Having seen Tim's Pinterest page before his funeral reception and noticed the pin of a container combination that mentioned Pamela Crawford, and then having seen his front yard and home and back yard packed with just such arrangements, and having overheard at the reception three separate mentions of a unique (for them) and interesting visit to a wholesale plant warehouse with Tim, together caused me to think, "Hey!" I can do that. I did that before.
A long time ago right after my first apartment I met a guy in my building who is much older and lazy as can be but needed some money real badly. He was completely put off with the idea of having to do something about it. How he complained. The idea of work was repulsive.
He attained a state sales license. Easy to do at the time, apply and pay a small fee. He drove his van around to bare buildings and offered his services to outfit the whole interior place with plants. Or just the lobby. They wouldn't have to do anything but pay a small set-up and monthly fee. He had accounts immediately and due to his laziness kept the accounts small. He was uninterested in expansion. The set-up fee paid for the plants then he owned them. He bought some very large plants and some trees. The usual things you see everywhere. He serviced the accounts either once or twice a week. This went on for the length of time that I knew him.
During that period I went with him to the plant importing warehouses where plants are surprisingly inexpensive. All you do is present your sales license.
I had a sales license. I bought plants for my apartment and never collected sales tax, so that was it.
But after that I haven't renewed it and I think you must to continue. I don't know. Maybe it is still valid.
It enables you to buy containers at wholesale prices too and it makes a big difference. Especially if you intend to buy a ton of containers as Tim did along with all the plants purchased with undisciplined abandon.
Looking through the first Denver plant wholesalers the fist catalog hasn't any pictures. The second is all outdoor landscaping, down the line of results Calabrese Greenhouse, I suppose plants for our area. From their catalog.
Iron cross oxalis. This caught my eye right off. It looks like something you'd make up. I could recreate this picture with a carved potato. The other similar specimens are tri-leafed. I've seen those before a lot but not these.
I haven't been big on begonias but I am willing to change, this one is begonia escargot. You got to love the way leaf curls bizarrely outward as it grows. A few such large leaves clustered would set off a planter dramatically, here a full bunch of them.
Bromeliad del mar, the same type plant as pineapple. This plant type is tropical and has sturdy upright leaves that curl around a wide base forming a cup that catches and retains water. The cup is the plant's main source of nutrients. In jungle rain forests these cups of water become mini ecosystems among the branches of trees. The bromeliad's roots less important for uptake of nutrients than for digging into tree branches and settling into tree branch elbows.
Spring cactus.
When we moved to Colorado as a teen I was kicking down the railroad tracks that run parallel with Santa Fe, now a commuter track among other things and off limits now to such idle trespass kicking. I was fascinated with native cactus that grows in the ballast between the railroad ties. They are very poor starved abused specimens. I went back with gloves (insufficient), a box, and a digger and retrieved enough mangled cactus to replant as a small inhospitable garden.
At home I chose my spot poorly; east with southern exposure then nothing after noon. Nonetheless my little garden perked right up in Spring. I replanted them all to the back, now full sun at noon and thereafter. The garden tripled, quadrupled grew out of hand bloomed beautifully, as these are except the most insane pure yellow. The blooms persist for a satisfyingly long time and at the spot of each bloom a new ear forms like dangerous green spiked prickly Mickey Mouse ears until all the new cactus-Mickey Mouse ears themselves have their own Mickey Mouse ears that started as insane yellow flowers that lasted satisfyingly long. They are outrageous. Shown just the barest care of the sort a teenage boy can muster and boom off they go.
5 comments:
Huh? I nearly lost my Easter Cactus by putting it out in full sun this summer. Burned it up. Moved it to an almost always fully shaded spot and it's done fine. I have a tough time getting them to bloom, but because the leaves are so easy to root, I always have one no matter how neglected.
So I'm moving my company to a new location that is huge (4 acres), but it has no trees - all pavement and building, so I want to have a lot of container trees and plants around to green it up. I'm looking for good trees for large containers that would be big enough for people to actual sit under and have shade. Zone 10. I need really big pots. Any ideas? Also. I wonder if you could build a low curb (maybe 4 inches high around an area of asphalt pavement and then fill it with some soil over a layer of gravel and plant grass. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing. I want grass, but I don't want to tear up the pavement - it's brand new.
This book that I am recommending is not so useful.
It does have a few pages on trees in containers but they are small trees and reasonable consumer-size containers.
It also has a few pages on making one's one own container my mixing a substance called hypertufa containing 1 part. Portland cement, 1.5 parts sphagnum peat moss, 1.5 parts perlite.
It shows how to produce a container by packing this material around some upside down plastic container, allowing it to cure, then removing the plastic insert. The inside will be the smooth shape of the original plastic container and the outside will be whatever shape you packed it. The example shown has a square inside and round outside, a box inside a cylinder. It looks like shapely cinderblock.
I say, large shady trees are longterm commitments. Building sites make such changes all the time. dig up the parking lot in patches even though it is shiny and new. But I doubt people will seek shade in the middle of a parking lot. I'm visualizing an island of shade trees amid a large parking lot being attractive to look at but not so attractive to draw picnickers. Trees need to sink their roots otherwise you are growing a bonsai.
The grass thing, sure, why not?
I planted grass seed in Earth box and it grew just fine. Nice and tall then it bent over like a little troll doll with long colorful hair except a large green rectangular box instead. I considered a flamingo with wire legs to complete the vignette but never got around to it. The grass pulls right up so it's not all that deep.
Thanks Chip. I might try that self-made container idea.
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