I have always been a gardener and lover of plants and flowers. I worked in the floral industry for 15 years, starting as a shop clerk, plant care, and became a floral designer. I worked on daily designs, funerals, and weddings. The only thing I didn't enjoy doing was using other peoples designs- like the mass flower shops that your order online, with recipes that included one and a half stems of flowers, and almost always a one sided design. It hurt me knowing people were paying more in fees and container costs than actual flowers. My advice has always been call the flower shop directly- and let them design something. That makes a floral designer flourish and love their job. To this day I love heading down to the floral wholesaler, and designing what I want within a given budget and a clients idea. I feel it is an important aspect of design to know how the flowers are grown which these days, you either know how to design, or you know how to grow. I always want to know how to do everything, if I don't know how, I throw myself into the research and figure it out.
Art is everywhere- just a matter of perspective. I have a house full of plants, that spend the Wisconsin summers outside. I walked around my garden yesterday so I could soak up every inch of the suns energy during the eclipse, laid all my personal stone bracelets and crystals outside to revive their natural energy. I saw a ton of random succulents growing all over where I had them potted last year. I hate to waste them- so I dug them up and found a few driftwood pieces that I have collected that needed a purpose. I also had a few orchids inside losing their flowers and outgrowing their pots. I have a love/hate relationship with orchids, they bloom once a year for up to a month, and then they rest. I see people toss them when they are done flowering, which hurts me. Fall in love with the leaves and root systems on this truly unique plant, and your gift for a year of care is a beautiful bloom. I wanted to make the leaves and roots the focus and mount them for hanging art. I collected all my supplies, laid everything out, and got to work. For the orchids, I chose these wood slab slices and drilled a few holes to support the fishing line and wires, and put hanging brackets on the back.
Then I stripped away all the old potting material on the orchids, and laid them on damp moss. Once positioned, I used fishing line to secure them in place, added more moss, and used covered oasis wire to hold them in place.
Then I moved to the succulents and used the same steps to attach to the driftwood. I drilled a large hole into the center of the wood so I could keep some of the dirt attached. I was happy with the results. I just need to water with a spray bottle to keep them thriving. Worst case is I lose a plant, and can replace.
