Lechuza BALCONERA Color 50 Self Watering Planter Plastic Indoor/Outdoor Flower Plant Pot Table and Window Box with Drainage Hole H19 L50 W19 cm Slate

Firstly, I have previously bought a self-watering planter from Lechuza in a smaller size which I really loved, and therefore I decided to come back to the same brand, but for a larger planter as I wanted to plant more herbs! In the smaller planter I planted 3 herbs (coriander, basil, and parsley) but it was too small, and so the coriander died off, so lesson learned for this one! I've attached photos, and as you can see, I have 3 in the first trough, 2 in the second (the coriander was very sickly when it first arrived from the supermarket so I wanted it to have loads of space to recover!) and then my mint on its own in the smaller planter so that I can easily plant it in the garden when it has grown some more. Setting up the planters is very simple - they come with gravel to help with the drainage, and you put that straight in the bottom. I was pleased to see that there was less gravel than in the smaller planter, as with that one if you used all the rocks they gave you, you had no room to put a plant in! Bedding the plants in is simple, I made sure to put a layer of soil/compost down and then placed the plants in and surrounded them with more soil. You must remember to give your plants a chance to put down roots before you start trying to use the "self-watering" part of this planter. Until your plants' roots have reached through to the bottom, they will not be able to drink the water from under the troughs, so until then you must water the soil itself. Overall, I think these are aesthetically pleasing, very easy to use (although lifting the trough off a flat surface is quite difficult, so perhaps get it to where you want it before you start filling it up!), and do their job well. I have plans to expand my "herb garden" so I'll be looking to get some more then! (This is the smaller planter I've been referring to Lechuza Premiuim Delta 10 30cm Wide, High Gloss White Self Watering Houseplant & Herb Windowsill Planter Trough ) Happy planting! (I'm sorry about the photos, no matter what browser I use, they will not upload in the correct orientation!)

Very good, heavy, but very good. Looks good with plants in, pitcher on one side and Venus Fly Trap on the other !!

Thanks to GetPotted and Sandy Gaskins who answered my question about how to attach them to the wall. Both the boxes themselves and the brackets that you have to buy separately are extremely well made and reasonably priced for the quality (IMHO). I wouldn't hesitate to buy more of these. Everything was well packaged and seems to have shipped directly from Lechuza in Germany in a very sensible time frame. I bought a length of 34 mm x 18 mm (x 1800 mm) wood from B&Q and cut two 600 mm lengths from it. The bracket mounting screws are exactly 500 mm apart so no template needed for the wall. Just make a 30 mm cut-out to a depth of about 5mm centred at 50 mm from each end of the 600 mm lengths. (The mounting straps are about 18 mm in width and only about 2 or 3 mm thick, so such cut-outs give a margin for error). I then used Ronseal 10 year wood stain on the wood before screwing them to the wall. Hopefully my photos will give the idea. It really wasn't that difficult. Finally, I followed the video instructions about using the Lechuza Pon (which is included) underneath the potting compost and, a week later, all my plants seem to be growing beautifully. They do seem to drink the water from underneath, even though it says to water from the top for the first 12 weeks. The level indicator was certainly showing down after about 5 to 7 days anyway, despite some watering from above too. I'd be confident to go away and leave them for a week immediately after first planting. The only other thing is that I thought they were going to be darker. When it said Slate colour, I imagined something closer to black so was surprised when they turned up a much lighter grey colour. But that wasn't a problem for my manager (missus) who, luckily, didn't seem to care. Phew!

Very well made, stylish and super easy to use. This planter has made my dying chilli plants far happier! I love that I can rest assured the plants won’t dry out if I’m away for a few days (thanks to the watering system). Really easy to re-pot too due to the lift-out centre and concealed handles. It’s only the cost which stops me giving it a 5th star.

Pros: ● self watering comes very handy. ● Sleek design and looks very expensive. ● Two compartments. ● water indicater works and it is useful. ● My plants looks happy. Cons: Really heavy once you put the soil and it gets havier after watering. I doubt a wall shelf or floating shelf will hold this. It needs a steady strong shelf. Overall: I am happy and found the perfect place to put it. Need to buy another one but waiting for the price to drop a but as its really expensive.

Very good quality German made planter with a double skin, so the plants sit in an internal basket with sits above a water reservoir. There is some slight bowing when painted, but the rigidity and strength are good, and the colour and finish are attractive. The water reservoir has an overflow that can be opened for outdoor use so that they don't get waterlogged, and the water level guage and capped hole to refill them is useful. Be aware that brackets to fit them to railings are an optional extra and not included. I particularly liked the colour and smooth finish, which in my opinion looks better than other brands (which often have a fake rattan finish which I dislike).

2 easy lift out inserts, solid sides, HD Resin-Plastic construction, good heft. Nice matt nutmeg colour. A simple and useful capillary water level indicator to show when a water top us is needed, which sticks out above (care needed not to knock). The illustrated wall mounting brackets were mising, though they are illustrated and the product dcescription says all mounting and fixings are included. The return process refers at several steps to product support at the Lechuza website even though they are not the seller and cannot help. So amazon sent me on a futile chase to get the missing pieces. No where does amazon make it clear, there is no option to get missing pieces replaced (£18 separately), only a return for refund. That makes this a much more expensive planter than competing equivalents of similar size and wall thickness. RETURNED

These have now been installed on my balcony for over a month and I’m REALLY happy with them. Got the brackets for them too and they were very easy to install and came with gravel for each planter bucket. When we had high winds I was able to easily pull out the planter inside buckets with their retractable handles and place them where they would be better protected. I bought 3 planters and put herbs in one and grasses in the others. The herbs (mint parsley & dill) are going berserk - they love it - and the grasses doing well. The water will pool in the bottom of the outer casing as the drain it set a little high but it hasn’t been an issue so far at all The grey colour is lovely and I’ve had lots of compliments. Easy to wipe clean.