Apr 10

Apr 10 back it up

Maggie Kempner

plants and gardening, aunt maggie gets married

you may recall for our seating assignment display I was inspired by this pin:

when we last left off I had acquired a frame and spray painted it.

now I needed to add a back and plant the moss.

first up I wanted a way to keep everything in place. I read about chicken wire for succulent walls, and figured I could do something similar for this. So I took some wire from a recent Darby smart box and spray painted it forest green. then using my trusty staple gun secured it to the inside of the frame.

moss doesn't need very much dirt to grow, but I figured better play it safe and add a little bit of room. so I screwed some 2 by 4 in the back making a "frame on the frame" and adding a few boards on the back. this left me with a very study, albeit ugly, frame.

then I sanded down the rough spots and drilled some holes for drainage.

then I tapped off the sides, and spray painted the whole back in three very light coats forest green.

now it was time for the plants. After adding some dirt I planted a flat of spring Irish moss from the east bay nursery, intermingled normal moss from our yard, and some ferns. It looked pretty good, especially after I gave it a good misting.

Over the next few weeks I misted it several times a day.

despite this it started looking less than great. Turns out moss doesn't transplant well. So I went to orchard supply and picked up two flats of needle ivy and replaced the transplanted moss.