Stacked Herb Garden

INSIDE : Learn how to create a DIY Stacked Herb Garden Planter. It’s perfect for a small patio, an apartment balcony or having fresh herbs nearby your back door. 

This post may contain affiliate links.  See full disclosure here.

This post has been updated since it’s original June 2016 publish date.

If you know me at all, you know I love plants… LOVE plants.  

So to say, I am excited to share today’s post would be an understatement.  Most of you know, we moved across the country roughly nine months ago and into the cutest little rental house.  When living in a rental, sometimes you do not have the freedom to till up your yard and transform it into a lovely raised vegetable garden.

So, I found a simple renter friendly way to keep costs low, not make any major yard updates and still get to grow fresh herbs on our back patio!

Check out some of my other Rental friendly Home posts:

• Renter Friendly Memo Board
• Rental House Front Stoop Update
• SMALL Rental Kitchen Vision Board
• Rental House : How To Personalize A Little Girl’s Bedroom
• How To Create A Home, Even While In A Rental
• Stacked Herb Garden
• Home Sweet Rented Home book

Today I am sharing how I partnered with my local plant nursery, Prairie Gardens and created this simple Stackable Herb Garden!

What supplies do you need to create a stackable herb planter with pots?

(5) Five Terra Cotta Pots
(6) Six Herbs
Garden Trowel
Garden Gloves, if needed
Hand Pruners, if needed
(1) One bag of Garden Soil

I’m giving you fair warning now.  This post is picture heavy because 1. I love plants and 2. I would move into this plant nursery if they let me – it’s so good.  I teamed up with Prairie Gardens, my local Champaign, IL plant shop and it was a match made in green heaven.

How to make a stackable herb garden with terra cotta pots?

The first step to create a stacked herb garden planter is selecting the appropriate sized pots.  I played around with various sized pots to find just the perfect ones.  The exact sizes depend on how large you want and what your local nursery has available.  As you can see, Prairie Gardens has quite a nice terra cotta selection.

Stacked Clay Pot Herb Garden directions

• The biggest pot will be the base of your stacked garden, pot 1 (see diagram below).  
• Then, pot 2 will be just slightly smaller.  
• Pots 3 and 4 are the next smaller in size.  These will be turned upside down, inside of pot 1 and upside down, inside of pot 2.  They allow for the appropriate height in the stacked garden.  
• Pot 5 is your smallest pot and it will be located at the very top.

I bought six different herbs, but the selection was so bountiful it was hard to narrow it down to only six plants!  I bought basil, lemon thyme, spearmint, variated sage, nasturtium and rosemary.

DIY Stacked Herb Garden

Next is the fun part, putting it all together… this DIY portion of this project.  Start by stacking the pots per my above layout and adding in small amounts of the garden soil to hold each of the pots in place as you go.

Planting Herbs in a Stacked Pot

Then, starting at the bottom, pot 1, I started planting my herbs.  Take into consideration the size and style of each herb you plan to use.  I tried to vary heights and trailing herbs to keep it looking interesting throughout.

I think these nasturtium might be my favorite plant.  The flowers (they’v not bloomed yet) and leaves are edible and I’m very excited to try them this year!

Did you know I wrote an ebook all about How to not kill your indoor plants?  It has a helpful checklist for the 6 steps to keep your plants alive + thriving.  In addition is has a deep dive on 7 trending “it” plants and 5 plant printables to hang in your home.  Buy it here.

I could not be more thrilled with the outcome.

I found a perfect spot for my stacked herb garden.  It gets just a little morning shade with plenty of afternoon sun. And as long as there was a plant tray underneath, you could even create this as an indoor herb garden!

3 tier planter garden

Look how perfect these three tiers look from above. There is nothing more beautiful than a simple herb garden in the summer.

What to plant in stackable planter gardens?

I am growing quite a fun selection of green herbs this year in my stackable terra cotta pots.  There is basil, lemon thyme, spearmint, variated sage, nasturtium and rosemary growing in our stacked garden.

Another bonus of growing herbs in pots, is you can visually see when the pots have dried out, versus when they are still wet and various portions of the pots are different colored from the moisture of the water in the soil.

I made a caprese salad over the weekend and loved being able to use basil from my new stacked herb garden!  What is your favorite herb and have you tried this type of garden before?

Don’t forget to pin this fun idea for later!

Thank you to Prairie Gardens plant nursery for collaborating with me on this project.  I was compensated with plant material but all opinions are 100% mine.  

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