A number of years ago a customer, seeing some of our cork bark plantings, decided she’d like to have one. The space she envisioned it living was on a hearth of a covered terrace, a beautiful outdoor seating and dining area.
That year, and each summer since, a large cork piece has become home to various houseplants that like the shade and summer humidity this spot offers. An experienced gardener, she appreciates and takes exceptional care of this design and others. It’s such a pleasure creating something that only gets better as the summer goes on!
With this season’s planting, the original cork piece finally had to be replaced, and it’s now one large piece with a second smaller one added to create planting pockets. Wired netting and sheet moss contains the potting soil and plants.
It’s gratifying to see the ‘Bantel’s Sensation’ Sanseveria and fantail willow in context, creating the “flame” look I was hoping for on the hearth. I hope you can see it too.
Rounding out the planting are a philodendron, trailing pothos and pilea, and a few air plants on the outer portion of the cork, all easily grown and not needing extra care if the family is away for an extended period of time.
The second piece was a project on a slow, hot, summer’s day. Designed for a shady nook, it’s three pieces of cork filled with a rex begonia, fittonia, and peacock selaginella.
This pretty planting will also get larger and fuller as the season goes on and the inevitable heat of summer builds. Rex begonias are under-utilized, very beautiful, colorful additions to shade planters and well worth growing.
By Kris Blevons
We just received a new shipment of cork bark pieces. Stop in and take a look if you’d like us to create a planting for you, or if you’d like to make your own!
These pieces can be used either horizontally, planting along the top, or vertically, like I’ve designed this one, positioning the plants up the planter. Since it could be unsteady if it didn’t have something to stabilize it at the base, I placed it in a pulp planter that I’d covered with a layer of sheet moss. A plastic saucer underneath will protect the floor during its time indoors, then it can be used without the saucer out in the garden or on a patio, porch or other spot that has some shade.
This planting has a variety of houseplants, including nephthytis, used for its lighter green and white foliage, rex begonias for a bit of color, tooth brake ferns and a bird’s nest fern, a new selaginella with white tips called ‘Frosty’, and a large autumn fern in the top with angel vine spilling over the edge with one last, large rex begonia.
The tall one that Jamie planted utilizes houseplants which work very well in shaded areas through the summer, and some perennials. This piece will take filtered sun and clipping of the houseplants to maintain the balance of the planting. A pot was inserted in the bottom, planted, and then soil filled to the top, filling the opening all the way up to create a cool vertical piece.
In the next planting, I took 3 of the flatter, rounded pieces and actually “stacked” them at angles, creating planting pockets and different levels and an overall shape I was pleased with. Next, perennials, including tassel ferns, ‘Metallica’ and ‘Burgundy Glow’ ajuga, golden and peacock selaginellas, Scotch moss and Carex ‘Evergold’, were added, creating sweeps of color and wispy trailers over the edges. An added bonus is that all of these plants are perennial and can be used in your landscape as they outgrow the container.
Both of these have been lined before planting but will drain over the edges in the case of the stacked pieces and down through the bottom of the planting in the tall piece. We picture them in areas of restful shade, adding their green presence to woodland surroundings…We hope you enjoy our creations as much as we enjoyed making them!
These cork bark pieces are so organic and natural…we love them and wanted to pass on just a couple of ideas for planting them. Actually, they were one of those happy accidents – one wrong stroke of the keyboard, with a different item number ordered than planned, and, voila, these cork bark pieces arrived the other day that were rounded, with just enough space for planting rather than being flat…oh, happy day!
Of course, if you’ve been keeping up with previous posts, you know we’ve gotten in some pretty cool looking succulents, as well as air plants and the beginning of the new season’s herb offerings. So, with all this bounty to work with, one bark planter became a succulent, herb, airplant design and the other became a study in silvery grays and blues with a pop of chartreuse…
As with any combination planting, look at color, texture and form of the plants you’re working with. The bark is rough and brown…in one planting the red coloring of the hens and chicks play off the brown of the planter while the red edging of the thyme also picks up the color of the succulents. The spiky air plants contrast with the rounded forms of the rolled bark as well.