DIY Self Watering Hanging Basket

Here’s a SUPER easy way to make a DIY self-watering hanging basket or self watering planter without spending any money at all. I use this for my hanging baskets because they tend to dry out in the air, and believe me, it really works. Read on to make a DIY self watering hanging basket waterer from a soda or water bottle!

DIY Self Watering Hanging Basket Waterer

Instead of spending money on a planter or basket with a watering mechanism, all I do is take an empty (sturdy) water or soda bottle, and cut the bottom off of it.

Next, use a compass, or other sharp object, to poke some small holes near the bottom of the bottle (near the cap). This is where the water will come out and saturate the roots.

DIY Self Watering Hanging Basket: Pretty Purple Door

Use a compass to poke holes

A few tips:

You want to make sure that the holes are small so that the water doesn’t immediately POUR out and soak your roots
You want to put 1 tiny hole as low as possible near the cap to drain the water completely out of the bottle of your DIY self watering hanging basket
I put about 8-10 holes in my bottle around approximately the same height

Now, you’ll want to put the bottle in your planter and see that only about 1″ or so will stick up above the dirt. You want to be able to see the top of the plastic through the dirt, but you don’t want it to be too high that you can’t hide it with your flowers and plants.

Once your bottle is situated in your DIY self watering hanging basket, you are ready to plant your flowers and fill your pot with dirt. Just make sure that you don’t cover the top of your bottle!

My DIY Self Watering Hanging Basket Just About Finished:

You can see that I still have some room to cover this up. If you don’t like the way it looks you can certainly add more dirt or trim the bottle so that you don’t see as much of the plastic. I plan to add another flower on this side so that the plastic will be in the center and as the flowers grow in you won’t see the bottle at all.