November | 2011 | Far Out Flora

Thigmotrope Vertical Garden

November 9, 2011 by Matti | 8 Comments

Flora Grubb Living Wall

Flora Grubb Gardens updated the look of their impressive woolly pocket wall last week. You can see how it looked last spring above. It’s always good to freshen things up. Their new transformation is pretty sweet…vertical garden on one side and Thigmotropes on the other. Thigmotrope? It’s their clever new way to mount Tillandsias on your wall.

Setting up the wall

I was without the good camera so I busted out the iPhone. Dead center is where that original wall garden hung. Here you can see them fork lifting the bones for the new wall garden into place…detail below.

New Wall Set up

Filling in the Garden Wall

After getting the bones in place, some of the Flora Grubb gurus got to work planting the shady side reusing the woolly pocket planters from the original hanging wall.

Filling in the garden wall

Shady side in progress

Man, it’s a treat to watch pros at work. Lots of Philodendrons and ferns were incorporated taking advantage of the lack of direct sunlight.

Living Garden Complete

More or less…the woolly pocket wall was finished. How keen of them to build a window in the middle.

Front of the new installation

Okay, here’s where it get even cooler. On the front of the structure, they inaugurated their newly released Thigmotrope Satellite. These metal guys are a fun way to display your Tillandsias on the wall. Good news for those of us who are running out of flat space in our homes. BTW, Tillandsias (aka Air Plants) are a great plant for those that have challenges keeping plants alive.

Thigmotropes installed with Tillandsias

I promised to bring the good camera with me soon to Flora Grubb to get some better pics. Seeing it completed…all I can say is the Thigmotrope rocks! Great work guys.

– Far Out Flora

I Love You Olbrich Gardens

November 6, 2011 by Megan | 7 Comments

Bolz Conservatory, Olbrich Botanical Gardens

I love Olbrich Botanical Gardens. It used to be a beautiful twenty minute bike ride from my old apartment, so I was there all the time. Especially during my old school photography class days. The outdoor gardens are totally free and the Bolz Conservatory only costs a buck. The Conservatory is always a great spot to visit for a little humidity and heat in the freezing, super dry months of January and February. Here’s a great little page from the website about their sustainability practices.

Yucca filamentosa 'Bright Edge'

If I was still living in Wisconsin, this would definitely be growing in my garden. Hardy to zone 4 and still looking super foxy in late October, you can’t really go wrong.

Euphorbia griffithii 'Fireglow'

Wholly hotness!!! Another sweet plant that would be growing in my zone 4 Wisconsin garden if I still lived there. I didn’t even know what a Euphorbia was until I moved to California.

Euphorbia myrsinites magic

Here’s a shot from the rock garden section that was full to the brim with Euphorbia myrsinites. I’ve heard that it could be “weedy”, but it looks like it could make a rockin’ ground cover. Betcha it’s bunny proof, too. I also ran in to a sweet little patch of Euphorbia cyparissias rubrifolia while walking back downtown.

Callicarpa dichotoma 'Early Amethyst'

Okay, so this is pretty much a post about plants I’d grow if I lived back in Wisconsin. Love the chartreuse leaves & bright purple berries on this cutie.

Succulent kaleidoscope

There was a big old bowl full of sedums with a giant kaleidoscope set up. The bowl spins for succulenty visions.

Sedum 'Angelica'

More Sedum.

Thai Pavilion

No visit to Olbrich is complete without checking out the Thai Pavillion which was gifted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the Thai Government and the Thai Chapter of the Wisconsin Alumni Association. Additional random fact from the website: “The pavilion is only one of four located outside of Thailand. The others are in Germany, Norway, and Hawaii.” Nice.

Colchicum autumnale

Naked Ladies of the midwest! Wikipedia claims that Colchicum autumnale is also approved by the USDA as a medication for gout. I’m going to shut up now and show you a bunch of cool meadow grass pictures that I love, but have no idea what they are.

Grassy Love

Happy Place

Gorgeous Grass

More grass

Want to see Olbrich in late May? Here are a bunch of posts from my trip back over a year ago (I went a little blog crazy):

Thai Pavillion in Madison

Succulents in Wisconsin

Shady Olbrich Gardens

Rosey Day Thursday

Peony Party

Sunken Meadow Garden

Cuckoo For Ornamental Kale & Cabbages

November 5, 2011 by Megan | 10 Comments

Dahlias & Kale Bouquet

My last Wisconsin post was kind of a downer… so I’m switching over to something a little cheerier, ornamental kale & cabbages. I love Annie’s Kale ‘Crane Red’ (next time it’s around I’m planting it). Back when I was in middle school I planted an entire colony of the biggest, craziest, most outrageous decorative cabbages in at least a five mile radius, from seed. It was one of my proudest young gardening moments. Cars would even slow down to check them out and children would stop to count them in awe. During my trip back, I took lots of pictures of Brassica family members including the above, at the Dane County Farmers’ Market (the biggest & best in the country, I may add). Before moving to California, my dream was to buy a little farmette near Madison, where I would grow mass quantities of cut flowers every year to sell at farmer’s markets and weddings.

Dane County Farmers' Market

That could be me in twenty five years, but I don’t think I’d be able to cope with real winters again.

Crazy Cabbage

More gratuitous pictures of kale and cabbages I saw while back in Wisconsin.

Atwood Community Gardens

Market Bouquets

Off the Bike Path on the way to Olbrich

Cut Flower Kale Fest

3118 Cross Street

November 4, 2011 by Megan | 8 Comments

My old backyard

Last week I was back in Madison, Wisconsin (my rockin’ hometown) for a visit. It was cool to see a true fall for the first time in over five years. One of my first stops was the house I grew up in on. It always amazes me that my tetherball set up is still there. That pole is over twenty years old, but someone keeps upgrading the ball. Check out those amazing oak trees! We lived without a functioning garage to keep those puppies alive, which meant lots of scraping ice and snow off windshields (totally worth it). Okay, I’m going to be honest here. I had a post for Dia de los Muertos going earlier. Both of my parents ashes were sprinkled at the bases of those sweet trees. Mom got the front tree and dad got the back. It’s been over ten years since they died, but I have to give my dad big credit for giving me the plant bug early on.

Sedum 'Autumn Joy' (I think)

Plantwise the terraces have changed quite a bit over the years. My dad used to have to lower a lawnmower down the hill on a rope to mow, back in the day until he built the first terraces in the early 90′s. He was also a hobby propagator, starting all kinds of plants under lights in our basement. It was far more diverse. We got every seed and bulb catalog out there when I was growing up.

My Pretty House

The three little windows poking out on the second floor were in my bedroom. It had slanty walls. Not so sure what I think about some of the big shrubs & stuff going on, but the current owners probably don’t have a kid to send out to deadhead and weed. I was always given a big section on the top to plant random vegetables I refused to eat & was pretty attached to quite a few of our old perennials. My dad let me pick out a lot of plants. I loved climbing around like a monkey on those terraces.

The other view

Here’s the other side of the house with an even better idea of how big those oaks out back are. A little over a year ago I did a little post about the old place in honor of my mom, if you want to see what the old place looked like in the olden days. It’s been fancied up since I lived there.