Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I will start by saying chances are you will be disappointed if you expect to receive the item as it is currently described. An explanation of how the description is misleading and at times completely inaccurate will follow; however, that being said, this patio garden can still be a great value for the cost. When all is said and done, I am happy with it, but I can't say with any measure of certainty that I would have purchased it in the first place if the description had been accurate.
Judge for yourself.
The bad, the misleading, and the bold-face lies:
The item description says there are four pop-out holes in the bottom of the planting tray. There are NONE. What you do get is a planting tray with two holes that have already been drilled out of the bottom where raised mounds of hard plastic had once been. There are also two additional mounds of plastic that clearly designate where additional holes can be placed if you want to plant the maximum of four tomato vines as advertised. These are NOT pop out holes. Which leads to the second glaring misrepresentation of "slight assembly, no tools." Wanting to get maximum usage out of my patio garden, I got my electric drill and drilled a series of holes around the perimeter, attempting to make my own version of a pop out hole. After spending well over an hour on the project and beating the heck out of the thing with a hammer, I was still no closer to having even one of the holes beat out. I resorted to visiting my parents to use their drill press, which had the holes carved out in a matter of seconds. Of course, a drill press is a very expensive piece of equipment that not everyone will have access to and would definitely fall under the header of "tools." Finally, though this is not necessarily an issue of any misrepresentation, you should be aware that you will need to place something over the hole and around the stem of your plant to prevent your potting soil from pouring out the bottom. I used a sponge which I slit from one end to the middle, held the sponge open to slide the stem to the middle, then when released, the sponge reshapes itself over the hole to keep the soil where it belongs.
The good:
Despite all of the things that you DON'T get, there are a lot of nice things that you DO get. The tower itself is very attractive. Once you fill the base (either with water, sand, or pebbles), it is very sturdy. There are essentially three places for your plants to go: small plants can be placed on the top, tomatoes (or other upside down plants) hanging down from the bottom, and I have set small pots on top of the base. Having a pot on the bottom also has the added benefit of serving to catch any water that drips from the plants above. All in all, this is one of the nicer looking upside down planters and is sold at a fraction of the cost of the others. I liked that it is a complete upside down planting solution, so I don't have to worry about shepherd hooks or anything like that. Also, don't be concerned with the all-plastic construction. This is incredibly durable plastic, as my hammer and drill bit can attest to. To sum up the good, if you happen to have access to a drill press, getting a planter that holds up to 4 tomato vines for $26 is an incredible value.
I purchased a total of three gardens. Despite all of the aggravation, I have decided to keep them. This means two things: the issues I have outlined were no fluke, they are glaring misrepresentations. It also means that despite being severely inconvenienced (to put it mildly), the garden still managed to win me over. I have only just planted my first upside down plants, so I can't tell you how well this style of gardening will work and this review is solely on the planter, not the gardening.
Amazon has been given a detailed account of the inaccuracies and misrepresentations listed in this review. I hope they have the integrity to get the issue corrected, even though that will render my review largely irrelevant.
The bottom line:
If you are aware of what you are getting on the front end and still decide to go ahead and make a purchase, chances are you won't be disappointed.
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