Projects Fall 2013

No Happy they come up pretty easily I cut the tops off a small hand saw and dig the bulbs out with the shovel. I will say that the soil in those beds is really good as they are a bit raised and full of compost. I dug them up this afternoon afternoon after we finished with the leaves. I will have some bulbs for spring swap if they overwinter well.
We did 6 leaves, 3 large leaves just under 3ft long and 2ft wide (I didn't want to try the 4-5ft leaves). Two medium leaves 2ft long and 16in wide. One Caster Bean leaf a rough 20in circle.
Now it is wait and see how good they look and hold up. The leaves are a bit fluted on the edges and they tended to fold so we will see what they look like.

Oops forgot the last picture.

I absolutely love following all your projects. You and Ric do all the things I only think about doing!

OK! Since i have never done this---it seems a bit confusing....

You have all these piles of sand. Is each pile for one project?
What is the purpose of these piles of sand? You went through a lot of sand--yes?

Like--you can do one leaf on each pile and go on to the next?

Hope you post more sequential pictures so i can follow all this excitement....

Gita

You make the pile of sand to create the the shape of the leaf depending on what you want to do with it. If you want to make a stepping stone you would want it to be flat. But I wanted mine to be able to hold water so I piled my sand up to make a bowl shape in the leaf mold. What you see in the finished picture is the underside of the leaf. When we flip them over you will see the leaf imprint. I will post more pictures next week when we turn them over.

AHA! Got it!
Thanks, Holly. G.

Stepping stone leaves ! Cool! Gotta go grab my alocasia and save her from the first frosts in case I get time to make a stepping stone.

Sally when are you going to flip over your leaves?

Looks like Saturday is my first chance- tho if I remember tomorrow before dinner I will poke at them.. I made them thin and really must make myself wait.
Really like the stepping stone idea. Just need a form.

I think mine will be left for at least a week.
Sally are you going to paint yours?
You could dig a hole in the ground if you want an irregular shape or maybe if you are good at hole digging it wouldn't be too irregular. Just nail some boards together for a square and a circle could be done with plastic edging. You could still dig the hole to set the frame in to make it a bit more sturdy.

Close up peeling leaf away hope you can see veins..and the whole castor leaf showing it holds some water. The leaf may have to be scrubbed or rot off. Eventually want to paint it. White wouls be too stark.

They look really good.

…even as they defy gravity. thanks
I thought I knew how to hold my phone to get the picture upright when it posted.
And oh yeah thanks for the suggestions about making stepping stones!

Sally, They look really good.
We turned ours over today and were really pleased with the results. Many of ours extent past the margin of the leaf a bit, so I'm using a grinder and file to sculpt the edges.A coarse metal file can be used to clean them up if needed, that's what they use to take the seams off of casted cement. Holly has pics to post later.

thanks Ric. .Looking forward to your results!

I worked on the collar for my leaf to be birdbath, I made the mix really thick so I could build it up around a cut off plastic pot. I covered it with more leaves to make leaf vein prints in case it is visible when on the birdbath base.
Then I made a shallow depression and made a flat casting of (stepping stone?) alocasia leaf. I made a ridge around the leaf to hold the mix, but found that it was thick enough that I could push it near the leaf edge and it stayed. So it'll be leaf shaped and about 1/2 to one inch thick Quik Wall. Another waiting game.
Best part- used up the bag of quick wall. one less leftover in the shed!!!

I thought we would wait a week to uncast them but Ric said they would be good and solid but still soft enough to work the edges if we needed too. I am very pleased with the results. On some we loosely followed the leaf edge and those needed touched up a bit to make the edges look nice. Ric took his grinder and metal file to them. We did two where we just made a shape and put the leave in the middle those look just fine you can see the leaf imprint in the bowl. So I figured out that I either have to follow the leaf edge very closely or just make a shape and put the leaf impression in it no in between. Here are pics of several finished ones you can see the difference between the worked and unworked edges. Next I will have to figure out how to paint them. They aren't near as heavy as I thought they might be so I should be able to bring each one inside to paint.

Fabulous! What kind of mix did you use? About how thick are the leaves?

My other project- finished taking out two Gold Thread Mop juniper? chaemecyparus?
got a good wheelbarrow load full of compost in the area and planted one azalea from moms, a boxwood bought three years ago and a Leucothoe Jody found last spring for me. And…Mark said YESS to more bed area in front. bwaa has haas….my evil plans are coming to fruition. The bed in front of the house to left of door will be attached to the dogwood tree bed with some stepping stones across. Good place for me to place some more special things- smaller things that get lost or forgotten in the wild outdoors of the backyard. took a small variegated Azalea out of front where it was looking feeble, and planted it in back where the mom's azalea did well. Even remembered to water everything after planting.

Holly--and Ric--

your stones are just beautiful!
What fun to play around in concrete and get such wonderful results.

Gita!

Yep, cool project Ric and Holly.

I kept eyeballing the other leaves on Alocasia. Today I bought an 80 lb bag of mortar mix, and three buffet foil pans. Made the whole bag of mix up. Made three alocasia leaf stepping stones about 18 by ten inches, whatever a buffet size foil pan is. Still more mix, made another with three huge Brug leaves……then two cake lid circular ones with maple and sycamore…and another square of redbud leaves. PHEW. Lotta stepping stones for less than six bucks. Hope they al turn out OK. Don't know if there's any technique I should have known, but I just plastered the stuff on and tried to make sure it filled in fully down to the leaf veins. And picked the pans up slightly and plunked them down to try and get any air bubbles off the bottom.
It was surprisingly baffling trying to arrange layers of multiple leaves and remember that what I would see afterward was the ''opposite' of what I was looking at- I can't even explain it
8 ^p

Sorta like a photo negative, huh? I get it, but I couldn't explain it -- not even for a chocolate cupcake!!

Really looking forward to the pics when they come out, sounds like they're gonna be really cool!!

Way to go Sally, I'd like to do some more before cold weather.I have brick stepping stones in the garden and would like to change them for custom made ones.

Mike, Lowell, and Richard got one more task done on the conservatory addition today - finally got the door hung at the bottom of the stairwell into the basement. The door was taller than the opening, so the it had to be cut down. It took them about three hours, but cross another one off the list! Should help keep the cold air out and make the conservatory floor a little bit warmer. One of these days we'll get the heat/cooling unit hooked up LOL.

I'm currently working on a problem with our septic system (I would not post pics on that). It has taken me away from working on our leaves which look great!

Oh no please Ric, NO pics of that project please! < =/

You be careful with your back Young Man, y'hear!?!

The pics wouldn't be too bad unless they were scratch and sniff. LOL

I could probably write a book on what not to do with a bad back, since I've done a lot of research on the subject.

I will have to look for the pictures but I brought home some trellises that I knew where way to lightweight for my Clems so Ric put a nice sturdy wood frame around them and they work great now. Mine had a flat top so my frames when all the way up each side and across the top.

Today's article is on Clematis pruning..
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/4877/

It looks like I'll have to wait until the winter to cut it back. Might as well wait on installing the trellis since a 5 foot trellis for a 4" plant is overkill.

Okay, here's what we bought and here's what I did with them. We bought the originals at JoAnn's, on special spring clearance, the metal was about 3/16". I cut off the legs to end with a rectangle shape. I built the frames from ripped pressure treated 2x4", routed the edges and cut a groove around the middle of the interior to fit the metal frame into. They were stained and assembled with deck screws.
I later added a blue piece of stained glass to the center diamond.

Ric, I remember seeing that picture before and thinking that was a gorgeous trellis. It's a piece of art!

wow, Ric--that's beautiful!!

It is part of our Lamp post bed. I have 3 of them and different clems on each one.

wow, ((applause))

I was thinking that we should have a spring projects thread but the leafs that we made started in the fall so for these pictures I thought I would put them here. I painted the smallest one first using exterior waterbased enamel porch paint. I bought 3 different shades of green think 2 would have been fine for this project. So here is the 1st finished leaf and I am going to do one of the 4 ft'ers next. Ric is setting up in the barn to finish grinding the rough edges on a few that didn't get finished last year.
1st pic is base color, 2nd pic is finished project it isn't quite as light and you can see more of the shading than shows in this picture. Next one to paint, takes up half the table top.
here is a new Spring Projects Thread.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1363638/

Holly, that is too cool. Loved the way it turned out.