11 Brilliant Ways To Repurpose A Wine Rack In Your Yard And Garden

Maybe you got a few too many wine racks in a recent registry, maybe you're giving up alcohol altogether, or maybe you simply are sick of having a large, wooden lattice in your living room — there are plenty of valid reasons why someone would need to reduce, reuse, and recycle a wine rack. And, luckily, the storage possibilities offered in most wine rack models are pretty much endless. We've put together 11 seamless ways to transition your wine rack from indoor decor to an outdoor staple so you can DIY your own reusable accessory for your yard and garden. 

The first step to each hack is to, of course, empty out your wine rack. You can use a wire or wooden rack for any of these hacks, and can use a rack of pretty much any size. If you don't have a wine rack in need of being reused but don't want to miss out on the fun, you can get one on Amazon for under $10 to join in on the DIY adventure. Once you've got your rack handy, you can also waterproof any of your wooden racks with a sealant spray (which is also under $10 on Amazon) so that it can exist outside without growing mold or being susceptible to water damage.

If you're a potted plant person or want to become one, you can start by flipping your wine rack horizontally and filling it with small pots. First, measure the diameter of your wine rack slots; we'd expect them to be a little under 4 inches, as the average wine bottle is 3.2 inches and the average champagne bottle is 3.5 inches in diameter. Then, find pots that fit into that small of an opening, like these 3.15-inch terracotta pots that retail at $17.29 for a pack of 20. You could also use a wet saw to repurpose a wine bottle into a small pot by sawing off the top part. You should then either drill holes into the bottom for a soil planter or fill it with water so you can propagate plants or use it as a hydroponic planter. This way, you're guaranteed to have pots that fit into your wine rack seamlessly — plus you uphold the wine aesthetic, making for a unique garden experience. 

Once you've placed the pots, fill them with the propagations, hydroponic plants, or soil and plants that don't need much space. Succulents are perfect plants for small pots, because they thrive in small spaces. They're also a great option for planting outdoors, because they can handle being exposed to sunlight for longer amounts of time than typical houseplants. You could also use your small pots to grow an indoor/outdoor herb garden; start by planting herb seeds into wet soil in your pots, and keep the soil wet as they grow. After the first frost of autumn, you can bring the pots inside to maintain their growth. 

Instead of using your wine rack to make a planter, you can place it vertically in your garden to begin growing a greenery wall. Start by finding a spot in your garden that could use more vertical greenery, like an open wall on the side of your home or shed, and place your waterproofed wine rack into the soil. Then, research climbing plants you should grow on your property based on what survives in your particular climate and what is native or invasive to your home turf. Plant vines in and around your wine rack, being sure to twirl the growth through the openings to make it look engulfed in greenery. 

You undoubtedly have plenty of tools in your yard and garden, so use a wine rack as a tool shelf to keep things organized and visible. You can store lots of different tools in a wine rack, since the holes will be big enough for things like spray paint, pliers, small hand tools, and more. For the bigger things, like saws and rakes, you can affix hooks to the side of your wine rack (if it has wooden paneling along the sides, like many racks do). Use Command hooks or drill in your own metal versions so you can easily hang them off the side. 

Use a wine rack to store your outdoor rags, towels, and even gloves by rolling the items up and placing them into the open wine rungs. You can keep shop towels for your vehicles, rags for outdoor cleaning, and more stored beautifully and off the ground for your own ease. This hack is best with open wine racks, like the one in the photo above, so that the towels have plenty of space and load in easily, and have support on two sides. Some racks might be less ideal for this hack, so try fitting your towels in first before committing to making this storage unit in your own yard or garden. 

To stick to the wine aesthetic for your yard, you can repurpose old wine bottles to create light fixtures, then place them in a wine rack to hold the fixtures off the ground and style them in a vertical way. To do this, simply use some waterproof, remote-controlled wire fairy lights (like these ones on Amazon that retail for $10.56 for a pack of 6). Remove your wine bottle label using a hair dryer and/or soap and water, and string the lights into the dry and clean empty bottle. Then, place the light-filled bottles strategically on the rack so that you have small bursts of light. You can use the other slots on the rack for plants to make it feel like an organic part of the garden.

If your garden simply needs another pop of decor, like a statuette made for a small space, you can repurpose your wire wine rack into a piece of art. In the video above, YouTube user @thewellroundedwoman6445 used a large, ornate rack for her garden, with plans to potentially place flowers around it, but noted that the rack itself was floral and worth repurposing even as just a standstill item. Like the creator in the video, you can use spray paint to make it fit into your own garden decor or to fit a specific aesthetic. For instance, with a matte gray spray paint, you could make a wine rack look like it's a small statue. 

If you're someone who gardens regularly, you know the pain of having a half-used packet of seeds and not knowing how to store the rest of them. Maybe you've run out of soil space or maybe you simply don't want to grow 100 broccoli plants, regardless of your reasoning, you likely need to find spaces to store leftover seeds (or even a way to organize seeds while you're in the process of planting). Use small, round, sealable Tupperware cups — like this pack of 4 from Amazon — and write the name of the seeds on the lid. From there, you can fill the cups with extra seeds and store them in temperature-safe environments, then bring the entire setup with you when it's time to populate your garden again. 

Add privacy and drown out noise with a backyard water feature that has some type of running water, paired with an upcycled wine rack. In order to craft most water features, you can do things yourself by purchasing a water pump (like this one on Amazon for under $20). You can build a space for the feature using tarps and/or ornamental rocks, then place your wire wine rack down as a way to hold everything into place, with the pump coming up from one of the holes in the rack. Once this is set up, you can use the other holes in the rack to hold other decor into place, like fake trees and hydroponic plants. 

Use your wine rack to add to your lawn game collection for warm weather parties. The popular game cornhole involves throwing bean bags at a large, tilted plank of wood with the goal or landing them inside the hole cut into the top of the plank. These sets can go for over $100, but you can make it yourself using an old wine rack (or two, if you're lucky enough to have matching ones). You can use weatherproof fabric to cover the rest of the board, leaving one section at the top of the rack exposed as the goal point for both teams. Alternatively, you could assign values to each of the wine openings and make for a layered take on an old trend. 

Use a wine rack to water your garden by implementing it as a tool to hold a hose in place. For hot, summer months, gardeners often have to spend a long time spraying plants to make sure the soil is retaining enough water to continue growth. You can easily loop your hose through the different holes within the wine rack, allowing for many options of height, and then turn the hose on to have an elevated water sprayer that you don't have to hold. Be careful not to loop your hose through the wine rack holes too many times, though, as the close-together holes could create kinks that render the hose useless. 

Many of the wire wine racks that we've seen so far look a lot like the small fences sold at home and garden stores, and there could be a good way to utilize that observation. Use your wine rack as a temporary fencing structure for your garden so that you can protect new growth or separate multiple types of plants without needing to make an extra run to Home Depot. You can do this without taking the rack apart if it's thin enough and only necessary in one particular section, or if you have small plants in need of protecting. If you're able to saw the wine rack half, you can use the multiple pieces for even more fencing. 

Beans, squash, zucchini, and tomatoes all have one thing in common: they benefit from vertical structures like a trellis in order to thrive. You can add these vegetables to your home garden without buying a fancy trellis, though. Like in the vining example above, you can place a wine rack into soil and twist plant vines into the various wire pieces so that vining plants grow up into it. This is particularly great for tomato plants, which typically can be around 4 feet in height, so that even a small wine rack is helpful in the plant's growing journey. And, if you have a large enough wine rack, you can use it for multiple varieties of vining vegetable plants, like beans and cucumbers (which grow well together).