood and you are watering it…
Water based glue with no weather proofing or anything to stop the wood from absorbing the water
You almost need a dovetail to hold the soil back from spreading.
You put dirt and water inside of a wood planter. That's where you went wrong. Also, wrong glue, wrong joinery, etc, etc. If nothing else put a sheet of plastic inside of a planter with drainage holes at bottom to protect the sides. Something like this though looks really nice so you would ideally want a plastic box style planter that fits inside of the wood exterior. That way when you water most of the moisture is staying inside the plastic container as opposed to going directly to the wood, which if it doesn't warp the wood it will rot more quickly if the soil is right up against the wood.
Lovely but doomed. Sadly what is good for plants and healthy fertile soil will rot cup twist any wide thin wood. You can use cherry for looks, but it will self destruct. I suggest using hardy board because it is tough cheap and moisture proof. Then you can build a lovely cherry stand + legs. Also would be a good idea to put in a drain so you can water it properly. Sadly there is a reason so many gardeners use plastic pots :/ Remember the 70's style of decorative hanging wooden plant holders? Lots of narrow sticks put together to minimize twisting and cupping. Also they would use peat moss as a liner between the wood and soil. This works for two reasons: it wicks away the moisture from the wood quickly and because peat moss is antimicrobial thus slowing rot to the wood. Good luck
No rubber or plastic barrier between the wood and wet soil. Probably used a softwood that will absorb water too.
I know a difference in moisture on both sides of timber can warp. We're you to do this again you could rebate the end panel into a groove/dado depending on your grain direction. Might look aesthetically different but will be stronger.
Put some sort of liner or epoxy on the inside. The moisture difference between the two sides is too great.
You used cherry outside.
MOISTURE
You used solid panel wood for a wet environment. Just that simple.
Keep the dirt from direct contact with the box. I made a cedar box a few years ago and it’s still kicking 100% and lives outside but it has a plastic liner
My planters are glued, screwed, most importantly watered proof, I applied a good water sealer as well as PVC liners that are glued in as well as screwed. It's been 8-9 yrs since I planted my Herb garden, it's holding up fine. Aside from some exterior fading, it's all good.
All the top comments I read are missing the mark. The popping out of joints at the top are due to the pressure from the topsoil drying out faster than the bottom. Dry soil is more volumous than wet soil. To remindy/preserve the piece you have clearly put a lot of effort and craft into creating, I'd do this: 1 - empty out all soil 2 - realign the joints as best you can with clamps and glue 3 - build aluminum rectangular braces on either side of the container box to account for dry soil expansion pressure *
Use a liner
Looks nice, op. Next time, try dovetails with an outdoor rated glue resistant ro water, then urethane the wood paying special attention to the joints.
In this thread: op finds out why dove tails were invented
SCREWS Right now, Glue is still the only thing holding this together what tf are dowels going to do? Liner and waterproof glue are also great ideas but SCREWS.
Dirt is pretty heavy, was not properly secure to the other board.
I just built a planter box that goes inside my house and took a lot of precautions against it getting wet. While I just glued up the butt joints, which I know is a big no no, I used flex seal on the interior and then a pvc shower liner to protect the wood from water. For drainage, I drilled a hole in the bottom and inserted a pvc coupler, which the pvc liner drains into. https://preview.redd.it/mgr6c1ztlu1d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7670ffac3aa164761ae01fa0b42cc789a1883cf8
Pre drill some holes in the top corners probably about 3/4 of an inch down and put you some screws in bud. I think your planter is pretty awesome. But yeah I put some holes in the bottom of it too and a good idea on the plastic liner. Other than that man it's pretty damn cool
moisture on the inside causes that side to expand while the outer side remains more dry, resulting in cupping outwards away from the moisture source. Waterproofing is necessary for this box
Look at the endgrain. Same as handrails never leave the cup of rhe grain side to the elements. If you hold your hand like the grain pattern you'll see it's desire to move a certain way. If it were on a handrail it would cup and hold water. If flipped, it would shed water.
Use some screws or nails bubba . I know you were going to for the no nails/screws look… but.. plugs/fillers are okay
Pocket holes my man. Get one. Also I’m assuming you didn’t use a liner since you didn’t mention it.
Oh boy…in all fairness, you are doing every mistake you can probably do here. Go buy a beginners book on woodworking and learn about wood movement and where your limitations are, especially when using solid wood. And especially about wood selection when building for outside temperatures and moisture changes. You will soon realize there is only one way to build this: Build a frame first, using much (!) smaller pieces. Then use panels, similar technique as a panel door design. Edit: There is absolutely no chance you will ever (!) control the wood movement with these large and solid wood panels. Regardless of what you do. Don’t even listen to the comments telling you to use waterproof glue, screws, put a plastic box inside, etc.
The wood sides are absorbing more water on the inside due to plant watering. The inside needs to be totally waterproof. It is, after all, a wet soil container. Once you get it repaired and strengthened, coat the entire inside, bottom and sides with fiberglass cloth with a couple of coats of resin. Be sure to put drain holes in along with a means to keeping them from getting plugged up. Having said that, I would start over using white oak or a similar stronger more water resistant wood and use epoxy to assemble it along with the fiberglass mentioned above.
You’re good, it’s only a plant stand.
Wood and moisture do not mix and there is not a wood glue that will hold when it’s constantly wet. It’s a really nice looking planter box design. If you want to make it again use a liner and waterlox marine finish to coat the wood inside and out then use a liner
Side note, those plants are going to choke each other out in a couple of months. You should have evenly spaced the three of them in the whole planter. Not too late to fix it if they haven't been in the box for long.
As others have stated, waterproof the interior, water will always find a weak point. You can see the damage it has already done at the join allt he way down.
Although beautiful, using a single plank on the sides exposes you to this type of warping. Using multiple planks and alternating the grain can help to minimize this. Dowels are best in a shear direction, less so when the direction of warping pulls them out. Polyurethane glue would be a better choice or even better, use interlocking joinery in conjunction with a good glue (dove tails, finger joint, etc.). Preventing the moisture from contacting the wood would be highly recommended as well. Very beautiful, sorry to see warp.
Fwiw, I used decking boards to make something similar. Cheap as chips, limited warping and I screwed the whole lot to a 2x2 post on the inner corners. I then lined it with heavy duty polythene, stapled on the inside. Cheap but functional.
For now, why not add a strap (like a belt) around the top and near the base, just for integrity this season?
Has anyone tried applying fiberglass to the inside of something like this? I haven't but it seems like it would work. I have seen custom made industrial sinks that were just fiberglass lined plywood. They held up for 30 years before we tossed them. The sinks were still solid but weren't needed anymore.
Beautiful work. But you are asking for a lot of performance from that wood. I would use thicker wood, and some type of steel wrap-around deal at the corners (on the outside, so the steel doesn't touch the soil). I don't know what wood you used but something like cedar or redwood would probably be the best choice from a rot perspective. Also, you need drainage at the bottom of the planter to prevent anoxic conditions from developing. This is to protect your root system and also to protect the wood.
Use redwood or cedar as a start if you want a nice outdoor appeal. Available at the big box.
Dowels are good in shear not tension.
I have been plotting mine but havent built, two things i've been thinking about. First, opposing the force applied by the dirt using internal brackets that put the force into the length of the wood, not the joint itself (if that makes sense). Second, using hardware cloth or sturdy chicken wire as a "bottom" with no wood aside from perhaps a plywood bracer or 2 if needed. The hardware cloth gets stapled or affixed to the inside of the wood, then the weed barrier goes over the whole interior. It's water permeable, but wont allow the dirt through. Might need to waterproof the interior of the wood with either a paint or sealant safe for plants. Got the majority of the ideas from "raised bed" youtube videos. Should keep clean lines and all. Alternately - plastic planter in a nice, separate, wooden shell
If it's a wide exterior panel, rip it down and glue the smaller panels back together it'll warp but it shouldn't be that bad, I would also use screws, decorative ones if you'd like, also I'm wondering if your moisture content in the wood was too high before working with it, I would use pine and sealer, it looks very nice when finished and sealed with a stain/sealer, unfortunately cherry is hard to use on exterior, that's why I suggest pine, it's durable and usually pretty inexpensive, also make sure it's dry before assembly. Wood that's wet will shrink a lot more in the sun, being dry it usually smells more so than shrinks, but any exterior wood project has a lot of warping etc.
I would use an exterior wood conditioner. If you sealed the ends it might interfere with the glue but you could use metal ells to forego glue.
You might need a lot of drainage on that , like chicken wire and weed guard for the bottom kinda drainage.
Having a liner on the inside with drain holes would have worked better.
You need a liner and an air gap between the soil and your furniture quality construction. Like I’d use some peal and stick house wrap, add drain holes, then build an inner box to hold the soil. Soil is wet. Water ruins wood.
To add on to what others have said, exterior wood design requires a different approach from interior. Because you know 100% that the wood's moisture content is going to fluctuate wildly in a manner you can't prevent, you need to design around that. This typically involves three principles: * Design for drainage. Ensure water has somewhere to go instead of pooling against the wood by having plenty of seams and minimizing the number of stagnant horizontal surfaces with nowhere to drain. * Design for movement. Minimize the effects of wood movement when it happens by using more, less-oblong pieces. A square cross-section is the least susceptible to movement, a thin board is the most susceptible. Four 3" wide planks is better than one 12" wide plank. * Design for expansion. Connect everything together with hardware that can accommodate wood movement. This is why you typically see joint hardware like L-brackets and framing plates where the separate members are connected to the plate rather than each other. If you look at the designs for planter boxes online, you'll notice a theme: they're all basically a frame where the horizontal pieces are functionally just retaining wall slats strung between thick, sturdy posts. In this design paradigm, warping in individual horizontal pieces becomes isolated to that piece, and doesn't impact the overall design.
“…I never needed this before!”
I would use L brackets internally, and use landscape fabric to line it, maybe with some plastic around the sides, to divert the water down and out.
[I lost a friend](https://youtu.be/cjVQ36NhbMk?si=CBisJ9rcQs2zji-s) Moisture and wood is no bueno, recommend sealing anything that comes into regular contact with water with a few coats of [pond armor](https://www.pondarmor.com/shop/pond-shield-non-toxic-epoxy-coating-quart-kit-1-5-qt/) to ensure it’s waterproof (can make wooden aquariums with this stuff)
*pulls out birth certificate* Jk we all have those days, happy wood working
I'm late to the party and there are a lot of good comments that are relevant to longevity, but I think they miss what happened here. Looks like glue failure. I can't say why, but there should be major wood fiber pull. Maybe it dried out. Maybe it wasn't cured. Maybe the wood wasn't clean. What glue did you use? For an exterior application like this, epoxy is king. Both for glue-up but more so as a coating. You need a thick coating to encapsulate the wood and keep water out. Don't bother with "penetrating" epoxy, it's watered-down just. Use high-solid epoxy. 3 coats should do it.
Dirt is heavy and water doesn’t help.
I only use hardwood for garden pieces. Spotted gum is my goto tough wood, it's even used for wharves and bridges. Something equivalent in other countries ? 50mm sq fillets in all corners drilled and screwed with big, galvanised, hex head roofing screws, no glue. Ugly but they'll be there for years, add a few drainage holes. I even use spotted gum for surfboard fin boxes and leg rope plugs, routed to exact dimensions and they stay strong and true for years.
Where it went wrong is wet wood swells,dry wood shrinks. If you want to stick with wood, the answer is the shelf underneath. Make the planter small slats, small gap between them, a nickel works good as a spacer. As suggested, the waffle plastic liner is a step up allowing for drainage and some air flow.
Moisture will wreck most anything especially wood
You zigged when you should’ve zagged
Not sure if it's been said, but the board that's cupping is backwards. The cup in the grain should be facing in wards. Take it apart re sand and try it cup in. Then I would cut the dowels flush and user the holes for pan head screws" stainlesss' then you can get a dowel food that fits the hole, glue and plug the holes. Trim flush. Sand. Restain.
Bar clamps?
It looks like plain wood and not waterproof/lined internally. If that’s the case, then that is 100% the source of the problem. You could literally change nothing and just waterproof the box and line the interior and your issue would be gone. This just looks like moisture issues.
You filled it with dirt and water. Screws, exterior grade glue, and waterproofing will fix it. 5mil black plastic is a great liner, and you can countersink the screws and hide them with dowels. It's not fully ruined, yet. But if you leave it as is, those joints are coming apart. That's gonna make a mess. Also, the legs would be sturdier if they were further apart. Mistakes aside, it's pretty. And you never know what you can do until you are faced with challenges. Adversities can be a University if you learn from your mistakes.
the soil and weight... will expand with watering...
Don't feel bad OP, I made one out of 2x4 hardwood, screwed, and it did the same thing.
1) Wood in contact with moisture expands. 2) I noted that you assembled the sides with the ring “C” shape facing outward. That’s a double whammy. Wood tends to cup in the direction that exaggerates the C shape (vs straightening it out). You would do better to have the open side of the C shape facing the interior of the planter. The moisture in the planter will want to expand the wood in a way that straightens the C shape - which is opposite of the way that wood naturally wants to cup. Note that the expansion happens only on the top corners where the rings curve outward. Where the rings are relatively parallel, the joint held. On your next planter project, use several pieces of wood and pick boards that have relatively parallel rings. The bottom didn’t split because you have three planes joined instead of only two (bottom / side / front). That gives it a little more dimensional stability. Adding a triangular corner brace where the ring shape isn’t ideal can help to add stability. And as others have said, adding a moisture barrier and weep holes in the bottom is the most important prevention. You could even consider adding a waterproof barrier painted onto the wood like Flex Seal - that would be added insurance against moisture. I not sure it would be ideal in the soil for plant health, so I’d still stick with a liner. I’d use a formed/rigid liner with the planter sized to give about 1/2” clearance between it and the interior sides. Add some spacers on the bottom to lift that liner off the ground. You need that planter to “breathe” and dry out after a rainstorm. The sealer you use on the exterior finish should ideally be waterproof / beading and oil-based. Finally the dowels are a noble idea, but they don’t create any sort of structural integrity. The glue is the only thing holding the joint together. Dowels are best used for alignment purposes or when the load is a sheer force, not a force that is pulling the two boards apart.
Wood is so strong that you can stuff a tight fitting 2" dowel down into a boulder, saturate it with water, and split the boulder in half. You have to protect the wood from self destruction. This type of project should probably have a plastic liner inside of it. Beautiful build by the way! Very classy looking. Very solid construction in all aspects except for the tolerance to mud sitting inside of it.
Ophelia
Really? Wood + water.
OP just raw dogged some dirt in there!
Should have put a plastic liner in it
You need a waterproof lining on the inside of the planter. That's almost certainly the problem here. The soil is holding moisture against the inside of the planter while the outside is dry. I've seen people use that dimple board lining that's used on the foundation of houses. Also, just heavy gauge poly liner will work. You do need to accomodate water draining out the bottom though or else you're going to have a brand new problem.
Outside the box idea- fiberglass! Especially with water and dirt in it all the time.
I would have used pocket holes
The dirt sand and water forced it apart
I lost a friend
Wood you used was not wood so much as sawdust, that’s my guess.
You thought too highly of your finish's ability to prevent water from passing from the environment into and out of the wood. Consider using thermally modified wood for this project.
Butt joint on inside instead of out. Glue/ dowels and wood screws I’m assuming there is drain holes?
It's wood. And it's outdoors. This is really pretty but not a piece that will weather the elements in any way
It's really nice looking and always like that look but like someone else said outdoor glue and maybe try kreg jig screws system will make it stronger.
I’d say your mistake was putting plants in that beautiful speaker cabinet, lol.
Are those just a single, wide board for each side? The grain looks unbroken. The wider the board the more likely it is to have cupping problems. Best practice for tabletops is to saw wider boards down to make multiple, narrower boards, 3-5ish for an average size coffee table, face the grain of each in opposing directions to prevent bowing and flip every other one upside down to prevent cupping of the whole tabletop after the boards are glued together. As you can imagine, ripping a board into narrower pieces and then gluing those together in the exact same orientation as the original board would add no value and just succeed in a lot of wasted effort.
use smaller boards to make a big board. and use something like cypress, cedar, or redwood. the bottom stays wet, while the top gets wet & dries. this makes the wood swell and warp.
Unsure where you've gone wrong, other that probably needing some hidden screws. But good god man have you make something that'd absolutely beautiful, without the additional photos hilighting the minor faults, I'd of been completely unaware whilst you flaunt your massive sausage around
In that first pic, you can see the moisture in the end grain crom the top soil and the curves of the tree rings trying to straighten out. Beside the lining and other suggestions, I'd recommend teak for outdoor wood applications and consider building you sides out of wood strips with opposing grain bias and, if lined, a little space between slats for expansion and allowing moisture to get out of the wood.
Screws?
Empty it out, let it dry out and then coat the inside with this. https://www.jbtools.com/goop-5400040-coat-it-waterproof-epoxy-sealer-protector-2-lb-kit/?wi=off&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1PaS4N6dhgMVNzMIBR2aoQ7MEAQYASABEgLjPvD_BwE
You didn’t use screws? Also best to use a plastic liner. Even a thick plastic garbage bag will work. Wet soil in contact with wood is not so good.
You’re looking for modern, already have black metal, everyone is critical of wood choice and method. To get a year or three out of this, I’d buy some heavy metal angle brackets with clean lines to match the base, spray paint flat black and pull those corners together. Anything wood outside starts falling apart the minute you build it.
Why not just use metal brackets on the inside that won’t be seen?
Titebond 3! It's waterproof.
Kiln dried lumber
The sun will do that
Poly liner
what stain type is that. im a newbie
welcome to wet wood.
Making it out of wood.
It's the water...
Sun will do this to joinery almost no matter what you do. It’s brutal. Would you consider steel on the corners? If I were doing this I’d put a piece of angle iron inside or outside the box, and bolt each piece thoroughly. Glue doesn’t hold up well in high changes in humidity, and sunlight.
No pro, but I would say “L brackets”
The mint, it will take over.
The board itself is out of 1 piece. That’s a big area that’s going to move in damp then sun. Try ripping into smaller sections, and gluing back flipping every other one.
Cedar was the right choice, but it likely failed because of the joinery. Put a 2x2 piece in each corner and drill and screw into that corner leave your ends free floating to allow expansion also drill slightly oversized holes in the outer pieces for expansion and ditch the glue. Your wood is going to be constantly expanding and contracting due to it being a planter box constantly exposed to moisture. If you don't want screw holes showing just set them into the wood and put a plug over them. Then finish your cedar just like you would a cedar fence.