Hi I'm Debra Lee Baldwin
in my garden
I just finished replanting
tearing apart, redoing
this big fiberglass clamshell
I'm really pleased with the
way it turned out
And I think you will be too
It's been a few years
and it's starting to look
overgrown and there's
certain things about it
that don't really work with
the undersea theme
so they need to go
It's like cleaning out a drawer
You just take everything out
And then you only put back
What you want to keep
And I have some cool things
That I'm going to add to it too
So are you ready?
Hello (laughs)
And once I've got
the rootball ready to come out
I can get the whole thing
Let's plunk it down there
Start removing the inhabitants
This jade plant which is
turned into a bush, something
you wouldn't see under the ocean
This one started out looking like
a great little starfish
I'm using my Joyce Chen kitchen
scissors and just going in there
and getting anything that looks
dead or unhappy
Here we have more of a jade plant
This is Crassula 'Gollum' and you
can see why I chose it to begin
because has those tubular leaves
and they really enhance that look
of an undersea arrangement
but over time the plant has turned
into a bush
Very sad looking bunch of
dwarf aloes which I may or may not
keep because I've got new ones
A tillandsia.
Tillandsias have very different
cultivation requirements than
succulents, so this needs to be
hydrated a lot more
and we have all this cute stuff
or as I sometimes say,
"cute crap" because it can be
overly cute and you can
overdo it.
So I don't know if I'm going
to keep it or not.
We may have a more
sophisticated look this
time around.
It suggests an undersea
plant moving in a current
I like it but it needs some
pruning back
Medusa euphorbia
Look at it with its tentacles
Isn't it wonderful?
It's such a cool plant
And was pretty small when
I put it in.
I'll have to find
a picture of the arrangement
as it looked originally
Pumice is a volcanic rock
That is full of tiny air holes
That help to absorb excess moisture
This composition has a main
viewing vantage point which is
where you are right now
Always start with your largest
plants and pieces that are
going to go into your composition
And then you can work smaller
and smaller from there
This doesn't have a very big rootball
as you can see it's what I pulled out
earlier, and so anchoring it is going
to be problematical
One way to do that is to add rocks
Now these are lava rocks
I'm lucky that I have them
I found them at a nursery
You can't always get them
But they do work really well
in an arrangement that
suggests an undersea reef
So a couple of rocks on
either side of that should
help it stand up
And then as I add soil
it'll help as well
Let's see, is that better?
I'm just using regular potting soil
So the weight of the moist soil
should help hold things in
And more rocks even, if need be
OK, so I'm really pushing hard
on that soil and on those rocks
There we go!
This is Euphorbia anoplia
This is a euphorbia
This looks like a euphorbia
Looks like Euphorbia leucodendron
But it's actually Senecio anteuphorbium
Slide this guy gently out of its pot
You never know what kind of
a colony you're going to get over time
I love the symmetry and the geometry
of these, and I love how they suggest
the inhabitants of maybe an undersea
or coral reef
And this is going to help prop up
Our senecio as well
This is just fun and filler
An aloe that came out of the
original composition
It looked more like a starfish
way back when
but it grew over time,
and I'm happy with that
Oh, and look, I found these
great dwarf aloes that have
white in them, and they're
going to go great with the
white of the clamshell
So just gently remove a little
bit of soil from that
And I also have the option
to pull these apart
Small things need to go
more toward the front
Another starfish-like aloe
that I can tuck in
Coral
I like that repetition there of
the spiral with the spiral center
of the euphorbia
Pushing down, pulling back,
really tucking that in there
because that's got several
functions to play, filling the gap
enhancing the composition
and also needs to keep things
from spilling
Part of that can go in that hole
Just pull it apart
There's a nice big chunk
Then this can repeat somewhere else
Crassula lycopodioides
I love saying that, it makes
me sound so smart
It's the watch-chain crassula
It repeats the lines of this sweeping
senecio and also the tentacles
of the euphorbia
Rotate it slightly for the viewer
Always get three of anything
that you're planting because
it's going to give you the option
of repeating it in three
different places
When you're handling these
little dwarf aloes, these
Kelly Griffin hybrids and
the like, they have very stiff
brittle leaves, so be very
careful you don't snap off
the leaves as you're pushing
against them and settling
them.
You see my artist's brush
does double duty
One end is great for poking into
the rootball to settle it
and the other end is good
for brushing off spilled dirt
Fenestrarias, these little
windowpane plants
They'll stand up to a little
bit of overwatering or a
little bit too much sun
unlike a lot of the other
mimicry plants
I have this beautiful tillandsia
I'm going to put that over
on that side, just as a filler
keeping in mind that
this tillandsia is going to
need to be hydrated more
than the rest of the composition
And that can nestle next to
its friend there and fill that gap
I have a couple of pups from
that, let's see, maybe in here?
I think we're just down to
adding a few little gap-fillers
here and there throughout
the arrangement
What's important is the
viewer's perspective
This is not beach sand
This is craft sand, very
important difference
Beach sand has salts in it
that are harmful to plants
Oh, I love how these pebbles
repeat the rounded tops
of the fenestraria
Water...these plants, a lot of them
have very fleshy leaves which means
that they can live off the
moisture in their leaves for
quite a while.
I'm Debra Lee Baldwin