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Sticking It: A Foam Story

dry-floral-foam.jpgOur late fall weather took a nose dive a few days ago.  Just yesterday, it was 15 degrees when I came into work.  Bitter cold like that over a period of time can make any soil left in a container turn rock hard.  I have had gardeners in, wondering how they will get their winter containers done.  We do not stick any of our greens into the soil in a pot.  Evergreen boughs installed in the soil have only one direction possible-that is straight up.  We build forms from florist’s foam that fit tight into the pot.  The foam will stand above the rim of the pot, enabling the placement of greens to the side, and on an angle.  Once a form is built, you can reuse it, or patch it.  But another great feature of working in foam is the fact that frozen soil is not a problem.

dry-floral-foam.jpgI try to remember to take 4 ” or so of soil out of the pot when doing the fall cleanup.  The bottom layer of the foam will sit down into the pot.  The top layer gets the evergreen stems. Very large pots may ask for more layers of foam.  Given very large pots, or very tall centerpieces, we may wrap the foam with steel wire.

hot-glue-gun.jpg

We glue our layers of foam together with hot melt glue. Since the glue cools and sets up fairly quickly, we usually have 2 glue guns going at once.  If this sounds like way to much work, we make forms to order all the time.

layers-of-foam.jpgThere are plenty of variations on this theme. A long window box may ask for 3 forms that can be wedged together upon installation.  Odd shaped containers may ask for foam bricks that can be glued up, rather than sheets.  Some forms are thicker at the back than the front, if the materials at the back will be heavier in the back.  This material enables the actual sticking of the greens to be done indoors.  I would dread having to insert branches into half frozen soil when the temperature is much below freezing.  This would make the job miserable.

gluing-the-layers.jpgGardeners are routinely victimized by the weather, but in this particular instance, there is no need.  Being comfortable means the ability to concentrate on the task at hand, rather than the wind chill.  Should you want to move a branch over or up an inch, that adjustment is easy.  You can control the angle and direction of the placement with ease.  If you make a move you don’t like, you can try a different move.

winter-window-box-under-construction.jpgMuch better this mess on the garage floor, than on the front porch.  This is easy to sweep up.

dry-floral-foam.jpgThis is the third year for this form.  We actually don’t make so many holes in the foam.  We sharpen the woody stems of the greens with pruners.  This makes for a tight fit.  We look at the green topside of a branch to decide on the placement of the next.  We do not place the woody stems close together.  This helps to conserve material without sacrificing a lush look.

winter-window-box.jpgTransporting an arrangement this large takes some doing.  And the heaviest stems or centerpieces are put in once the foam is in place.  Once you get the hang of sticking the foam, there will be no stopping you.

lighted-winter-containers.jpg

If you haven’t done your winter containers yet, don’t despair. A little simple technology can help make it happen.  I did post lots of pictures of winter pots on the Detroit Garden Works facebook page today, should you be interested.

 

 

Posted on: November 25, 2013 23 Comments
Filed Under: Winter, container planting, Holiday, Detroit Garden Works Tagged With: ,

More On Winter

holiday container arrangements

This past week was devoted to getting a lot of clients ready for the holidays and the winter to come.  Every client’s take on the season is different.  How I love that.  Every project we do involves different materials, different emphasis, different style, different execution.

There are those landscapes that are very spare-they ask for seasonal company in the same vein.  There are those who love sparkles, and those who want anything but. 

The architecture makes its own demand.  Ignore that, and your winter container arrangements will look jarringly out of place.  These containers look in keeping with an idea that was established by the architecture.

There are those who delight in the light.  I will confess I am one of them.  The daytime look here-sumptuous.  The night time look-electric.

This client has small children.  The mudroom door-this is their front door.  A dog, and a few pots dressed for the season-appropriate to the occasion.

We had occasion to obtain a number of French made baskets with leather handles.  Not that you could spot those handles here, but they finish this basket in a very beautiful way.  I am sure the original intent never involved a winter container arrangement. 

How beautiful and comfortable they look at this front door.  Though the arrangement is simple and subdued, the overall shapes are generous and clear.

This 19th century white painted wirework planter is a garden ornament/container that organizes this entire garden.  For the winter, an arrangement that is just as serious as the planter.  I am particularly pleased about how this looks-and will look-all winter. 

These mossed topiary sculptures in French pots add a graceful note to this massive stone fireplace.  They will be a welcome and personal note-all winter long.

The shape and size of a container, and the location of those containers, provides plenty of clues about how to shape and size an arrangement.  

This client has beautiful terra cotta pots that sit on this porch during the summer months.  In the winter, we fill fiber pots with twigs and greens.  Very simple and uncomplicated, yes.  What would be complicated would be the idea of living with this massive porch all winter long-bare.

Michigan winter weather adds its own touch to every winter container arrangement.  This is why we construct them to withstand whatever nature has to dish out.  We might get a dusting of snow.  We might be buried in it. 

Eucalyptus is a plant whose stems and leaves are amenable to absorbing color, and preservative.  I would not want to do without this material over my winter.  A winter container stuffed full of eucalyptus-not too dressy or dramatic.  Just warm.

Another material not native to my zone-southern magnolia.  I buy the branches by the caseload.  The glossy leaves hold up over my winter beautifully.  The leaves dry the most gorgeous shade of pale platinum green you could imagine.  The cinnamon brown felted backs of the leaves-this color is persistent.  Winter long.  The color and shape of the willow-a great companion.

The relationship of the color of dried limelight hydrangea flowers to the willow and magnolia-pleasing. 

Whitewashed eucalyptus is a material of choice for those clients that swear by white.  Interested in pairing materials?  Noble fir has that blue white cast that makes it a natural companion for whitewashed eucalyptus.  

That very same eucalyptus is a gorgeous companion for the containers we make at Branch.  Steely blue.

Any container that sits empty over the winter bothers me.  I like the idea that no matter the season, the spirit of the garden goes on.  I know my trees, shrubs and perennials are sleeping.  Fine.  It is about to be winter.  But if I have anything to say about it, I fill the pots.  To overflowing.  Welcome, winter.

Posted on: December 9, 2012 2 Comments
Filed Under: Winter, container planting, Holiday Tagged With: , , ,

The Shop Winter Garden

 

The shop landscape is very simple.  A rectangle of boxwood set in a generous plane of decomposed granite, a pair of Techny arborvitae bookends, and a pair of lindens is about all there is.  These plants, almost 20 years old, occupy a modest percentage of the overall space.  This means there is room for a temporary, ephemeral, and seasonal garden expression.  Gardening in a zone which features four distinct seasons is a challenge and an opportunity I would never want to do without.  The chance to start fresh given the change of the season-love that.  The holiday/winter garden is no different.

The inspiration is almost always driven by a natural material that catches my eye.  This year, the curly copper willow branches are incredibly beautiful.  The color is rich and saturated.  The stems are fat and juicy-there is no hint of stress from the drought they endured all summer.  They have a distinctly fresh fragrance.  Each stout stem was topped with a cloud of delicate branches-breathtaking.  I ordered extra, so I would have enough to do the garden in front of the shop.

What would I do with them?  Fresh willow is incredibly flexible.  One could make baskets, fencing, wreaths-just about anything the eye could imagine, and the hand construct.  But I wanted a structure that would permit those thousands of tiny branches to make their own statement.  I use these steel forms at home to give my asparagus some support-I knew they would be perfect.  Attaching the thick stems, one stem at a time to this form, would provide stability without interfering with the natural form and inclination of the branchlets.   

Zip tying each branch was time consuming, and not so easy.  Each stem needed a friendly neighbor.  My landscape crew does a superb job of all of my landscape installations-their seasonal winter work is no exception. They are not only incredibly talented and willing, they have an understanding of natural forms that comes only with many years of exposure to plants.  They never force anything to be.  They let the material dictate the construction, and the overall shape.  They use whatever they need to make the overall shape complete-even if that means I need to order more.  

The douglas fir boughs have been stuffed into dry floral foam, some 6 inches thick.  The bottom 3 inches are wedged into the rim of the pot.  The six inches above the rim are a home to all of the boughs that are set horizontally.  A form this high off the rim of the pot needs reinforcing.  4 pieces of steel rebar are driven through the corners of the foam, and into the soil in the pots.  Once the soil freezes around that steel, it will take gale force winds to dislodge the curly willow. 

A cloud of copper willow and a low wide base of douglas fir- this year’s holiday/winter expression.  The time it takes to construct what will go on in these pots all winter is time I don’t spend moping about the closing of the garden.  Should everything come together, these pots will make a statement about what is good about the winter season.  A customer in the shop yesterday lives in San Francisco.  He tells me the climate and weather is the most consistent and unchanging of any city in the US.  Though he misses the change of the seasons, he does not miss the gray skies.  He is right.  Michigan is one of the grayest and gloomiest  of all of the states in the winter.

So a good part of our winter garden is about turning the lights on.  The light garland draped over the empty window boxes is comprised of three different strands of three different types of lights.  The weight of multiple light strings twisted around each other makes them drape gracefully-they are heavy.  Inside each willow cloud is a spot light, wedged into the floral foam.  A collar of dry limelight hydrangeas flowers conceals it from view.  The spot light illuminates the willow from within.  How I like this idea, and and how it looks.  A light garland would around the base of the willow illuminates them from the outside.  A pair of ball and cone topiary froms are wound solid with ordinary garden variety mini lights.  Ordinary materials do not have to be used in an ordinary way.  

Having turned the lights on, I have no idea what I will do with this next.  Part of the joy of a winter garden is having the time to tinker with it.  The spring and summer garden-I am always running to try to keep up.  This and that always needs something.  Though I have a lot of work yet to come helping clients with holiday and winter containers and decorating, there will be time to figure out what else this garden might need.       


Early this morning, a first dusting of snow.  As my winter is most assuredly on the way, I would rather like it than not.

 

Posted on: November 25, 2012 12 Comments
Filed Under: Lighting, Winter, container planting, Holiday, Detroit Garden Works Tagged With: , , ,

Coppice Wood

Coppicing is a traditional method of producing long straight woody stems by cutting a tree or a shrub back to the ground.  Many varieties of woody plants respond to this drastic treatment with vigorous growth-from the ground.  Coppice wood was used to provide firewood in European countries where the number of trees were vastly outnumbered by a large population requiring fire for cooking and heat.  Shrubby trees wre planted on the perimeters of farms; regular coppicing produced densely twiggy living fences.   

The new shoots emerging from the stump of a tree grow long and straight.  The juvenile growth is vigorous, and the color is vibrant.  In England, the coppice wood from the sweet chestnut tree is still used to make fencing and fence poles for livestock and poultry.  The sweet chestnut is coppicied on 12 to 18 year cycles, and then harvested to make fencing and gates.  The poles come from coppice wood which is allowed to grow upwards of 30 years before cutting. 

The fresh cut twigs which arrive at the shop in early November are grown by farmers who plant their shrubs in rows or blocks, like crops.  Large fields are harvested in rotation, so every year there is a crop of long straight stems.  Many of our twigs come from varieties of salix, or willow. Every gardener knows that the new or current year’s growth on a red twig dogwood shrub has the best color.  Mature stems become woody, and the color dull.  The new bark of coppice wood is lively.  Newer cultivars of the redtwig dogwood have better and brighter color.  The coppice wood of this redtwig dogwood cultivar is known for its especially brilliant color. 

Once the leaves fall, those twigs which are ready are harvested, sorted by length, bundled and shipped.  Most bunches are 10 stems, except for the curly willow.  The winter color of curly willow stems is subtle, but no so its shape.  The curving and curling stems provide lots of volume-these voluminous bunches are usually 5 stems.  5 stems of this gracefully airy and unpredictably curving willow can endow a winter container arrangement with lots of rhythm and movement.

Coppiced yellow twig dogwood is brilliantly yellow green.  The twigs will be color fast the entire winter.  Used in a winter container, it is not unusual for the stems to root, and leaf out in the spring.  Though but a very few of the leaves are still clinging, the branches are vibrant at a time of year when most all else in the garden has gone dormant. 

Flame willow is a striking coppery orange in color-quite unlike the bark of the trees and shrubs that grow in my garden.  This warm cinnamon color is a standout in snowy and gray weather.  This variety of willow is much more handsome in its twiggy state than it is as a green-leaved shrub. 

Japanese fan willow was cultivated from a fasciated, or flattened natural stem.  Many perennials and shrubs will exhibit this peculiar characteristic.  Some azaleas that exhibit densely twiggy growth were propagated originally from fasciated stems.  Fan willow is noted for its exotic shapes and forms.  No two branches ever look the same.

Curly copper willow exhibits much the same habit of growth as the green curly willow.  However the striking color means it will take fewer branches to make a statement in a winter container.  Our coppice wood has arrived at just the right time.  The cold temperatures outside will help keep them fresh, and the surface of the bark glossy.  Thought the color will survive the winter perfectly intact,  the warm weather in the spring will eventually dessicate and shrivel the stems. 

But there is a place for dry stems in winter containers.  Dead wood branches that have shed their bark can be beautiful in a winter arrangement.  Bleached natural branches are dramatically pale in color, and are visible from a great distance.  

The coppice wood-just one element of many that goes into a beautiful winter container arrangement.

 

 

Posted on: November 4, 2012 7 Comments
Filed Under: Holiday, Winter, Color, container planting Tagged With: , , , , ,