Beautiful Hanging Planters

On Urban Gardens I saw a post about Farrah Sit‘s wonderful hanging planters.

What struck me about these planters is not only their beauty but their dedication to craftsmanship. The planters are made from hand sanded porcelain, the straps are vegetable tan leather, a type pf leather that is strong and smooth, and connected to the planters with a solid brass screw.

Because the planters don’t have drainage holes I suggest filling the bottoms with a few inches of gravel and planting with something that doesn’t mind having slightly damp roots. Mint is a plant that comes to mind. It is very easy to grow, smells great and you can cook with it. Iris versicolor  is another as are various kinds of Wood Sorrel (Oxalis), which is pictured below.

Oxalis acetosella : Oxalis petite oseille, Gy, avril 2004, licence GFDL (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you like these planters you should look at Farrah’s other designs at her web site.

Advertisement

Design, Recycling and Inexpensive Cross Paths At This Living Wall

CInder Block Vertical Wall Planter

THE ONCE A WEEK POST FOR FEBRUARY 22 2012

I found this Vertical Wall on Urban Garden‘s site and chose it for the first Once a Week post because, well, not only do I love it, but it is made from cinder blocks which can often be found at construction sites; it is easy to build; won’t cost a fortune and is cool looking but not so hip it will make the rest of your garden look immediately out dated.

Zac Benson built the wall (and took the beautiful photographs of it) in his California home. He is a succulent collector and felt this would be a great way to display them.

You can read the full article here which has instructions on how to build it but it’s not that difficult. Plus, with this design you can start small and add on; either up or out.

Victory Gardens for Climate Change?

In an interview on Garden Rant, Michelle Owens talks to David Wolfe, a plant scientist and  expert on climate change at Cornell University.

Wolfe brings up a point which I thought was very interesting; Victory Gardens as a litmus test for climate change.

During World Wars I and II people planted vegetable gardens to supplement their food supply and help ensure troops would have enough to eat. The smallest spaces were used to grow food. People grew lettuce on their windowsills. The gardens were truly a country wide effort.

You can read the entire Garden Rant interview here but the part I found really interesting was this:

Q:  In The New American Landscape, you recommend “cautious exploration” with less hardy plants on the part of gardeners.  Why not wild experimentation? 

A: Actually, gardeners can lead the way here, figuring out how we can take advantage of the opportunities offered by a warming climate, because it’s not their entire livelihood at stake, as with farmers.  Maybe we need Victory Gardens in a new context, that of climate change.

I think this is a wonderful idea. A lot of people think you need a good size suburban backyard to have a vegetable garden that will give you anything substantial. To that I say three things. One, Pshaw. Two, Not true. You can grow more than you think in less space than you thought possible. And three even if you only get four tomatoes and two cucumbers that’s four tomatoes and two cucumbers more than you would have gotten if you hadn’t had a garden at all. And let me tell you you haven’t REALLY had a tomato until you have had a tomato straight from the garden.

One way to ease into a Victory Garden is to add some edibles into your ornamental garden. Here are two sweet potato vines planted in a small raised bed around a Honeysuckle shrub. Most of the Sweet potato vines with pretty foliage don’t produce potatoes but these do. And they are tasty.

Plus remember my post about Living Walls? You can do that with edibles as well as ornamental plants. At Woolypocket you can buy products to create a Living Wall of vegetables, herbs, ornamentals or any combination thereof.

Urban Gardens also has some very interesting and sophisticated Living Walls you can take a look at here. There is one with lettuce and strawberries.

As far as figuring out where to begin with your new Victory Garden there are a number of books dedicated to vegetable gardening in small spaces. Two of my favorites are Joy Larckom’s Creative Vegetable Gardening and Designing the New Kitchen Garden by Jennifer R. Bartley.

Joy Larckom is a Garden Writer and Horticulturalist. She is a master at creating interesting and unique looks for an edible garden. The way she combines different colors, textures, vegetables, herbs and edible ornamental flowers is just short of, dare I say, brilliant. This is a link to a wonderful article she wrote for The Guardian in the UK.

Jennifer Bartley is a Landscape Designer and garden writer. The underlying theme of her book is that it is rewarding to feed your body from your garden but twice as rewarding to feed your body and your soul; something you can do by creating a vegetable garden that is not only functional but is also en expression of your creativity and beautiful to look at day after day.

Beautiful and Recycled Living Wall

Historically a Green Wall was used to describe a row of hedges or low growing trees that were used to form a border or boundary. Theses days, however, the term has taken on a whole new meaning.

Green Walls, also referred to as Living Walls and Vertical Gardens, are basically gardens that grow up rather than out. Up a previously built wall or a wall that was created specifically for thee purpose of planting.

Perusing the LandscapingNetwork.com‘s facebook page I saw what I thought was a particularly imaginative and well executed Green Wall. It was done by Blooming Desert Landscapes in Bend,Oregon.

Blooming Desert Landscapes' Green Wall

According to their facebook page it is made from old pallets. I love when recycling and great esthetics come together.