Cheap, Easy Bonsai Benches!!!

[Brian Van Fleet]

Makes me want to rethink having dogs! lol

I could get you started with a blue Merle Aussie...guaranteed to crap in the house...

 

[jkd2572]

Dogs also chase those damn yard rats, squrilles, away from your pots.

 

[edprocoat]

I made a three tiered bench using step risers and 2x4's for the legs treated wood across the steps for the plants to set on. I enclosed the bottom and covered it in plastic and put a light under the top step/bench and I keep my tropicals in there. It cost about $50 bucks excluding the light.

ed

 

[Jason]

Nice benches Brians (Including the trees). Very attractive. Mine do not look as finished as yours. I use concrete blocks (sometimes fancy ones) for the bases (since I live in the Northwest and wood rots here quickly it works out well). I use treated 2 x 4's for the tops. If they warp they are not attached so I just turn them over. Even though they don't look as nice there are a few advantages to this. Three tiered benches can become two tier benches the next year. I can move them around every spring and fall to clean up debris and or spray. My watering system gets changed around to fit the set up and I move whole benches when the seasons change. I'll eventually have a few monkey poles when I get a few specimens I'm excited about, but I kind of like things being mobile.

 

[fore]

I could get you started with a blue Merle Aussie...guaranteed to crap in the house...

LOL!! Thanks, but no Thanks Brian as much as I owe you! Too funny!

So true jkd! In fact, I woke yesterday morning to a pleasant surprise on my porch, a dead rat! My female german shepherd is incredibly fast, and I stay up late at night. She gets them when I let them out at night. This is her third kill! lol Actually this is why I'm also so concerned about the warm weather here, after last yrs. mild winter, we've had a bumper crop of rats and rabbits. The rats eat my fert. cakes so I had to stop using them, and the rabbits decimated my ground cover plants. And it's 60F today! I'm shuddering at the thought of next yr rodent problem if this is another warm winter!

Regarding benches, I have to have all mine high enough off the ground also for the dogs, they love to eat turface if you can believe that! lol

 

[jkd2572]

Better pic of one of my favorite benches I made. Final got a 14 mp camera with wifi that will email photos to my iPad this weekend. Hopefully my pic quality will start to get better in my posts.

 

[Nybonsai12]

Thanks to Brian for making this thread. Picked up all the materials today and hopefully will find some time this week to make it.

 

[wlambeth]

Yard

I go simple too, 4x4 or 6x6 posts, and 2x2 slats on top of 2x4s; monkey poles and benches, all treated. Mine are taller, 3' to 4.5' high, which makes them easier to see and work on, and in the winter, trees go under the taller benches to be protected from what little wind we get.

Beautiful yard Brian!

 

[monza]

Better pic of one of my favorite benches I made. Final got a 14 mp camera with wifi that will email photos to my iPad this weekend. Hopefully my pic quality will start to get better in my posts.
View attachment 28379

Now thats a bench! Very nice and some great look trees.

 

[Paradox]

I've got heavy duty plastic shelving from Home Depot right now. Since it looks like Ill be sticking with this hobby, Im thinking about building some more permanent benches out of plastic wood used to build decks.

No rot, no paint and they should last forever.

 

[jkd2572]

Now thats a bench! Very nice and some great look trees.

I'm not a carpenter and that was my first attempt at such a thing. I need two more and I cringe every time I think of the whole weekend it took me to make. Hopefully I will get bored this winter when half of my trees go into storage and get motivated.

 

[rockm]

"Im thinking about building some more permanent benches out of plastic wood used to build decks"

Be careful. Some of this stuff tends to sag in longer sections without underlying support beams. I used it for an eight foot run of shelves and it droops terribly. I'm not going to use it anymore.

 

[crust]

Plastic/composite decking is quite dense and gets very HOT and needs lots of support. It lasts but does not age gracefully.

 

[mcpesq817]

"Im thinking about building some more permanent benches out of plastic wood used to build decks"

Be careful. Some of this stuff tends to sag in longer sections without underlying support beams. I used it for an eight foot run of shelves and it droops terribly. I'm not going to use it anymore.

I tried using these type of deck planks for my benches, and found that they sagged way too much. I ended up throwing it all out and buying the plastic benches linked above.

 

[Brian Underwood]

Follow my mantra "Wood is good..."

I like that way overbuilt bench, JKD! Looks incredibly heavy, but hey, you built it to last a really long time. Good stuff guys!

 

[jkd2572]

It's built to look good by itself. And just light enough to move around if I want to. If you notice I took the pic sitting on my outside sectional couch. The bench is that short so the trees are eye level when people sit on the couch. I think a nice bench makes your trees look better. That's funny because I don't think that much about pots.

 

[Charlie]

Ok, reviving this thread almost a decade later to say that I'm in the middle of building this bench and can't for the life of me figure out how the 2x2s are 1 ft long if they can span 4 2x4s with gaps in between. Are the leg supports longer than 1 ft?

 

[Charlie]

Ok, reviving this thread almost a decade later to say that I'm in the middle of building this bench and can't for the life of me figure out how the 2x2s are 1 ft long if they can span 4 2x4s with gaps in between. Are the leg supports longer than 1 ft?

I'll provide an update just in case anyone reads this in the future and wants to know whether I solved it or not. I did! I just recut the 2x2s to 17 inches (4x3.5 inch width of two by fours + 3x1 inch gap) and it worked like a charm.