Hacker help: How to get the Trones to be green?

Jules Yap·
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trones schuhschrank 0111478 PE262426 S4 715428
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trones schuhschrank 0111478 PE262426 S4 715428

Materials: 3 x Trones

Description: Hi, I do have those nice Trones Boxes at home and thought about using them on my balcony for growing plants in it.

But I do not know exactly how I should do it – and therefor I am asking you all 🙂

I do have 2 ideas –

1) making holes on the top of the Trones but that would force me to lose space to put other plants on it.

2) open the Trones fill them up with earth – let the plants grow and if the winter comes – cut them of – close the Trones and everything is clean and ready for winter.

So what ideas do you IKEA hackers have for my Trones when the summer comes and the winter is gone 🙂

Cheers

~ Herbert Feutl, Austria

Jules Yap
Latest posts by Jules Yap (see all)

9 Responses

  1. I refurbished our mud room and now use my old Trones to hold skeins of yarn for the afghans I make. Mounted on the inside door of my closet they don’t take up much room.

    Reply

  2. thanks for all the tips
    a view ideas are great – and the degrading of the plastic could be really a problem.
    but I do have those Trones at home and not using is much worst.

    next view weeks will be sunny so it is time to bring them in action I keep you posted.

    thanks

    Reply

  3. In general, plastics which aren’t made for outdoor use degrade and become brittle after being exposed to UV light for a while, so be sure you don’t love these a lot. They probably won’t last more than a year or so. I learned this when I decided that underbed boxes would make great little planters… they ended up shattering.

    Reply

  4. You could drill several round holes into the front side with a 2″ keyhole drill. Then drill several smaller drainage holes in the bottom. Line it with a burlap sack so the dirt cannot fall out of the holes, and fill with soil.

    Now make a small cut in the exposed burlap that covers the 2″ holes and insert a small plant in each. Hanging plants like petunia, strawberries, etc. might work great and will turn your Trones into “green” walls as they grow.

    When the winter comes, you can just cut off the plants, pull out the burlap sack with the soil and put the Trones away till next Spring — or you can mount them on a rolling platform and just move them inside your house for the winter.

    Reply

  5. Are you attaching them somehow to the wall of your house? or a fence? I guess I just want to know if you will have them supported in some way, if you decide on Option 2) open the Trones fill them up with earth – let the plants grow and if the winter comes – cut them of – close the Trones and everything is clean and ready for winter.

    Reply

  6. I think you can definitely put soil in it and leave it open. Maybe you would need to put something inside to prevent it from closing. And maybe you can’t fill it completely but will have to put something as a “spacer” in the lower area, so it won’t be to heavy (small plants don’t need so much soil).
    Or instead of filling it with soil, you can put the pots inside (as well on top of something to elevate them a little)… I’d love to see how it turns out, its a great idea anyway.

    Reply

    1. In this case “green” would mean “in the environmental” sense and not the literal color. Otherwise you would be spot on! If you did want to spraypaint them, you’d want to lightly sand them first, to give the paint something to stick to. They do have spraypaint for plastic now, with an epoxy base, but I’ve not experimented with it yet.

      Reply

  8. I don’t think you can use it for plants unless you cut the top open anyway. As soon as you fill it with dirt, the box won’t stay open, the weight of the dirt would make it closes on its own.

    Reply

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