Crafty things with your garden?

[patandchickens]

Last fall I had to mark where the (not currently used, but prone to damage by being stomped on) old sump outflow pipe comes out into the ditch in the back yard.

I used 6 bamboo tomato stakes to make a teepee over the spot, then cut some clematis vines (C. tangutica, so they're covered with lots and lots of fluffy seedheads) and wired them onto the teepee in a loose ascending spiral. Stuck some sedum 'Autumn Joy' seedheads on the very top.

The result looks like a stylized Christmas tree made out of clematis vines and tomato stakes.

(Edited to add: wait, I found a photo from a couple days ago, the Craft Object Thing is in the lower right quadrant - in my defense, let's remember that it looked a lot less, er, Spartan before we had a winter's worth of ice, snow and wind:

Well, technically it's a craft, right? You didn't specify 'fancy' or 'good'


Pat, whose outdoor crafty projects lean more towards tying trimmed tree branches together with baler twine to make temporary windbreak panels for newly planted things, or plunking a section of old TV aerial tower in the ground to grow a clematis on ;P

 

[Southern Gardener]

Very crafty indeed! LOL! That is a beautiful picture - being the southern girl I am, I just can't imagine all that snow! When does it all melt - July?

 

[digitS']

Thanks for the kind words. BTW you can see some of this year's chicken feed there in the millet and wheat. I always save a little seed.

I grow a lot of these ornamental things every year just for some material for wreathes and such. Then we find some teasel and this strange vine that grows around where people allow it. I don't know what the vine is but we don't get a rash from handling it, at least . DW sometimes uses grape vines as a base.

Oh the PC thing about corn - it's all Indian corn, every type. I've got a flour type to try in 2008 !

The ornamental corn in the picture is "Autumn Explosion" - both Jungs and Jordan Seed sell it. The last year I grew it (2006), I had a problem with sweet corn. . . . Only a very few seeds had any colored kernels - like 2 ears from an entire patch. I had deliberately planted quick maturing varieties, very early. So what was the problem? To avoid any crossing with the nearby ornamental corn, I eliminated any late harvesting of sweet corn. . . . I knew that I was going to have problems with the ornamental corn pollen but THAT wasn't the way to deal with it !! Next time, I won't grow so much, I'll tuck it into a corner, down wind, and have all the sweet corn I can get for as long as I can get it row !

You can only make so many sacrifices for beauty . . .

Steve

 

[patandchickens]

Very crafty indeed! LOL! That is a beautiful picture - being the southern girl I am, I just can't imagine all that snow! When does it all melt - July?

Hah, Joan -- the last month or two, the answer is 'every week and a half'.

(...at which point we have flooding and I get to spend an afternoon shovelling ice and slush out of all the drainage ditches so that nothing important actually submerges.)

My horses would *melt* in Louisiana though. Me too. I mean, really, with cold you can always put on another layer of clothes -- with heat, at some point you're standing naked in front of the air conditioner and then what more can you do


Pat, in central Ontario, where we are generally free of persistant snow cover by, say, early to mid April, with an average last frost date of the first coupla days of June (but only because we're in a low spot). And *highly* envious of the things you can grow in a Gulf Coast climate, believe me

 

[Southern Gardener]

pat, June is mighty close! hmmm, shoveling ice and slush -people actually do that?

Thankfully Im a cold natured person and keep an electric heater within easy reach at home and work throughout the year. I also keep a jacket in my vehicle and carry one when I go to restaurants - or even grocery shopping for that matter, due to the fact any place you go here in the summer is ridiculously cold. (to me anyway)

Rosalind, I did not mean to hijack your post now, back to crafty people!

 

[Hencackle]

patandchickens--I like your little teepee. I've made one for the chickens before out of cornstalks when I cleared the garden. Some of the hens used it to get away from roosters. :happy_flower

 

[patandchickens]

I keep thinking of making a willow teepee, you know, from fresh willow branches stuck in the ground in spring to root in place and make a living teepee (at least til they get too big to enjoy staying stuck together in that position )

I have shied away from it thus far because the only purpose I could see would be for the kids, and in our yard it would be too much of a mosquito haven to play in... but now hencackle has me thinking of trying something like that for the chickens...

It'd have to be under the roof of the run they're getting this spring. I dunno. It would only take five minutes to start it out, and not much more to rip out if I don't like how it grows. Maybe...




Pat

 

[Birdgardengal]

My husband and I have been making wooden art things for our garden this winter. He cuts things out of wood then we paint them. Cute signs and things. We just finished a scarecrow today. As soon as we get them in the garden and flower beds I will post some pictures. We made teepees out of sunflower plants we cut down and the birds had them all winter to feed on. We left the leaves on the stocks and the birds got inside the teepee area for shelter. They looked good in our yard and the teepees worked out great both as a feeding station and shelter for the birds. But we did learn one thing. The hard wind can huff and puff and blow them down if they are not blanced right. So we put a pole in the center and teepeed the stocks to it and they have lasted all winter standing up. (We get really hard wind sometimes, all you would need is some kind of a brace to help them stand up.)

Digits, Your wreath (yours and your wife's) is just beautiful. I would love to know what all is in it. It is so interesting just looking at all the different plants that are in it. Are the colors the natural colors? Really Beautiful!!!!

 

[digitS']

As Hencackle noted, Jeri, there's nigella (love-in-a-mist) in the wreath. Also, there's gomphrena and statice.

The wheat and millet works nicely especially with some teasel for a real Autumn feel (altho' with the teasel, don't touch !!!

She's also got strawflower, poppies, and, maybe, acroclinium to work with. There'll be an odd peony and rose, as well.

Not such a good photo but this is the dry flower corner. (The wheat and millet are behind me and the teasel is miles away on someone else's ground :

Steve

 

[Hencackle]

Such a nice flower garden in that photo, digitS'.

What are your secrets for growing statice? I haven't had luck growing it...a shame, because it dries so well.