Bottomless Designer Planters

It means the unit has four sides and no base. It is a surround rather than a container, so it never holds soil or water. You place it over a nursery pot, a hedge trough or an existing arrangement, and it hides that container behind a finished black metal face while the planting itself keeps sitting on the ground or the paving underneath.

That is the primary use. An artificial hedge is usually supplied in a plain plastic trough that looks unfinished from the front, and dropping a bottomless surround over it turns the whole thing into a resolved piece of joinery. The same applies to a large fake tree in a black nursery pot. Since nothing is watered and the base is open, there is no pooling and no staining on the surface below.

Measure the widest point of the container going inside, at ground level, and pick the size that clears it on all four sides. Do not size against the plant's spread, which is what you would do with a conventional pot. Height should conceal the container but stay below the foliage, otherwise the planting reads as cropped.

They arrive flat-packed as metal panels and go together on site, which is a deliberate design choice rather than a compromise. It means a large surround fits through a doorway and up a stair as a flat bundle. It also means the unit can be assembled in position around something already standing there, which is impossible with a one-piece planter.

The medium size is available with wheels at $349.95, against $199.95 for the fixed medium. Wheels turn a static boundary into a movable one, which is what a restaurant needs when an outdoor dining line has to shift for a function or a delivery, or what an office needs when a screen has to clear a corridor for cleaning. The fixed sizes are the choice for a permanent line.

A standard pot from the round designer pots range is a closed vessel that the specimen goes into, sized against the nursery pot diameter. A bottomless surround goes around whatever is already there and is sized against its footprint. Use a pot when starting from the plant, and a surround when the planting exists and only the container needs solving.

Yes, and the open base is an advantage outside because rain passes straight through instead of collecting in a reservoir. They are used along outdoor dining boundaries and retail thresholds for exactly that reason. On a soft surface, check that the base of the panels sits level, since a surround with no floor relies on the ground beneath it being even.

Yes, and it is the usual way they are specified for a boundary. Running the large size end to end creates a continuous black plinth with the planting appearing to grow out of it. Mixing sizes along a run breaks the line, so keep one size per continuous stretch and change size only where the boundary turns a corner.