Introduction 🌸

I just checked my notes, and I have planned for this project since 21st of June 2020. That’s almost four years ago. This is why I need this website.

What I have been dreaming of, are beautiful honeysuckles (Lonicera Caprifolium or other Lonicerae) to climb up from a custom raised bed planter

From fassadengruen.de

I guess I pictured something like this (Dall-E 3 creation)

Now all I need is the Copenhagen penthouse to match.

Raised Garden Bed Design (3D Model)

Excellent preparation, I thought. Before knowing that I miscalculated the width.

The Idea here was to find wood and materials in a local hardware store in a specific length, minimize waste by planning cuts ahead.

I would need to fit it all in my small car, so I decided to cut it on the parking lot. Luckily, my friend Alberte wanted to join the project with a few not-as-raised raised garden beds. That’s what finally set this in motion.

Execution

I’m not a master wood worker. Not even close. I was scared of power tools before going to the Danish festival https://byggefestival in the summer of 2023. There, I finally got an introduction to different tools and got a little less scared (I’m still pretty scared).

Progress on my project…

One of Alberte’s garden beds, she made four.

Me and Alberte made a small raised stool for her cute daughter to help mum out when putting plants in the raised garden beds. She’s happy and confused if you can’t tell.

A failed fit…

Perfect, right? Well no, it didn’t fit. I did take into account that all the sides went outside the skeleton. I just forgot to multiply by 2 when I added the thickness of the wood in length and width dimensions. Damn.

I’ve been told to cut up the bottom plates and redo it. That’s probably best. What I wanna do, though, is make cut-out for it to fit between the nooks and crannies of the balcony. I’m sure it’s an awful idea that will take way longer and doesn’t fully take into account the expansion of the wood when moist. Oh well, we’ll see.

Plants: Honeysuckles (Lonicera Caprifolium)

True Lonicera Caprifolium are amazing. Their scent is great, and I vividly remember sucking out the honey of the flowers as a child every summer.

But what I want is something that will be nice all-year. So I’m going for something evergreen, or close to it.

I will choose two honeysuckles with different blooming seasons to expand the bloom throughout the summer.

I found these:

• May-June flowering Evergreen ‘Copper Beauty’ Honeysuckle
• June-August flowering Evergreen orange-red honeysuckle

I can’t wait ‘til they get here.

Fitting

I’m not proud of this, but it worked

I used a multi-cutter and a random orbital sander in order to grind down the corners so that the door could open properly