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.