We all love those garden ornaments, but they can be pretty expensive anywhere you look. Here at TGG we decided to make our own DIY concrete garden spheres (also known as garden globes, concrete balls or decorative garden balls) , and it turned out to be a fun and pretty rewarding project that cost less than $15 for three balls. We also tried out a couple different recipes, including a hypertufa version. We’ve included a shot of our sample spheres and the recipes below. Now, on to our garden sphere tutorial!
Supplies for DIY Concrete Garden Spheres
- Old glass lamp globes or spheres (we also tried a playground ball, it worked, but didn’t keep a perfect round shape!) These are thrift store finds!
- Portland cement
- Peat Moss, Potting Soil, Perlite (depending on the recipe you choose) (Perlite is found in the indoor plant supply area of your home improvement store)
- Water
- Mixing container (We used a Rubbermaid storage container)
- Stir stick (we say that, but we pretty much just used our hands…)
- Rubber gloves
- Cooking spray
- File
- Wire Brush
- Hammer
- Eye protection
Concrete Garden Sphere Recipes
Recipe 1 – Hypertufa
2 parts cement
3 parts peat moss
3 parts perlite
Water
Recipe 2 – (This is what we used!)
1 part cement
1 part peat moss
Water
Recipe 3
1 part cement
1 part potting soil
Water
Recipe 4
Pure Portland cement
Water
Mix your chosen recipe in your container, spray the inside of the glass spheres with cooking spray, then fill your spheres…yes, it is messy! You want your recipe to be the consistency of thick cake batter. Add water if it thickens too much, and use your gloved hands to break up any peat moss chunks. The idea is to have it of a consistency that’s easy to pour into the mold, but not so wet that it takes forever to dry and cure. Don’t fill the neck of the globe, you want them to end up as round as possible. Set inside a plastic bag and set upright in a cool place (we used old towels to stabilize them). Let cure for 2-3 days.
After the spheres have cured for a couple days, you are going to break the glass with the side of a hammer. We left the balls inside the bag while we did this to prevent flying glass shards. WEAR goggles or glasses protection! And use gloves.
After all the glass has been removed, use a file to take off any blemishes or protrusions, then rough up the whole surface with a wire brush. Some recipes come out really smooth and even polished looking…if you like that look, feel free to skip the wire brush.
Here is a shot of our four recipe balls. In order, from left to right… Hypertufa recipe 1, Recipe 2, Recipe 3, Recipe 4 or the pure Portland cement and water. For our final garden spheres, we used recipe 2, a good compromise between being a little organic without being too rustic.
Our finished DIY concrete garden spheres! Think of all the places you could tuck these awesome concrete balls in for a great contrast in form. In a later post, we will show you how to grow moss on your project… how cool is that?
We just love how these decorative garden balls blend in so nicely with pretty much everything in your yard – plants, trees, rocks, etc…
Hope you enjoyed this post! We urge you to go make these Concrete Garden Spheres. It’s a pretty easy and fun project and they really blend in nicely with your garden! Read on to see where to buy them.
Where to buy Garden Spheres, Balls and Globes
So maybe you’re not in the mood to take on a DIY project right now or just don’t have the time? Well we found you a few garden spheres that you might want to check out. (They’re a bit difficult to find!)
These volcanic ash spheres from Ballard Designs look like they would be pretty awesome. Love the texture!
We found these next garden spheres at Wayfair. Looks like they are made out of a lightweight ‘resinstone’ material. They come in different sizes and 5 different colors which is pretty cool. Check them out here.
We thought we’d throw in a couple other options as well. Here is a nice set of three metal garden spheres or globes that you can purchase on Wayfair.com. These are great because the set comes with 3 different sized decorative balls, orbs, globes or spheres (whatever you prefer to call them!) And they fold up when they need to be stored.
And the last ones we are going to show you are these totally awesome heavy wire garden spheres. Get them at Wayfair.com. They seem to be very much in demand and sell out frequently but then eventually return to being in stock. Love these!
Don’t miss our post on Unique DIY Garden Globes for more ideas and projects! You also might want to check out our post Backyard Ideas on a Budget – Spruce Up Your Garden on our sister site TBD!