Why most wooden planters rot in two winters (and the 6 checks that stop it)

If you’ve owned a wooden planter that rotted, look at where it went first. It’s almost never the top, it’s the bottom, the boards in contact with the ground. One gardener put it plainly: "the first bottom boards are now rotting and have become bowed where they have detached from the supports."

Wood doesn’t rot because it’s wood. It rots because the base sits in trapped water, day and night, with nowhere for the wet to go. As the experienced lot on the forums say, "wood in contact with soil will rot really quickly." So the question isn’t "is it wood?" It’s "does the base ever get to dry out?"

That’s why the Sussex sits on a slatted raised base, built in. Water and air pass underneath, so the bottom never sits wet. Nothing to prop on bricks, no pot feet to buy. Get this one right and you’ve dealt with the single biggest cause of a rotten planter.

Standing water is what turns damp into rot. Everyone reaches for the old trick of tipping a layer of gravel or rocks in the bottom. Don’t. As the gardening experts put it, "adding rocks to the bottom of a planter raises the water table, leaving roots in soggy soil and increasing the risk of root rot." Your "drainage layer" becomes a paddling pool, and the wood sits in it.

So check that drainage is designed in, not left as a job for you. On the Sussex, the slatted base and the built-in liner work together: water drains away through the base instead of pooling, so the timber stays dry and the roots don’t drown. Nothing to drill, no gravel myth to fall for.

Thin wood is the second way these planters die. It looks the part in the photo, then the first wet spell gets into it. The reviews tell the story: "every panel bent like a banana," wrote one buyer; another said the wood "feels quite flimsy and thin." Thin timber holds water against itself, and once it warps the joins open up and let in more.

So look past the photo and check what the wood actually is. The Sussex is solid Northern European softwood, solid through, with no veneer and no chipboard, thick enough to hold damp soil without sagging or soaking through. Solid timber dries out; thin cladding stays wet, and wet is what rots.

Bare wood doesn’t stand a chance outside. As one gardener warned, "I wouldn’t use untreated timber outside in contact with the soil as it will only last a year or so." So it needs treating, and that’s where most people hit the trap, because the usual rot treatments are exactly what you don’t want near herbs and salads.

So check what it’s treated with, and whether that’s safe for soil and edibles. The Sussex is treated with Timbac, our own non-toxic, water-and-wax treatment. It is not tanalised and not pressure-treated. It protects the timber against rot and it’s safe around edibles, pets, soil and children from day one, so you get the rot protection without the chemical worry.

Even good timber rots early if it’s badly put together. Flat-pack planters leave you tightening cheap fixings, and the base, which carries all the weight of wet soil, is where they give first. One buyer of a cheap kit ended up having to "clamp and use extra screws" just to hold it together, and once a joint works loose, water gets into the end grain and the rot follows.

So check how it’s built, and who built it. The Sussex is made in our Kent workshop and arrives fully assembled, with the base boards fixed solid and the drainage built in. You lift it out of the box and plant, there’s no flat-pack to wrestle, no weak joint waiting to open up.

Here I’ll be honest in a way that might cost me the sale. The big sheds quote 10- or 15-year guarantees. We give you 2. On paper theirs sounds better, until you read what those long guarantees actually cover.

The standard trick is to exclude the things that genuinely go wrong, rot, warping, "natural movement of timber," fair wear and tear, so the headline reassures and the cover underneath is thin. Our 2-year guarantee has no exclusions: it covers manufacturing defects and anti-rot, full stop. On the one failure that kills these planters, we’re the ones putting our name to it. And if it’s not right, you’ve got 90-day free returns, large items included.