Driftwood

With our 14 beaches in the Town of Southold many have driftwood but there is one beach that has such lovely pieces after big storms. The largest piece I found one January day as I just strolled the beach in the sunshine. It's hollow and that made it simple to get home. I'll attach a photo of my big find.

At first I just featured the driftwood with pots around it (pictures will follow) and then decided to fill the void with plants and prefer that look. Next year it will be filled with Pennisetum Rubrum, coleus to match (Solar Shade), possibly a fern and definitely a very dark dahlia like Arabian Night.

While vacationing in the Bahamas we found a very nice small piece and I managed to get it home without a question or problem, thankfully. Photo will follow.

We found another long piece with a blackened head, from kids have a beach party no doubt, and it appears to me to be a black faced shark sans fins while my husband thinks it looks more like a pterodactyl without wings. Haven't yet decided where to feature it. A photo will follow.

This past Sunday we came home with more pieces and while one is simply to replace a rotted piece we brought home in '92 and has been placed already, the other one is more challenging. When I put it where I thought it would look good I felt it looked more like a broken section of tree so I'll have to do some pruning on it.

Quite interesting applications of driftwood here:
http://www.driftwoodsculptures.co.uk/gallery2.htm

Here's a really nice site with great ideas:
http://greayer.com/studiog/?p=3548

This has some thought provoking ideas though the thought of spending $1,153. for a mirror trimmed in driftwood is a bit much. Maybe it will end up being a winter project for me.
http://www.nextag.com/driftwood/search-html

This site has real driftwood - very interesting pieces:
http://rstixr4u.blogspot.com/2008/03/garden-driftwood.html

Found this site for some interesting ideas though the driftwood is manufactured:
http://www.petdiscounters.com/Driftwood-Gardens-c81.html

Driftwood with pots:

Driftwood with the hollow planted.

Bahamas piece:

One photo of it in the garden:

Same piece, different location but the same exact garden:

Shark or pterodactyl?

From the sales ad for driftwood pieces, nextag:

I'd love to hear from those who collect it and see how you use it. Please post photos to help inspire us or just give us your thoughts and ideas.

Thanks!

This is the roof of a bird house that has yet to be finished.
I'll post the rest when they are done

the roof
I will fashion a heavy plastic cone for the interior so chicks wont get wetwhen it rains

Unique, Jo Ann. It's something I'd never have thought of but you did.

pirl you have some very nice pieces of wood there. I have a couple of pieces but around here you just don't find much or I am just missing it and others are beating me to it. LOL

http://www.chichesterinc.com/DriftwoodGalleryExtraLarge.htm

The largest of their extra large pieces is 33". My newest piece is 8' long!

We cross posted FF.

We find it so surprising that some beaches have almost no driftwood but the one has so much of it that it's great fun to search, especially in winter.

This is a great thread Pirl

Well if I would get off my lazy butt and go to the river I could probably find some.

That's the biggest problem I face, FF. Just getting up to do anything takes initiative and some days I just don't have it. Once I'm on the move I tend to keep going.

Ditto I am the same way.

Wonderful stuff driftwood. Collected a bucket years ago when visiting the Oregon coast.Still have to find uses for most of the pieces; although have propped up a few in my little succulent beds.
pirl-looks like a pterdactyl to me , with the crescent curved beak.
Most of the stuff that lands on the beach from the lake comes under the list of "trash to be picked up !!!:( But some neat stuff-including small arrowhead.

When we were out there hunting we did find garbage and collected it in bags, along with the two milk crates you see in the back of the truck, and disposed of it. Litter annoys both of us.

Last week, in Damariscotta, Maine, at the river, I found an oyster shell from the huge mounds called middens that the Indians (per the literature and Google) left behind more than 2200 years ago. It is flat but this is an awful photo of it only taken to try to show how flat it is - about 1/4 of an inch thick.

Arrowheads must be fun to collect as well.

If you look at the driftwood in the back of the truck, the right side resembles a dog's head.

Can you see it?

Yes! Like a Golden Lab, right? If I put a witch's hat over the burned portion, stood it upright, and rigged it up to bark I could scare little kids back home again on Saturday! Then I could eat the candy!

I've been finding some great piece of driftwood around Lake Cumberland. I've got several pieces I've lugged home for my shade garden.
Mary

Try going after major wind storms and go to the opposite side of the water than where the wind was coming from on the day of the storm. It's great fun to examine them and see what we can do with them.

Pirl and ge1836, I'm so impressed with your driftwood pieces and how artfully you've both used them. I'm afraid in landlocked Kansas, driftwood is nonexistant other than what you might drag out of a creek. We do, however, often find interesting wood that has come down in a storm, etc. and I've often wanted to incorporate some into my flower beds. You've given me great ideas, but I'm wondering about the planting into them. Do you use anything to keep them from eventually rotting out, or does that just give you room for more good finds eventually? Does the planting mixture need to be any special mix...what do you use to fill them with? I have a couple old trunk segments that we've used to sit on by our fire ring and over the years the centers have fallen out. I'm thinking of filling them with some sort of planting medium and flowers next summer. I also have the top of a dead tree, just about 4'-5', with wonderful woodpecker holes that I was wanting to use somehow. I really love what you've both done. Pirl, I was also interested to see that you're from Southold, N.Y. as my mother's family had lived there since sometime back in the 1700's. I haven't seen it mentioned often, but with 14 beaches, it must be beautiful. No wonder they stayed put so long through a time when everyone was going west.

Willow

How coincidental! Here many cars have the bumper sticker, Southold Native. (not us)

I've only planted an actual stump once and that was just with Angelina sedum since I thought it could take the abuse and it worked. I didn't add soil at all. Clematis 'Omoshiro' grows happily next to the stump on one side and two 'Nelly Moser' clematises on the other side. The stump has been in the process of decay for about 17 or 18 years now.

Your thoughts on limbs, pieces of wood, bark, etc. (especially the woodpecker house) sound very interesting and I've used lots of odd pieces here.

This idea was presented long ago by fly_girl and I thought it was great for a stump. I hope by enlarging it (copying it) and enlarging it again on your photo program you can read enough to get you started.

Please show us a photo of the woodpecker piece!

nice

What a beautiful photo with the clematis. I like the idea of the sedum, then other things beside it. I think I can get the other picture enlarged alright. It looks like a great planter. I will try to go out and shoot both the woodpecker piece and the stumps tomorrow after church. I have a new camara, so I'll have to read just how to transfer them over.

Must be lots of old timers in Southold. I just thought my family must not have been too adventurous, but maybe that was just the way Southolders were. Thanks for the info.

Willow

Well, I've been trying for a week now and just can't find a way to get my pictures to load. I followed the directions under Dave's Garden FAQ, but for some reason nothing switches over. I may go retake with my old camara and see if that works any better, because I do want to be able to share. I'm using a canon SX110, just a little point and shoot, but don't know of any reason it wouldn't want to open onto this website. I'll just keep working. If anyone knows of problems with this camara, let me know.

Willow

I don't know what camera he used but Neil, from near London, had major problems, consulted with Dave and somehow it was solved and he can now post photos. Good luck!

Neil is on the Recipes Forum so you might want to write to him.

Thanks, I'll definitely check with him. This is really frustrating, but it may be something simple.

Here's a link to a thread begun by Neil so you can contact him.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1051939/

This was on the beach on the East side of Maui. Just after the hurricane in August.

This was just down the beach a little further.

I do not have many photos of driftwood but I have many photos of tree trunks. I have a thing for god's creative skill of tree trunks. This is a enormous tree in Santa Barbara, California by the Library. . I bent over, got close to the inside and took the picture. I never did see it with my own eye. When I go back I will crawl under and take a long look. But it is a dark and scary place. It is even scary to walk by because it is so big.

Sharon - I guess that you couldn't fit the piece in your luggage!

I love tree trunks, too.

We could not take anything including seed. Some kind of microscopic worm that would destroy California and Florida fruit crops. Anyway, that is what I was told when I called the authorities to find out what I could bring home. Has to be inspected by the authorities. Another tree trunk from Santa Barbara.