If you’ve ever drooled over chunky gabion planters but live in a small space with flimsy balcony railings and rental‑grade walls, you’ll know they’re usually a hard no. Rocks and stones in a wire cage look amazing, but they weigh a ton. Fortunately, I found a brilliant workaround that doesn’t involve any heavy lifting. Ta‑da – meet my fake rock‑filled, lightweight, hanging gabion planter.
Doesn’t she look stunning?
Everyone’s been asking me how on earth I managed to hang her up with all those heavy rocks. Shhhh, it’s a secret… but not for long.
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to make a lightweight hanging planter, so you get all the visual drama with none of the “is this going to pull the house down?” anxiety.
What you need
The trick to making this hanging gabion planter is a large EPS Foam Cooler. If you enjoy fishing or know someone who does, you’ve probably seen them before.
Check that the walls are at least 2” (4.5 cm) thick.
You’ll also need:
- Craft Paint
- Craft knife
- Earbuds
- Polyfilla or joint compound
- Exterior, clear matt varnish
- Plastic coated wire mesh (34″x 34″)
- Heavy duty zip ties
- Concrete adhesive or bonding agent (optional)
To hang the gabion planter, you’ll need:
- Chain (6 times the height of the foam cooler)
- 5 x Carabiners (4 medium sized ones and a large one)
- Eye bolt with nuts and washer
How to Make a Stone-Free, Lightweight Hanging Gabion Planter
After seeing how well our affordable gabion planter tutorial did, I wanted to recreate the same rugged, industrial look. Minus the all those heavy rocks and pebbles, of course. Something light enough to hang on a balcony or patio. The solution I came up with was to use a thick EVA polystyrene cooler as the “base” for my planter. All I needed to do was mimic the look of pebbles and put the cooler in a wire cage so I could hang her up. Sound easy, right? Well I’m here to tell its was. Let me show you how you can make your own.
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Carving pebbles into the EVA Cooler
Start by drawing a loose pattern of different-sized pebble shapes on the sides of the EVA box. You can use a sharp craft knife or pencil and be gentle. You only need shallow grooves at this stage. Keep the shapes uneven and irregular. This is one of those times when wonky is exactly what you want. Mother Nature is wonderfully chaotic and doesn’t really do matchy-matchy perfection.
Use a craft knife to dig out the bits between the pebbles.
Go back over the shallow cuts and widen them into little channels. The channels will create an illusion of depth once we paint the box. Don’t go too deep. ½” – ¾ “is all you need. That’s about 1 – 1.5 cm. You just want the individual shapes to stand apart.
Place your craft knife at an angle and carve or scrape the edges around each shape to soften them. Don’t overthink it. A few dents, uneven curves, and slightly flatter “stones” will make the finished gabion look more realistic.
When you come to the sides of the box, try to wrap some pebbles around the corners instead of ending them abruptly at an edge. That small detail stops the box shape from showing through later.
Tackle one side at a time and you should end up with something like this.
Don’t forget to shape the pebbles around the top edge of the cooler too.
Poke a few drainage holes in the bottom of the gabion planter, if you’re going to add real plants later.
Now to get rid of that tell-tale smooth polystyrene surface.
Adding “pebbly texture”
To add a rough, pebbles texture, I covered the outside of the box in Polyfilla (aka joint compound or Spackle). You can also use texture paste (homemade recipe here). Polystyrene can be a tricky for plastery products to grip onto, so I applied a bonding agent first. Leave to dry completely.
Use a small palette knife, spatula, old butter knife, or even your fingers to add a thin coat of Polyfilla. Dab, stipple, wipe, and gently drag the paste over the surface. You want a slightly uneven finish. Kinda like real pebbles that have been knocked about.
Try not to smoosh too much paste into the carved grooves. If you do, use your fingers or an earbud to remove some of the paste before it dries. Don’t remove everything. Those gaps need some texture too.
Leave the paste to cure. I left mine overnight but check the packaging for tips on drying time. In the meantime, you can cut a basic template for the wire cage we’ll add once we’re done.
Making a wire gabion cage
The word gabion comes from the Italian word gabbione, which means “big cage”. So, without this cage thing it doesn’t qualify as a gabion planter. Plus, the cage makes it easier to hang. Making the cage is really quick. I used plastic-coated wire mesh because it’s sturdy and easy to cut. It also gives the planter that lovely chunky gabion finish.
The easiest way to work out how much mesh you need is to use the height of your soon-to-be-hanging-gabion-planter as a guide. Measure from the bottom of the planter to the top. This measurement becomes the height of each side of the wire-mesh basket. Place the planter in the middle of the mesh, with the top facing upward. You need enough mesh on all four sides to fold up and create the sides of the hanging gabion. From each side of the planter, measure outward by the same amount as the planter’s height.
Cut out the four corner squares.
You should end up with a cross-shaped piece of mesh that looks something like this.
Leave an extra row of squares around the edges. That way you’ll have some wiggle room when you fold and join the corners later. You can always trim the excess off. Put the mesh to one side and paint the planter.
Painting the gabion planter
Now for the fun bits, adding colour to the texture pebbles. There is no right or wrong way to paint them. I used white, black, and brown craft paint.
Start by mixing black and white paint until you have a dark charcoal grey. Add a little water so the paint flows easily into the gaps between the faux pebbles. Don’t worry if some paint lands on the pebbles. We’ll cover the oopsies in the next step.
Add a small amount of white chalk paint to lighten the charcoal grey mix. Chalk paint gives the stones a softer, weathered colour. Use a larger brush to paint the raised stones with the lighter grey. Try not to cover the dark paint in the grooves. If you make a mistake, you can always go back and touch it up later.
Before the paint dries completely, dab a watered-down brown onto random pebbles with a sponge. Don’t aim for an even coat of paint. Random is good. If one bit looks too same-same, add a little brown, charcoal, or light grey until it blends in with the rest.
Seal the faux pebbles with a clear matt varnish. We’re almost there. All that’s left to do is add the wire mesh cage, a plant or three and hang this baby up.
Caging the pebbles and adding plants
Place the faux-pebble planter in the middle of the cross-shaped piece of mesh you cut earlier. Fold each side flap up so it hugs the planter. Use black cable ties to connect the four corners and make a cage.
Tip: Pull the mesh firmly around the planter before tightening the cable ties. You want the faux stones to press gently against the mesh, but not so tightly that the cage loses it’s shape.
Crush a few empty soda cans and flip them upside down inside the planter. The cans take up space without adding too much weight, which means you need less soil. It’s surprising how much heavy soil, plants, and water can be. Pack coconut coir tightly between the gaps.
Add a light potting mix over the coconut coir.
I make my own using ordinary potting soil, perlite and chunky bark chips.
You can also use a ready-made potting soil designed for hanging baskets. As long as you don’t weight your hanging gabion planter down with heavy stuff. No rocks, gravel or clay soil. Once filled, it should pass the one finger test.
Before adding plants, check that the drainage holes aren’t clogged. If you don’t see any water, poke a few more holes in the bottom.
Add some luscious greenery. I chose a curly leaf bird’s fern for my planter. She enjoys dappled shade and won’t get too big.
And just to make sure I didn’t mess up, Meaka was on hand to inspect the lightweight gabion planter before it went up. Silly sausage.
Hanging the gabion planter
To hang the planter, clip a sturdy carabiner onto each top corner of the wire-mesh cage. Cut four equal lengths of chain, each about one-and-a-half times the height of the planter. Attach one end of each chain to a corner carabiner. Gather the four loose chain ends together and clip them into one larger carabiner. The larger carabiner becomes the main hanging point for the planter.
Important: The final weight includes the planter, mesh, chain, plants, soil, and water. Always use hanging hardware that can handle the weight and attach it to a secure structure.
A picture hook on a garden trellis isn’t going to cut it. I used a heavy duty, stainless steel eye bolt and thread to hang mine.
And that’s it. The hanging gabion looks so dramatic and blends into our highveld garden beautifully.
Even Joey pitched up to see what was happening.
I’m over the moon with how it turned out.
What you think? Would you hang a gabion planter on your patio? Let me know in the comments
And if you like the idea of hanging gabion planters, don’t forget to pin the tutorial for later.
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To hang the gabion planter
Last update on 2026-08-16 / Source Amazon Affiliates