Most of my succulent experience is from a central Texas greenhouse in the middle of the summer. If I didn’t water the heck out of those suckers, they weren’t going to make it. Now that I grow all of my succulents indoors, I have the tendency to over-water, and I don’t trust myself to plant them in pots without drainage holes.
When my new succulents outgrew their containers, they desperately needed to be repotted. Unfortunately, planters with drainage are expensive. I didn’t want to fork over $30 for a plant pot, let alone go planter hunting in the middle of a pandemic.
I started looking for alternatives; I had accumulated a handful of cute, sturdy pots over the years, but they didn’t have drainage holes.
What was a girl to do?
Make my own drainage holes, of course!
I remembered reading a blog post a few years back that mentioned submerging the planter in water while drilling. Since none of the articles I found this time around said anything about water, I didn’t think anything more of it.
I used this awesome tutorial by Stephanie Lynn to identify what tools we needed and how to proceed with the project. I used a ½ inch masonry drill bit since we were drilling through clay/terra cotta pots, and it was the largest one we had on hand.
Jacob and I must not have been using enough force or too slow a drill speed, because we couldn’t make more than a dent in the planter base after 30 minutes of drilling. I once again thought about using water since terra cotta is absorbent and would likely be easier to drill when wet. Adding water worked perfectly!
Our Technique – The tutorial we used stated to drill slowly with light pressure. We used a Ryobi One+ + compact cordless drill/driver, a lower-end drill, at medium speed. Pressure-wise, I let the drill rest its full weight on the planter, and only applied light pressure just before the drill broke through to the other side.
I kept a container of water next to the work area to avoid taking multiple trips to the faucet. I poured water over the planter base every couple of minutes to keep the drilling surface wet and to try to wash off some of the dust. It took me around 20 minutes per pot, but likely would have been faster if I had put more pressure on the drill.
12/21 Update – we have been using the planters for over a year, and they are holding up great, and the drainage holes still work perfectly!
Happy Drilling!
Disclaimer: This commentary is based on my personal opinion; feel free to consult any other resources you may find necessary or useful. This post is in no way sponsored; all comments are my own.