Friday, May 13, 2016

Vertical gardening revisited and an exotic arrival

I was at the plant nursery yesterday, stocked up on a few herbs to replace ones which didn't survive the winter.  Moseying round the place, I noticed on their greenhouse walls some black plastic hanging sleeves, filled with potting soil, with small plants inserted into slits at intervals down the length.  You could do it with newspaper sleeves, I imagine.  Old idea, but it reminded me that I would like to have a few plants hanging from my fence.

Then at home I remembered I had a few burlap pockets, given by an artist who had been given hundreds of them -- wrongly made for an order, given to the cause of art -- and who shared them around. thanks Art Lee!

So, I dug them out, found a roll of petersham ribbon from a stash gift, stapled five of the pockets at intervals down the ribbon, with a loop at the top, and hung the result on a nail already in the fence.  



Time elapsed: five minutes including finding the stapler. Cost zero.  Appearance pleasing, nicer than black plastic.  My kind of invention.

And the same idea as the hanging plastic sleeve, except I will plant each pocket.  Water will drain down from one to another.  And I remembered a little marjoram plant I've had rooting in water for months and now finally have given it a home, in the top pocket.

Feel free to copy at will! not my original idea, I'm sure, but it should be fun to see how this works. Oh, and I put a tissue soaked in peppermint essence in the top pocket to deter squirrels.  I have a feeling that if wrens choose to nest in a pocket I won't have much say in the matter.  If they did, there would be no squirrel problem, though.

And the mail today brought me the peacock jasmine plant I've been awaiting for months, so it is now planted, no, not outside, but in a pot safely indoors in a window that gets some sun.  It's tiny, so pix will wait till it's big enough to see.  This is the plant that flower leis are made from, nice scent, gets big, I'm hopeful.

4 comments:

  1. Like the hanging pockets. Will a staple be enough?

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  2. Three staples to attach the ribbon to the back of each pocket, then a heavy duty staple through the pocket into the fence under each one.

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  3. Love the pocket idea and I'm sure the burlap will be friendly to the plants than plastic.

    ReplyDelete

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