Latest Project: Vertical Garden

[Greynomad]

To complement our new Rose Garden in the front yard, I have been working for over three months on a Vertical Garden to be used as a privacy screen in our ODLA (real estate-speak for OutDoor Living Area).
It measures 2.7m wide and 2.0m high. Designed to fit exactly between two support posts in the ODLA (20mm clearance each end).
The 6"x6" steel reo required 4 coats of Kilrust Black to achieve proper coverage. Then all timber components had to be clear-lacquered before assembly to protect them from weather depredations. Internally, support timbers had to be screwed-and-glued into place, recessed from the outer timber by exactly 11mm - the thickness of the reo - to allow the flush attachment of the mitred dress pieces around the outside on both sides.
The sides are halves of a pallet, sanded to within an inch of its life to avoid splinters when sitting on the (clear lacquered) Merbeau seat.
The whole is mounted on wheels at one end and castors at the other, to allow mobility if required.
The hardest part was finding terra cotta pots of the exact size to fit into the 6x6 mesh. Plants are mostly cuttings from our and friends' gardens. Only two were sourced from the Big Green Shed.

Vertical Garden.jpeg

[Noggins]

Looks good , yer a bit creative ayyy

I'd be putting the pots on the other side of the mesh because when they grow a bit they'll might be in your hair when your relaxing with a jar of throat oil .


Ron

[supersparky]

That looks pretty impressive Ray. I might have to copy your design for a bit of a screen out the front of our place.

[BernieQ2]

We have just planted 18 "mock orange" trees to block out the people who have bought the empty block behind us ,
Bernie .

[BruceS]

Would it have been cheaper to just not skinny dip in the spa?
Now they will have to buy a drone or two.....

[Greynomad]

That looks pretty impressive Ray. I might have to copy your design for a bit of a screen out the front of our place.

David,
There's a royalty fee for copying my patented (stolen) idea: a $20 donation to RFDS!
Idea was copied from inspired by a smaller and plainer one at a local restaurant. No seat, and the pallet pieces were covered in floorboards to hide their origin.

[Greynomad]

Vertical Garden/seat had its first test-run yesterday (Sunday):
Held an Open Garden to raise $$$ for our church's Emergency Welfare Fund.
Spent almost every day for the last three months pruning, spraying & fertilising our 110+ roses to have them at their best.
The roses still looked good, despite 37* with Northerly wind on Thursday and "damaging NW winds" Friday.
What remained had Saturday to recover before the Big Day.
Weather was kind to us, at last: 24* and a light NW breeze on the day.
Seventy people turned up to view our roses and partake of a Sausage Sizzle (by donation). We had people from all local & Corowa churches, as well as people we know from community groups like PROBUS, Men's Shed, Neighbourhood Watch, Destination Rutherglen, etc.
We had four adults seated on the Vertical Garden's seat, and it held up!
(Fortunately, on advice from a carpenter friend, I added diagonal braces under it prior to use, as I'd noticed that when I test-sat on it, it sagged noticeably in the centre. It's 2.7m long.)
For the rest, it was 'BYO chair' for the social gathering.
A great social and financial success.
Tomorrow, the pots will be temporarily removed and the framework moved from the carport (where it was assembled, because the doors on my workshop are not tall enough to remove it once built), and where it had its 'baptism of fire bums') to its intended resting place in our ODLA.

Vert 1.jpeg

The final version. All doo-dads added among the plants are at least 90 years old. The 'No Smoking' sign from BHP is 100YO! (It was only 55 y.o. when I picked it up - literally, it was on the ground - at Iron Knob. )

[RobertNotBob]

Looks good would make a excellent herb garden. Cheers Robert

[Greynomad]

Looks good would make a excellent herb garden. Cheers Robert

That's what SWMBO thinks...
At least she could harvest the herbs with a pair of scissors!
For the time being, we're trying a few 'dangly' plants & succulents, to see how it goes with watering. Being in a semi-exposed position, we might have a problem with the wind drying things too quickly. That's what we found leaving it in the carport for just three days leading up to our Open Garden... had to water all the pots twice!
Should be a bit less wind through the ODLA, but yer never know...

[Greynomad]

This is the final resting place of my vertical garden. (Chairs removed for a clearer view.)
Note, some plants have been placed facing outward. More will be added as we buy appropriately-sized pots.

In place.jpeg