living oil paintings

This week at the nursery

Hi  

Its so nice  to have some good weather at last and have been making the most of it by planting these little glass   terrariums  at the nursery.

If you look closely you can see the small coloured balls ,these are a water absorbent material a bit like jelly to touch, in the past we have had a problem with people either under watering or more usually over watering, these slowly release there moisture and you can tell from the size of the balls when water is needed, almost foolproof.

 

Also this week been planting up these living oil paintings .

 which we specialise in we put a plastic liner behind the canvas,fill with a special compost and make holes through the canvas and plant a range of succulents in to the compost behind ,then water through a hole in the top  as its oil it doesn’t mind getting wet so we spray the plants every so often .

what do you think ?

 

Here is another above something else we enjoy making there made from florist foam covered in a mix of compost, sand and cement.

The great thing about using this stuff is you can easily carve the foam we like to use a electric engraver to do all the fiddly bits and a knife for the rest the dust from the foam we use in the cement mix as well this helps to keep it light .

Mix the cement with the rest of the ingredients and make quite a wet mix then leave for 5 mins then just paint it on thickly ,allow to dry very slowly ,this builds up strength by curing the cement if it looks like its drying to quickly I spray it to keep it damp curing takes a good week then you can make holes through the cement covering poke a little compost in along with a succulent and water ,the florist foam absorbs water so you don’t need to water very often and occasionally add a little feed to the water and the plants will grow in to the foam a get really well established.

It is such good fun making these I don’t like when people buy them from me as you get really attached to them.

  Honestly you are only limited by your imagination as you can carve such artistic shapes etc

Have a go .

I will put a video on next time I do a batch .

cheers