Tree # 2, The Ugly Tree!

Do you ever have design ideas that go bad? Am I the only person this happens to? Sometimes my experiments don't work out the way I think they are going to. Like the really bad "healthy brownies" I made with pureed spinach about three years ago. My kids still won't let me forget how awful they were. This Christmas Tree I'm going to show you is another one of my great attempts gone wrong. Why am I showing you my Ugly Tree? Because I was inspired by one of my favorite Landscape Designers, Jaime Durie. No, he didn't make an ugly tree, but he has a show on HGTV called the Outdoor Room. I like his show because not only is he very talented, he shows you the mistakes and the mess ups along the way. Plans don't always work out and sometimes you need to change it.

Here is my "Ugly Tree."

I think it looks like the Grinch threw up on it?

Or maybe it looks like a Snow Spider is ready to pounce off it and bite me.

Whatever it looks like, it doesn't evoke a feeling of "welcome" to the courtyard entry. I think the problem is too many succulents and not enough Christmas?

I took down the garland too because It didn't hang right.

This isn't the first time I have used succulents in my Holiday decor. I used them last year to make this front door garland and most recently on my Thanksgiving Tree. The idea was to repeat the theme in the front courtyard. Sometimes my ideas just don't work out. Like the time I painted my office green and had to apply seven more coats of glaze to get the color right.

I took down the scary Ugly Tree and used the material to decorate a spray above the front door.

Here is the result.

Here it is at night.

I added a little more greenery behind the sea fan at the top after looking at this picture.

I repeated the materials used on the front door garland to the above door spray.

I like it much better than the Ugly Tree.

I replaced the Ugly Tree with a living Norfolk Pine from Home Depot.
It was $16 and I can plant it in my yard when it out grows the pot. Norfolk Pines can get to be 50' tall in our climate in San Diego, so plant accordingly.

I wrapped the pot with an old burlap table runner and secured it with some ribbon. I added some pine cones to hide the dirt at the base of the tree and added some simple gold and silver ballsfor decoration.
Although I have used burlap for several years on my tables, I have never used it to wrap tree pots before. I saw the tree bases wrapped in burlap at Anthropology and copied the idea.




Thanks for checking it out. I would love to hear about some of your design mishaps, or maybe you don't ever have them?

Hopefully my Ugly Tree wasn't too scary!

Maybe I should use it for Halloween?