I have found that wood planter boxes last a long time with a properly installed liner. I buy thin HDPE material from www.justliners.com and fold it up the in-sides and fasten it over the side boards under the top trim. For drainage I use a short piece of plastic water pipe to extend about 1/4 inch below the wood bottom. Pre-drill the bottom to fit the pipe. Heat and expand the top lip of the pipe so that it can't pass through the drilled hole. A ball peen hammer head works fine. Use a little building caulk under the top lip of the pipe and punch it through the liner. This avoids leakage and rot. I know this sounds like a lot of trouble, but when building planter boxes you may as well go the whole route so that you can enjoy them for many extra years. Here is a link that might be useful: Just pond liners

When making a bed in nursing school we used "Hospital Corners" on the sheets and blankets. This is what I used on my square settling pond. Worked very well and does not collect a lot of waste in the folds. Hard to explain but I laid the liner in the pond, then made made diagonal corners that I folded back. Try googling this. Lisa

Thanks, Wanda....I'm glad someone else enjoys moving plants! I seem to be on a roll posting pics, so here's an answer to your question about the pea gravel. It is or was, a large circular driveway with a circle of the "lovely" red lava rock with one lone palm tree. Looked sort of like Walmart parking lots. After taking it all out one wheelbarrow at a time, I first added some plumbago and have now turned it into a butterfly garden. The next pic shows it a few months ago and it has filled in nicely. I'm using asiatic jasmine for a ground cover. this photo was before I made the planters and the ground cover here was varigated sweet potato - it got yucky so I put in the jasmine. The rest of the driveway is getting planted though it's slow growing. I will eventually just have gravel paths left for walkways through trees and shrubs. There was no weed barrier but the sand is compacted very, very hard which makes it not an easy task to dig through, but weeds are few and far between. I don't know the solution you might be searching for (to keep weeds out of gravel) - I end up spraying with vinegar and hand pulling. Here's one more pic of part of the driveway. It is definitely a work in progress! Thanks again for your kind comments, Hester

sierraeast - The views are somewhat subjective. The city/ocean view is on the west side of the property. The east, south and north sides have OK views, but nothing dramatic. The units already have lanais on the living floor not to mention an accessible rooftop deck. In a condo setting where people have no access to exterior living areas, I agree... a lanai would be preferred so people have some place to be outside while in or around their home. But in this case, people have a couple options to enjoy a little outdoor living. Also, the traffic noise can be loud during some times of the day and evening so I wouldn't think people would want to stand outside the lanai, especially in a bedroom. Believe it or not, most condo owners in Hawaii have their lanais enclosed if the governing association allows it. I guess if people want to be outside, they just go down the street to the beach : ) lorraineal - yes, I thought about that. I would think that people would clean the area as they would any other interior plant collection. From a cleaning perspective, having this exterior planter is no different than having a few plants inside your home. You have to pick up the leaves every now and then but in an exterior setting, this can be done less frequently than if the plants were indoors. The plants will be mostly accessible from a sliding door (center sliding door, similar to a french door so 50% of the area is accessible directly from the edge. The area is not large - only 26" deep, so it should be fairly easy to reach/maintain. I was hoping to get a few thumbs up... so perhaps my idea is baked.