Looking for ways to add some idyllic charm to your home? A living picture may be just what you need. Living pictures are a unique offshoot of the modern vertical gardening craze that involves growing eye-catching succulent plants in a specially-engineered picture frame rather than a traditional upright planter. The result is a whimsical piece that is sure to become the new focal point of your garden or patio. To craft your own living picture, all you need are a few basic building materials, some potting soil and a selection of vibrant plant cuttings that will allow you to realize your vision.
EditSteps
EditAssembling the Frame
- Gather your supplies. To put together your own living picture, you’ll need an old or unused portrait frame, four 1x3 boards, a sheet of ½“ hardware cloth, a scrap piece of plywood, a hammer, nails and wood staples. You’ll also need a bag of potting soil and a hook or length of wire to hang your living picture later on.[1]
- Check for inexpensive picture frames of the appropriate size at places like flea markets, vintage stores and estate sales.[2]
- As for the plants themselves, you can purchase or harvest your pick of any number of hearty succulents, or find rugged species of plants like grasses and small shrubs that can withstand the unique demands of vertical gardening.
- Cut a shadowbox to fit your picture frame. Measure the 1x3 boards to the same specifications as the picture frame you’ve acquired for the project. Saw the boards into sections of the appropriate length to correspond to the sides of the frame. Attach the corners of the boards using nails to fashion a basic shadowbox.[3]
- Measure each of your wooden components carefully before you make any cuts.
- Use naturally water-resistant woods like cedar and redwood to encourage drainage and prevent overwatering the plants.[4]
- The addition of a deep shadowbox will provide adequate room to contain the potting soil and roots of the plants, while also giving your living picture a more commanding three-dimensional appearance.
- Insert a sheet of hardware cloth into the shadowbox. Using the same measurements you took before, trim the hardware cloth so that it slides into place inside the shadowbox without bending or resistance. Staple the edges of the hardware cloth to the inner wall of the shadowbox.[5]
- The grid like openings of the hardware cloth will be just narrow enough to hold compacted soil in place, yet just wide enough to insert the plant seeds and cuttings through.
- Secure the plywood backing to the frame. Once again, use the dimensions of the picture frame for reference when cutting the plywood to size. Align the corners of the plywood backing with those of the shadowbox and nail them down. Then, fit the shadowbox, screen and backing into the frame and use a few more nails to make sure they all hold together. Your living picture frame is now complete![6]
- You’ll need to remove the glass front and included backing from the frame before putting the shadowbox planter into place.
- Paint your frame. At this stage, you can add some flair by customizing your frame with a special color scheme. Brush on a primer first, then layer on 2-3 coats of acrylic or latex paint until the frame is a uniform shade. Finish with a clear coat lacquer to waterproof the frame and make it suitable for outdoor use.[7]
- Waterproof paints are preferable, as they'll protect the frame from damage caused by soil and water runoff.
- Try color washing your frame for a more weathered, antique look.
EditPlanting the Succulents
- Fill the living picture frame with potting soil. Snip the corner off a bag of soil to create a narrow spout. Starting with the edges, go around the frame and pour in the soil until it just touches the underside of the hardware cloth. Give the frame an occasional shake while you work to level off the soil and help it distribute more evenly.[8]
- You can also add a small amount of fertilizer to the potting soil to promote the health of new plants. Look for nitrogen-rich fertilizers and mix a light sprinkling into the fresh soil before you fill the frame.
- Formulate your own soil specifically for succulent plants by mixing two parts moist soil from your yard or garden with one part sand and small pebbles.[9]
- Poke small holes in the soil. Use a chopstick, screwdriver or slender wooden dowel to burrow into the soil about 1-1.5” deep. This will create a series of small holes that will make planting the seeds and cuttings much more expedient. Dig one hole for each plant you intend to grow.[10]
- Make sure the holes are relatively narrow and that the soil around the opening isn’t cracked or loose.
- Be careful not to make the holes so deep that you reach the plywood backing.
- Confirm that the holes you dig are wide enough to accommodate the root bulbs of larger succulent species.
- Press the plant cuttings into the holes. Insert the cuttings through the wire screen of the hardware cloth root-side down. They should fit perfectly into the holes you just opened up. After all the cuttings are in place, pat the soil around the visible portion of the plants to anchor them.[11]
- At this point, you should begin thinking about how you want your finished living picture to look. This will give you an idea of what type of planting pattern will work best.
- Plant leaf cuttings at an angle to the soil, with the trimmed end below the surface.[12]
- Give the plants time to take root. You won’t hang your living picture right away. Seeds and young cuttings will need two to four weeks of constant sunlight and daily watering to begin growing. When the roots have spread and found traction in the soil, the plants will be resilient enough to mount without coming loose.[13]
- For the first week or so, aim to water your plants once a day. Simply wet the top of the soil around each of the plants. As they develop, they’ll require less and less water and general maintenance.[14]
- Hang and care for your living picture. Once the roots have secured themselves in the soil, you'll be able to mount the frame with no fear of the plants coming dislodged. Attach the hook or wire hanger to the upper portion of the plywood backing and display it in a well-lit section of your living room, kitchen, patio or garden. Take the frame down whenever you need to water the plants or add new fertilizer to the soil.[15]
- You can also water the plants using a spray bottle. Give them a generous misting once or twice a day, and be sure to saturate the soil as well as the foliage.
- Make sure the soil is adequately drained before rehanging the living picture.
EditCreating Beautiful Designs
- Plant your cuttings in an attractive pattern. While you’re digging holes for the plants, exercise some creative forethought to make interesting designs and configurations. You could arrange different species in alternating rows, or sew brilliantly colored plants in dazzling sweeps and swirls. Remember, your living picture is as much a work art as it is gardening.[16]
- Use small, vertical succulents to produce symmetrical designs like swirls or a zigzagging Chevron pattern.
- Accumulate a gallery of living pictures and use each to explore a different style of planting and arrangement.
- Use contrasting colors. Hearty flowering plants come in a myriad of unique and unusual hues. Japanese iris and begonias, for instance, are typically a delicate violet color, while Oncidium orchids glow a fiery red when they reach maturity. Incorporate the wide range of plants available to you into your palette and cultivate an arrangement that’s truly stunning.[17]
- Mix and match plants of various sizes. Look for combinations of plants with shapes and structure that offset one another. In a diverse living picture, Aeonium blossoms will burst forth from a sea of creeping green clover while spikes of spider aloe protrude tower-like from a ring in the center. The possibilities are nearly limitless—listening to your aesthetic sensibilities will help you piece together a one-of-a-kind display.[20]
- Find out how big you can expect your plants of choice to grow before sewing them. You don’t want one oversized fern or aloe to dominate your living picture.
- Prune your plants regularly to keep them from spilling over the edges of the frame.[21]
- Play around with negative space. You don’t have to plant over every square inch of your frame. The soil itself can actually be used to enhance the look of a living picture by breaking up dense patches of color and adding depth and visual texture from. See how you might include glimpses of sandy soil and glistening wire to make your designs more purposeful and sophisticated.[22]
- Embellish your living picture with colored stones, ribbons, pendants and other decorative accents.[23]
EditTips
- Browse the selection of succulents, grasses and shrubs available in the gardening section of major home improvement stores, or acquire cuttings at your local greenhouse or plant nursery.
- You may be able to buy pre-assembled living picture frames in some gardening stores. This could save you the time of rigging one up yourself if you’d prefer to skip straight to cultivating the plants.
- Group your cuttings close together in the soil. This causes them to grow more slowly, which will give you more control over their appearance.
- Prolific succulents like sedum and cotyledon are useful for filling gaps around larger, more impressive plants.
- Take cuttings from succulents growing in your own garden and “recycle” them for a living picture project.
- Dig up and replace dead, diseased or misshapen plants as your living picture continues to grow and develop.
EditWarnings
- Be careful not to overwater your succulents. A generous soak once a week (just enough to cover the surface of the soil) will usually be more than enough to keep them alive and healthy. Too much moisture can rot the roots and cause leaves to become mushy and limp.
EditThings You'll Need
- Portrait-sized picture frame
- 4 1x3 boards
- 1 sheet 1/2" hardware cloth
- Scrap sheet of plywood
- Hammer
- Nails
- Wood staples (optional)
- Acrylic paint
- Screwdriver, chopstick or other slender tool (for poking planting holes)
- Various succulent plant cuttings
- Potting soil (formulated for succulent plants)
- Succulent fertilizer
EditSources and Citations
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Source: http://www.wikihow.com/Plant-a-Living-Picture-with-Plants