How To Reuse Old Wooden Pallets To Create A Rustic Garden Feature
30 Jun 2016
Wooden pallets are created to support many types of transported goods as they are moved around the world. Once the goods arrive at their destination, the pallets become waste material and may simply be dumped.
However, if you look on the internet, you can see that a diverse range of items can be made out of pallet wood, from furniture in the house and picture frames to garden features. This is a great way to easily recycle a useful material and to turn someone else’s rubbish into a treasure of your own.
Wooden Pallets Price
If you look around your home town, it should not be difficult to find second hand wooden pallets for sale or even free to you for the cost of taking them away. Do remember, when working with pallet wood, that they are roughly sawn timber and it is easy to pick up splinters; it is best to wear garden gloves during handling.
Ideas for the Garden
In the garden, heat treated pallets can be used to assemble dog kennels, chicken runs, small pieces of furniture, containers for planting, tree houses and really anything that you can turn your hand to. Rustic garden features are the most fun to work with, as you have a free hand with design.
It is worth spending the time to come up with a good sturdy plan to produce an item that will embellish your garden for some years to come. In addition to the pallets, you will need other materials to be creative – something to join them with, either nails or a type of binding material such as baler twine. Layers of shade cloth may be useful for filling in gaps between the wooden struts to hold back soil, for example, if you are creating a type of planter or trough.
Heat Treated Pallets
Not all wooden pallets are created equal: some may have been used during the movement of toxic chemicals or have been treated with toxins during the process of transportation. A good guide is to look for the letters “HT” painted on the side of the crate.
This refers to heat treated wooden pallets, and these have usually not been chemically treated to control moulds or bacteria. In addition, particularly if you are going to be growing edible plants in your pallet feature, it may be necessary to disinfect the wood after you have collected it.
This can easily be done by spraying it with a bleach solution, scrubbing it and then rinsing with a hosepipe.