wall of flowers

awesome! thanks for sharing! and i have a LOT of 2 liter bottles in my backyard (we were collecting from several sources for over a year to build a greenhouse, but then i just didn't have the energy this summer to actually follow thru - it was just crazy hot this summer!)

such a neat idea!

you'll have to share how it survives the winter - does the plastic get all brittle and need replacing or is reusable. . .these are just a few questions i have.

also, how do you refill the containers with water? do you have to lift each plant out daily and add water or is it a weekly/monthly thing? (i'm so lazy!! so this is info i wonder.)

Arlene the bottom part of the container is fastened to the wood with two screws at the very top


Happyfrog to add water to the containers you don't have to pull the top part out,you cut a half circle on the bottom piece and you pour the water in using the hole. I just kept an eye on mine and waited till all the water had been used up before I refilled so the water doesn't get yucky.


I made some about 3 years ago and they have been outside all that time and they are still in perfect condition,they didn't get brittle or broken. They also held up fine being screwed to the wooden pallet,the bottom piece didn't break lose from the screws.

josh - thanks for detailed reply!!!

Josh

I really appreciate all the information you have given all of us.
Can you imagine how many walls of flowers will be around the world
all because of you.....a more beautiful world Id say.

Thank you so much

Arlene

graficow wrote:Josh

I really appreciate all the information you have given all of us.
Can you imagine how many walls of flowers will be around the world
all because of you.....a more beautiful world Id say.

Thank you so much

Arlene

I made the wall of flowers from the soda bottles in May of 2010, and the wall is still doing fine. In the fall I take the plants out, and empty the soil mix in the compost bin, and in the Spring I wipe them out with a little bleach water, and add new soil mix and replant.

Josh - Could you give an update on how the vegetables you planted on the wall turned out? I try to avoid soft drinks so your ideas have me bugging coworkers for empty bottles

I have a question too Josh. When measuring down the bottle 7 1/2" do you include the curve of the neck or measure straight down? It is recycle day and I hope to find more 2 liter bottles this morning:D

Josh wrote:I made the wall of flowers from the soda bottles in May of 2010, and the wall is still doing fine. In the fall I take the plants out, and empty the soil mix in the compost bin, and in the Spring I wipe them out with a little bleach water, and add new soil mix and replant.

Josh,

Is the soil you mention spent MM or natural earth based soil ?

If it is earth based soil have you yet recycled spent MM ? .. If so what were the results ?

JK, I mostly planted flowers, but I planted some leaf type lettuce and it did fine, and small type peppers, and they did fine, the cabbage was planted late, and it didn't make a cabbage but still grew.
I think any smaller vegetables should grow ok in them.
The wall is in full sun, I planted impatient flowers and in the summer it got to hot for them in the full sun, but the other flowers like petunias did ok. I had a ornamental sweet potato vine growing in one and it grew really good too, a cucumber might grow in them.

Shannon1, Measure down from the top of the bottle 7 1/4 inches, not 7 1/2, I let the tape measure go right to the curve in the neck of the bottle. the reason it needs to be 7 1/4 inches is so that the top of the bottle neck will touch the bottom of the bottom piece of the bottle so it will wick the water up to the plant and it keeps the soil from falling out. If it doesn't want to push down all the way, trim the bottom piece just a little bit and then try it.


Plantoid I used my own Mel's Mix in the pots, then in the late fall I empty dead plants and the Mels Mix right in my compost pile, usually the MM in the pots are full of roots, and I'm sure the plant has used up all the nutrition in the MM so I just recycle it all back in the compost.

Thanks Josh the photo was very helpful I didn't know if you measured the curve of the neck or not but the photo made it clear you did. I have a neighbor who loves her gin and tonics, bless her and got 10 2liter bottles out of her recycle bin in 2 weeks. The 7 1/2 was a typo. I have mixed up some mels mix and got 4 little yellow pear toms I'm going to try puls some herbs. I figured since folks grow cherrie toms in baskets why not try 'em in the wall o' flowers rig?

Made 4 today and planted yellow pear toms in them. It is an expariment to see if they can grow in such a small amount of MM. People grow them in hanging baskets so I say why not give it a try? I was suprised by how heavy they turned out I may have to rethink how to attach them to the chain link fence.

This was the wall of flowers I made into self watering flower pots,


This year my mom had me move some of them, now they are a pole of flowers
She's hoping they will hang down and cover the pole, I'll let you know how they do.



Close up

Hey Josh...do you water the plants from the top? Or do you slip off the bottom and put the water in there, then put it back on the inverted neck?

That's a lot of soda bottles!

Do the roots get to hot or damaged with being exposed directly to the sun through the plastic?

Ava

Oh my. Those walls of flowers are amazing and so pretty.

AvaDGardner wrote:Hey Josh...do you water the plants from the top? Or do you slip off the bottom and put the water in there, then put it back on the inverted neck?

That's a lot of soda bottles!

Do the roots get to hot or damaged with being exposed directly to the sun through the plastic?

Ava

In the bottom piece I cut a half circle so I can add the water, so you don't have to water from the top or take the top off to add the water.


The wall is in the full sun, the only problem I had was I planted impatient flowers in them and it was to hot for those flowers in the full sun. I did plant some lettuce and pepper plants in them and they did ok. I only had to add water to the pots about once a week. I think the impatient flowers would have done ok if they had been in the shade.

The pots on the pole that I just made, they are pots taken from the wall, I made the wall back in May of 2010 and they are just as good today as they were when I made the wall.

Very cool, dude!



So how does your dad attach them to the wooden plank?

Years ago the Sunset Magazine Western Gardening Book (aka garden bible) showed a pic of a woman planting a wall of flowers. Hers was in some sort of cloth, somehow attached to the wall. You simply sprayed it to water.

I loved the look, but have never found the "wall" she used (not that I looked hard or have a wall for it to hang on...)

I did try to do a 'wall of green' (ivy & jasmine) on the pool wall/boundry wall. I figured out a way to attach tie strips to it, then would train the plants up the wall. A wall of green would be much prettier at the pool than a wall of hot concrete.

Alas, the landscapers never understood, and always took down my attempts. The soil has gone alkaline and the jasmine barely bloomed. The ivy has made its way through some cracks, and a flat spot of green on either side of the wall is all you see!

Ava

So how does your dad attach them to the wooden plank?

Take two screws and screw the bottom piece to where ever your wanting to hang it, then just put the top piece down in the the bottom and plant it.


Today she wanted the other post done, so I moved them from the wall and she put pink petunias in them.

Wow... what a beautiful idea! I'm envious

Love that greenhouse! Where did you get it?

Thanks for the details Josh!

Here is an update on the soda bottle self watering pots. They are growing on the post.
They are getting bigger and have a lot of blooms on them.

Wow, they're beautiful!

THAT is what I am going to do with my stray wooden pallet, it will become next years herb garden!!! PERFECT!

Ha-v-v wrote:Ok Josh, now that you have made that amazing wall!! The close ups are lovely.
What two ideas did you combine and how did you make them self watering? Did you find instructions? I really like this idea, Im fishing for info

Ha-v-v

Josh posted the two links on the first post in this thread. You musta missed it.