I bought a wooden flower box to green the front porch of my urban condo. That was three weeks ago, and I still haven't figured out a way to securely attach the two.

It seems I have two possible options:

1) Drill holes in the bottom of the flower box and in the 1.5" steel rail and use screws with bolts to attach. I'm not so in love with this idea, because I'm really hoping for the box to lean out away from the steel rail rather than bound to it. That brings us to:

2) Find a way to attack a mount to the wooden box that somehow clamps to the steel rail. There are all kinds of mounts online and in stores that easily work with 2"X4" wood, but the options are significantly more limited for rails?

I'd be interested in hearing the pros and cons of each approach and practical suggestions for making them happen.

The dimensions of the box, btw, are: 36" W, 5.75" H, 6.75" D.

The steel rail is about 1.5".

The forum software isn't allowing me to attach pictures to this post, so please see them at the following Photobucket links:

Pictures by sanfrancisconewbie - Photobucket

railandbox2.jpg picture by sanfrancisconewbie - Photobucket


railandbox.jpg picture by sanfrancisconewbie - Photobucket

railfromtop.jpg picture by sanfrancisconewbie - Photobucket

 

Do you want the flower box to sit on top of the rail or will it be on the outside of the rail?

 

I want to to hang off the side, but as i discussed in the opening, I'm interested in understading the pros and cons of one approach over the other.

 

A workable solution for hanging on the exterior side of the rail would be to have 2 steel welded brackets fabricated (or DIY if you have a welder). One bracket at each steel railing post, with a top, back-side lip to catch (loop over) the horizontal railing. A threaded, locking set scew hole in each bracket could be used to attach it to the railing. Wet dirt can be heavy, so don't skimp on the member sizing.

Also, you might want to consider lining the box with an impervious liner, to keep the thing from rotting out on you in a few years.

 

All kinds of stuff out there, this site has stuff similar to what I was thinking:
Window Box Brackets, Flower Box Brackets, Deck Railing Brackets