x-ray ferns

Steven N Meyers is a trained medical x ray technologist who has used his radiography techniques to capture unique details of botanical specimens that remain unseen to us and our naked eye. The transparency of these maidenhair ferns brings out beautiful details of their speckled spores and feather like daintiness.

found friday: tree blocks

My girls and I went to a National local Swam refuge a few weeks ago with some friends. They loved looking for wildlife on the paths and playing with toys in the discovery center. My 2 year old Mila especially loved stacking and playing with the tree blocks. I'm happy to say I've found some handmade ones on etsy! Monkeys on the Roof makes them from fallen trees and finished them by hand with a natural beeswax. What a great gift they would make. Find them here!

mila stackin away

Happy weekend!
-Christina

new in shop: yarrow mound

New in the shop, yarrow mound. That's what it is, a mound of yarrow! Vibrant green dried wildflower yarrow. Perfect natural organic texture in a cement square vase. Check it out here.

Its funny how many of my more permanent designs start out as a custom order. This customer requested something green with texture in a square cement vase. I liked the look so much I though it deserved a more permanent spot in the shop.

Don't all go buy it at once, I've got more nesting to get done before this baby comes!

vertical garden, hotel Ushüaia

images via urbanarbolismo and paradis express

A brand new vertical garden opened at Hotel Ushüaia in Ibiza May 2011. The green wall acts as a sound barrier between the open air disco located in the hotel's central courtyard and the neighboring guest rooms. The rows and rows of ceramic terracotta pots are planted with succulents that designers selected which thrive in the Mediterranean island climate. They include a variety of crassula, euphorbia, echeveria, aeonium, kalanchoe, sedum and sedeveria.

Happy first day of summer!

DIY container planting

Here is a simple DIY tutorial on a container planting:

To start out with I go with the thriller, filler and spiller method.
First pick out a thriller, a focal point plant for the center of your container. Next you will need filler flowers for the middle openings and last some spiller plants that will grow over and down the sides of your container.

The ingredients I used:

My client wanted the same look as last year but slightly different so I substituted ferns with a spider plant. The thriller focal in these containers is the obvious topiary tree followed by the 2nd focal spider plant (1) that hugs the topiary trunk. If you have smaller containers don't take up all the space with a large thriller but instead use something simple like just a spider plant.

The filler flowers are the fuchsia colored 4 inch double begonias (2) and plum colored 4 inch petunias (3).

The spillers I chose are variegated 10 inch english ivy (4), purple variegated 10 inch wandering jew (5) , 4 inch creeping jenny (6), and vibrant green 4 inch sweet potato vine (7).

The first step is to plant up your spillers along the edges. Make sure they are tucked in deep so they don't fall out. The ivy and wandering jew were both from 10 inch hanging baskets that I carefully separated into two new plants.

Next I added the spider plant which was also a 10" hanging basket that I carefully split into 2 plants and hugged the topiary trunk.

Last, I added the filler petunias and begonias for some slight color in the leftover holes:

Fill in and secure your plants with extra dirt and be sure to fertilize for luscious show.

This year I have been using organic fertilizer from john and bob's grow green smart soil solutions. It is a fantastic and easy organic system to convert old nutrient lacking soil into new lush rich soil in gardens, lawns, containers and even indoor plants. I love the luscious growth I've seen from using this system in my container gardens and I am excited to see the difference in my vegetable gardening this summer. I highly recommend it and it can be found here.

Here is what they looked like after a summer of growth last year. The results should be very similar this year! Good luck and leave a comment if you have any questions.

-christina


last year's DIY container planting here.

vertical gardening inspiration

Here are some fun inspirational garden photos for your tuesday. A few I would love to try out myself!

small colorful terra cotta pots on an old fence. DIY toutorial here.

tin can wall via flickr

a shoe organizer turned vertical herb garden via pinterest

herbs in old coffee cans via ewa in the garden

burro tail succulents in old coffee cans found in mexica via mozone gardening and a vertical garden made out of an old palette from life on the balcony (remind me to try this one out next year!!).

concrete block garden via remodelista. I would love to try this out in my garden this year and I have the cinder-blocks too! I just don't think lugging them around my yard would be advisable in my last 3 weeks of pregnancy :)

found friday: vintage botany prints

Lovely vintage flower plates from the etsy store shaving kit supplies. The vintage botany prints are from an old book of floral studies. Shown above, gentian, scabious and mistletoe $8 each. These would look so fabulous framed and hanging together.

I hope you enjoy your weekend!
-christina

floraly photos

images via hatch, floralls, flickr, tubbertha, growyourbeauty via oh hello friend

some lovely floral photos for your day :)

flower id: hostas

Chances are high that you have these babies growing somewhere in your yard. Hostas are a common ground cover often found in landscapes and gardens abound. There are as many as 45 different species of hosta plants you can grow with all different leaf sizes, shapes and color variations. Hosta plantaginea originated in China, though most of the varieties we have today were introduced by Japan to Europe in the 19th century. They have since spread over gardens across the world as an easy to cultivate and pleasing to the eye plant.

I love using hostas as a cut flower. When displayed alone in a vase their ovate leaves show off great texture. Hostas have a very long vase life and I will let you in on a little secret, florists actually pay big money for them as a cut flower to use as a soft texture in garden bouquets. So while you are waiting for your summer cut flowers to bloom, try displaying some hostas!

-christina

container flower gardens

a whirl wind of a planting season it's been! It was full of rain, rain and more rain for two weeks. We ended up having to plant in the rain anyways which makes an awful big muddy mess to clean up, but I am glad we did it then because we've hit hot and sticky summer weather full force now! Here are some photos of Fresh Art Planting's container flower gardens this year. Imagine how full and luscious these designs will each be when they grown in!

maiden grass, dwarf sunflowers, rust sweet potato vine, marigolds and petunias


white mandevilla vine trellis, coral geranium, purple petunia, purple verbena and little white globe flowers

lantana topiary trees, bi color caladium, dusty miller, purple petunias, marigolds, fern, rust sweet potato vine


strawberry pots of coral hibiscus, creeping jenny, and assorted succulents

lavender duranta topiaries, regal geraniums, red spider begonia, purple petunias, lime sweet potato vine, english ivy and wandering jew

I am working on a "how to" post for this season so come back and see! Until then you can check out last years here.