I have a few of those wire basket planters that came with coconut liners when I bought them, and I love them. The coco liner always looks so beautiful when freshly planted with summer annuals. But after a season or two, they start to look dingy and gray. Plus, the birds like to tear the coco fibre apart to use for building their nests in the spring. The result? Well, it’s not pretty!!
I love my wire basket planters, but they are unusable without the coconut liners. I could buy fresh replacement coco liners every spring, but that gets to be very expensive.
I couldn’t justify the cost of replacing the expensive coconut liners, so my favorite wire planter ended up sitting in the garage.
My wire planter with brand new coco liners (way back when)
Every time I looked at it I felt sad and frustrated about the cost of the coco planter liners. It finally came to the point where I was either going to get rid of the planter, or figure out how I could make it useable again.
Challenge accepted!
Coconut liner faded and torn apart by birds
What To Use As An Alternative For Coconut Liners
All I needed to do was figure out a way to replace the coconut planter liners, but using a cheaper alternative material.
I racked my brain for a few weeks trying to come up with ideas. But the answer didn’t come easily, and I continued to feel frustrated.
Then one day while I was cleaning the garage, I came across a bunch of leftover landscaping fabric that was just collecting dust.
Aha!
I found my solution for a cheap alternative to coconut liners.
Landscaping fabric is an inexpensive coconut liner alternative
Benefits Of Landscaping Fabric Planter Liners
When I came up with this idea, I was so excited!! Not only would this be much cheaper than buying brand new coco basket liners, it will also last much longer!
And boy was I right about that!! I came up with this idea 7 years ago, and my DIY alternative planter liners look just as great today as they did when I first made them.
Lining planters with landscaping fabric is not only cheaper, but it will last for many, many more years than the coco basket liners. And my wire basket planters or much less maintenance now since the liners don’t have to be replaced all the time.
Plus, I think the black liner look really nice too (way nicer than a dingy old gray coco liner that’s half torn apart by the birds, that’s for sure!)
New plant liner ready for plants
Easy DIY Landscaping Fabric Planter Liner
Since the landscaping fabric isn’t stiff like coconut liners are, it took a bit more work to get the liner looking good in the baskets of my metal planter.
I decided to use a thin metal wire to attach the landscaping fabric to the metal planter baskets. That way, the fabric stays in place and the dirt won’t spill out.
I simply poked the metal wire through the liner, and then wrapped the metal around the top of the basket, filling the liner with dirt as I worked my way around the basket.
Wire basket planter coco liner alternative
I also took the time to bunch and straighten the liner as I went around each basket so the landscaping fabric wouldn’t bunch up in one spot in the basket.
Once the fabric was attached all the way around the wire basket, I trimmed off the extra fabric around the top so it was even with the top of the metal basket.
DIY landscaping fabric planter liner
After the baskets were filled with dirt, the liner popped into shape and my wire planter looked great again. The landscaping fabric will last much longer than a coconut liner, saving me tons of money each spring.
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How to Save Money on Plants
To save myself even more cash, I decided to plant a mix of hardy succulent sedums in my new wire planter rather than using annual plants that need to be replaced every spring.
That way, I can just overwinter the hardy succulents in the garage and pull my planter out each spring to reuse year after year. It doesn’t get any easier than that.
This option didn’t cost me a cent since I used materials I already had sitting around and plants from the garden.
I am very happy with the way this turned out using my homemade coconut liner alternative, and proud of the fact that I was able to make my wire basket planter new again.
If you’re not ready to take on a project like this yourself, you can purchase a coconut liner roll and cut them to size, or buy replacement coco liners here.
Coconut planter filled with plants
This would work great as an alternative for any type of coco liner baskets, including hanging baskets with liners, hanging deck railing planters, or replacing coco liners for window boxes.
Coconut liner replacement filled with plants
Even if you don’t have any sitting around in your garage and you have to buy landscaping fabric to replace your coconut liners, it will still be cheaper in the long run because the landscaping fabric will last much, much longer than the coconut liners.
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Coconut liner replaced with landscaping fabric
If you prefer the look of the coconut liners over the landscaping fabric, another great alternative wire basket liner is burlap.
A burlap liner will give you a similar look as the coco liners, but will last longer. You can buy burlap in a roll, and follow my instructions above to line your wire basket with burlap liner.
So, if you have any hanging baskets or wire baskets with liners sitting around collecting dust, give them new life with with these do-it-yourself wire basket liners!
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Have you figured out a cheap alternative to coconut liners too? Tell me about it in the comments below.
kay lovin says
I have an old hammock that my grand daughter was going to throw away.It had a few tears in it but otherwise was ok.It also still had a pretty color.I then used the ropes at the end of the hammock to tie the cloth to the rim of the wire basket at the top after punching holes in the cloth.
Amy Andrychowicz says
Wow, that is ingenious! Did you use it to line one wire planter basket, or did you cut it up and use it for a bunch of them? I love your creativity.
LouLou says
So glad I found your website a few weeks ago. I was sick to death of coco liners, not only due to the cost, (and birds picking it apart all summer), but also the time it took me to create a nice-looking basket.
You see, my 2 wire baskets are “half-rounds”, with the flat side fitting right up against my porch deck. Because of that, I’d buy coco liners for full round baskets, but then had to cut it, then rearrange so that the cuts weren’t so noticeable. I had to buy 2 coco liners in order to fit each half-round basket, so that meant I had to buy 4 liners, every spring. It literally took more than 2 hours, to create each basket. Such a pain!!
Now onto your very sage advice in your article… First, I adopted your idea for using landscape fabric, but instead used burlap, as I had plenty of it.
It looked OK, but just wasn’t ideal. And, it took a lot of time to get it to fit adequately,, more time than I’d wanted to spend on it.
Then today, I decided I’d splurge on some landscaping fabric… And I’m SO glad I did! Not only do my baskets look way better with landscaping fabric versus burlap, the best thing is this: it took only 15 minutes to create one half-round basket! I was thrilled about that!!
Although I didn’t use wire as you did, to attach the landscaping fabric to the basket (an excellent idea, BTW), I hit upon a idea that worked, and was really quick.
I used 1 extra-long rubber band, on each basket, and placed it around and under the top edge of each basket, and tucked the landscaping fabric underneath the rubber band. This worked great. (I bought the rubber bands at Walmart for less than $2. The extra-long bands are 7″ and above. I use these for many home projects.
Anyway, thank you!! Your idea saved me $$, plus time!
Amy Andrychowicz says
Wonderful!! I’m so glad to hear the landscaping fabric worked so well for you, and made it quick to line your wire baskets! The best part is that it should last you for years now, so you shouldn’t need to reline them for a long time! 🙂 Enjoy!
KEVIN LUZADER says
Great idea. I was just looking at liners and ended up looking here. I have a new roll of fabric I was going to give to my neighbor. Not now as this is a no cost solution for me. Thanks
Amy Andrychowicz says
You’re welcome! Glad to hear you found a use for your landscaping fabric! 😉
Marge Sakelik says
I use left over Sunbrella out door fabric to line my baskets, basically same idea. Had some from making pillows, jungle print, now my baskets match.
Amy Andrychowicz says
Great idea using cute outdoor fabric to line your wire baskets. Sounds so cute!
Mary Gilroy says
Thanks for the information. I have a 36″ planter x 36″ high, that I really like, and a groundhog eats the coco liner every year. So will use burlap, followed by landscape fabric, and line all with plastic, with holes in it. Coco liners have gotten very expensive – really happy to find this site!
Amy Andrychowicz says
Sounds like a great plan to replace your coconut liners! Crazy that the groundhog eats it, LOL!
Madeline says
Great ideas! Now I’m thinking I could buy remnant fabrics, or use old T-shirts instead = reuse / upcycle too.
I laughed at the comment [above] about how the liners are sometimes more expensive than the baskets.
Amy Andrychowicz says
Great ideas for alternatives to coconut liners! 🙂
Carolyn says
I have used a t-shirt in my hanging baskets before… works great!
Marc Roberts says
WONDERFUL!!! After stops at 5 different garden centres, and still nothing to fit what I need, my wife mentioned some burlap in her fabric pile. I’m gonna give them both a shot. Have the flowers, more baskets than I can think of, all because I can’t find the liners.
Great blog by the way. Flowers here I come. Oh and for those that notice, “centre is spelled correctly” I’m Canadian lol.
Amy Andrychowicz says
Awesome, so glad this helped you and that you’ll be able to use all those wire planters now with your DIY plant liners. 🙂 Have fun. And thanks for your nice comment about my blog. 🙂
Debbie Propeck says
What a fantastic idea! I was just telling my husband that I wasn’t going to do my hanging planters or stands this year because they all needed the coconut liners replaced.😞 I was looking at around 100.00 + yikes! That’s just crazy. Well I’m so glad I didn’t miss this because I have a 50′ roll that I had no idea what to do with woohoo I do now! Thanks again for such an awesome idea it’s going to be 95+ here for the next 3days so this will be the perfect project for my indoor potting station. 🙂 Have a super weekend!
Amy Andrychowicz says
Yeah! So glad to hear that you will be able to use your wire hanging baskets and planters after all! The coconut liners are pretty, but so darn expensive. Have fun and I hope the landscaping fabric alternative works great for you!
Karen M Biederbeck says
I line my wire baskets with moss collected in the forest when my husband and I go for a walk. You can then place your bird-torn coconut liner in it or now use this great idea of the landscape fabric! Moss can also be added over the dirt and around new plants as they grow to keep the moisture more consistent. It can be left on or removed after the plants fill in. Thanks for the landscape fabric idea – love it!
Amy Andrychowicz says
You’re welcome! And thanks for your tip about the moss. It’s funny, because moss has naturally started growing on the outside of one of my liners, and I was just thinking that I wish it would grow over the whole thing. That would be beautiful!