Vertical Pallet Garden Update

Well hello my long lost blogging buddies! 

 I've been on a long hiatus from blogging and I don't have any earth shattering reason why?  

I hope you have been enjoying 2013 and that Spring is just around the corner for my friends living in cold climates.  

We are enjoying beautiful, mild Spring Break temperatures here in San Diego.

I thought I'd give you a little update of my vertical pallet garden.

It's filled in nicely since I last blogged about it.

I originally posted back in November 2011 about how to construct a vertical pallet garden.  

It was an experiment that went horribly wrong and you can read all about it in this post, Plan B.

This is the original from 2011

Here is my back up Plan B

faux succulents.

                               The live succulent vertical garden turned into one big gnat farm in my house.  

Totally gross! 

                       

  I went with a faux succulents for the indoors and remade my original one to hang outside.

Here is the Plan B option for indoors.

Here is the outside pallet redone after getting rid of all the old plantings and gnat farm.

I started with small cuttings and laid the pallet flat for two weeks.

After two weeks I hung it up.  

Bad idea, to soon!

2 weeks laying horizontal wasn't enough time for the cuttings to root.  

Better to wait more like a month.
Some of the little cuttings fell out to their death before they could take root.
I'm so impatient sometimes.

I screwed large hooks into my eaves to hang the pallet.

Don't hang something this heavy from your eaves unless you know they can support the weight.  

This thing is incredible heavy when it's wet.

Mine has been hanging for about eight months and it's doing fine.

This is a north east facing wall that gets great morning sun.

Before

After

Here's how it looks today.

I have since removed the candle sconce.  It was getting to rusty outside.    

The cuttings are filling in nicely and ready for me to trim off some of the babies to grow more succulents.

I'm off to weed my vegetable beds and get them ready to plant.  

More work to be done.  

Hope your spring garden is bringing you happiness.

To see more detailed instruction on how to construct your own vertical pallet garden click here.

Thanks for checking it out.

Going To Plan B

You might have noticed on my new blog header a succulent picture. 
Here is another project I completed a couple weeks ago. 
This project is really a redo from a past project that didn't work out.

Back in November of 2011, I blogged about my experiment of making a vertical garden out of a pallet. I hung it inside my house and hoped it would thrive.

The experiment didn't turn out as I hoped. 

There were several issues that I knew might become a problem when I made this. 

Some came up that I didn't think of.

1)  Watering was a huge issue.  I tried to not water very much.  Lack of watering caused the soil to dry out.  When I did water, streams would funnel into channels and pour all over the floor.  The good news is the pond liner I used on the back of the pallet kept the drywall completely protected and dry.  I have concrete floors under this pallet, but still it was a problem.  I had to place towels on the floor to sop up the water every time I watered, slightly inconvenient for my busy lifestyle.

2)  Not enough sunlight.  I hung the pallet on an East facing wall.  The indirect light was too low for my plant choices.  All of the succulents I planted grew long and spindly searching for the sunlight.  The roots rotted and eventually most of them died.  I used succulents so I didn't have to water much, but it created another problem.

3)  Gnats, need I say more?  The pallet changed from a succulent garden to a gnat farm, yuck!  The gnats were feeding on the rotting plant material.  Every time anyone poured a glass of wine or juice the "swarm" would find the glass and take a swim.  I know, gross right?  I tried non-toxic soap, but had to go with the harsh stuff because the organic wasn't working at all.  Still the gnats would come back even with poison.  My girls were totally grossed out when I told them gnats were good protein.

Plan B

If you are a do it yourselfer, there ALWAYS has to be a backup plan B.

My Plan B was to Go Faux

Here is my new pallet using floral foam, moss and plastic succulents.  Some of the plastic succulents I already had.  I purchased a few more at Shinodas.  Shinodas is a floral supply here in San Diego. 
I still need a few more to fill in.

No watering, no rotting succulents, and best of all, no gnats.

Yay, I don't have to drink wine from a sippy cup anymore!

My other pallet has been moved outside where it will hopefully recover and thrive.

I hung it from my eaves with heavy duty hooks and chain.

Here is my sad little vertical garden. 

 I added more succulent cuttings and hopefully they will root and fill in.

I'll show you how it progresses. 

I'm not totally giving up on the idea, just adjusting my expectations.

Ahh, pretty and no maintenance.

Perfect for summer time.

 

Have any experiments that didn't turn out?

I'm off to go workout at the beach playing some volleyball.

Hope you are out enjoying summer too.

Thanks for checking it out.

Where Do You Find Inspiration?

I made this flower arrangement recently for a 50th Birthday Party for my husband.  I thought I would show you my inspiration and how simple this was to make.

Every summer I take the kids to the Del Mar Fair, now called the San Diego County Fair, but we still call it the Del Mar Fair. Kind of like Costco used to be named Price Club and for years I still called it Price Club.   Anyway, while the kids enjoyed the rides I did a quick run through the flower exhibits to take in the beauty. This is the first year I let the kids go off by themselves for an hour while I enjoyed the exhibits.

 

 I am always amazed and delighted with the creativity of the arrangements.  I thought you like to see some of them.  These are just pictures of the inside exhibits.  I'll show you the pictures of the outdoor landscaping exhibits in another post.

There was a Steam Punk vibe in many of the exhibits. 

They used old rusted objects combined with delicate flowers.  

Ultra modern.

New metal, Artichoke flowers (I think?) and trimmed Philodendron leaves.

Who would think to put these two together, but I like it.

Re purposed chair and succulents. 

Succulents were bigger than ever this year.

More succulents

Cactus skeleton and faux succulents. 

 I thought using plastic succulents at a flower show was a big no no?

I have to admit I have some plastic succulents that I use indoors.  I love the simpleness of this arrangement.

Who knew plastic lawn edging could look so good?

Maiden Hair Ferns and String of Pearls in mass. 

I love all the green and this is such a simple doable idea.

I like the white sticks.  This is great for a table setting center piece because the clear glass doesn't block the view of the guest sitting across from each other.  Don't you hate when you can't see the people across from you at a dinner party?

I took a picture of this Dahlia next to my fist so you could get an idea of how big it was.  Nice age spots.  Let this be a lesson out there to all you youngsters to wear sunscreen on your hands! 

This one was even bigger.

This was the inspiration for my much smaller and less grand arrangement. 

This orchid and Bromeliad display stopped traffic. 

Everyone that passed by couldn't help but admire the beauty.  I even saw some husbands that had been dragged in there with their wives stop to check it out. 

Ladies, don't make your husbands go look at flowers, they don't want to, they're just being nice.

Be nice back and don't make them go. 

They used about a dozen orchids in this arrangement and attached the Bromeliads to the branches with fishing line. 

This arrangement was huge, about three and a half feet tall.

My arrangement is about two feet tall and because I had limited time and a very limited budget, mine is not grand, but it works for me.  It reminds me a little of a Dr. Seuss tree?  This is a party for a guy, so I didn't want the flowers to be too feminine.  It was inexpensive to make, really easy, AND it will last a very long time. 

I used a $5 glass container and added sand and rocks to the bottom.  Next I stuck in a sandblasted Mansanita branch and a potted orchid.  The orchid was $8 at Home Depot.  I left the orchid in it's original plastic pot.  Then I covered up the pot with clumps of moss.  I added three succulent cuttings from my yard and hid the stems in the moss.  After the party I stuck the cuttings back in the ground to make a whole new plant.  I added a candle.

I hot glued some Tillandsias, moss, and bird's nests to the branches.

I placed it up against a black wall for the pictures.

I placed it outside on a large stump on my appetizer table.  It doesn't photograph well here that's why I took some pics. of it up against the black wall.  You can see a little bit of the beginning of a living room I created outside for the party.  I also added a whole other dinning room this side of the back of the chair.  My poor husband is surrounded by estrogen.  He has a wife, two daughters, a girl dog, and a girl bunny.  He doesn't have a "man" space in the house so for his birthday I created an outdoor cigar smoking living room for him.  I pulled the two chandeliers out of our bedroom and hung them above the fire pit.  They gave off great light at night.
I pulled furniture from inside the house to create the outdoor room.

I made lasagna for about 60 people and some of them ate here by the fire pit.  My friend Kristy recommended using this recipe from Pioneer Woman. 

I have a great lasagna recipe, but mine's not quick and easy. 

This one was simple to make and delicious. 

More people ate out here in our front courtyard.

A good time was had by all and my arrangement still looks great a week later. 

Where do you get inspiration?

Thanks for checking it out.

To see more of my simple, cost effective arrangements click on the links below.
Bubblicious
Rope Plant Hanger
House Warming Gift
Succulents
New Urns
Terrariums

Bubblicious

I saw these mini glass hanging bubbles last year in Garden Design Magazine.   It was love at first sight, but I didn't like the price tag. I tucked them away in my memory wish list and thought, well "someday" I'll find those glass bubbles at a price I'm willing to pay? 

I think they are bubblicious!

source

source

While poking around in one of my favorite floral supply stores last week I found the glass bubbles for a great price, about a third of what I found them on line for.

I went a little cuckoo crazy and bought a collection.  I bought six bigger ones and five smaller ones. 

I thought they would look great with my 70's inspired

macrame rope hanging planter.

I added some sand, tillandsias, shells, faux pearls, and moss to the bubbles.  I hung them at different heights with thin twine.  I harvested (stole) the tillandsias from my outdoor entry mirror.  

I made another macrame rope hanger and fit two larger round glass bowls in the ropes,

double decker style. 

 I added candles, sand, and shells to the larger glass bowls.

Repeating the same round shape in different sizes gave the collection a cohesive look. 

Hanging the bubbles at different heights created a "bubble curtain." 

I added some of my succulent cuttings to two of the bubbles. 

We'll see how they do?  See the top two bubbles.  This succulent is called "Fish Hooks."

I moved my original macrame rope planter to the corner of the patio.

It's really beautiful at night.  My pictures don't do it justice.  I made this area of the yard the candy bar for my husband's 50th birthday party.  I never buy candy, but it was his birthday so I bought all his favorites and set them out in glass jars under the bubbles. 

Sorry about the bad night pictures.

I tried real candles in my test run inside the glass bubbles, but wow they got hot!  I thought they might explode or burn someone who inadvertently touched the glass? 

I traded the candles out for battery operated lights instead. 

Exploding glass is bad.

I made some curtains for the party with drop cloths from Big Lots, gromets, and more rustic rope. 

Here's the view from the kitchen.

I'm loving the bubbles with my macrame rope creations.  The possibilities are endless with fun things to add to the bubbles.  Fall leaves for Autumn, spiders for Halloween, snowflakes for Christmas, etc.  For now I'm loving the green. 

Have you found any inspiring items from your wish list lately?

Thanks for checking it out.