Desktop Planter Generator
A finger-jointed wooden box on feet with a 3D-printed liner inside: a tub that holds the water, a basket with a grid floor that keeps the roots above it, and a rim over the top edges. For herbs, succulents, seedlings or a gift plant.
Drawing your planter…
Free preview · Unlimited downloads with any plan
Size
Feet
A curved cut along the lower edge of every wall leaves a foot at each corner.
Material
Measure your sheet with calipers: the slots are cut to this thickness. Kerf is the width of the cut; a larger value makes the joints tighter, 0 turns it off.
Printed liner
The liner is sized to the inside of the box. Its three parts print flat without supports and press together.
Labels
Engraved in the middle of each panel, so you know which is which when you put the planter together.
Materials
How the planter goes together
- 1
Front, bottom and back
Push the bottom's tabs into the slots of the front and the back. The tabs are tight: tap them in with a rubber mallet if needed.
- 2
Close it with the sides
Press the two sides on, catching the walls' tabs and the bottom's. A drop of wood glue in the joints makes it last.
- 3
Add the liner
Set the tub in the box, stand the basket on the ribs inside it and press the rim down over the top edges.
What is in the files
- Real size
- The SVG is in millimetres. Open it in LightBurn or your laser software and the panels arrive at the size you set here.
- Five panels with feet
- Front, back, two sides and the bottom, with finger joints, the bottom's slots and the curved cut that leaves a foot at each corner.
- A liner that fits
- The 3MF holds the tub, the basket and the rim, each sized to the box you set, ready for your slicer.
Questions about the desktop planter generator
Downloading the SVG, 3MF and STL files and opening the design in the editor is included in every VectorWitch plan, with no limit on downloads.
The tub holds the water. Two ribs across its floor hold the basket above it, so extra water drains through the basket's grid and collects underneath, below the roots.
For the liner, yes. Without it the box still works as a pot cover or a catch-all box, or with a plastic liner of your own.
Start with 0.15 to 0.2 mm for a diode or CO2 laser in 5 mm plywood. If the joints are loose, raise it; if the panels will not go together, lower it. Cut one corner as a test first.
PETG is the most watertight and does not soften in the sun. PLA works indoors. Print with three walls or more so the tub holds water.
