Vertical Gardening Inspiration

Happy Epiphyte Day! Today I'll be sharing vertical gardening ideas from myself and others in the blogosphere. After all, what better plants are there for vertical gardening than epiphytes? Not all of these ideas use epiphytes, but you can easily improvise and replace the soil with a more appropriate medium for bromeliads or orchids. As always, you're all invited to share your own posts on epiphytes, leaving a link in the comments field!

Last week I showed you how to plant grapevine balls with Rhipsalis for a miniature hanging garden, and now I've given them a name: Rainforest Drops! I've sold my first Drop to a friend on Facebook and will be making them to order for $20 a piece. The rhipsalis will eventually drape down, forming a curtain of lush green suspended in mid-air. You can email me at steve_asbell @ yahoo.com to order, or if you'd rather make your own, here's how!

After posting the pictures of my Rainforest Drop to Facebook, Renae shared a link to an amazing installation called String Gardens. These are absolutely beautiful and all, but the terrestrial plants would need a lot of water in the home setting! I'm sure you've already guessed my solution to the problem: use epiphytes! Still, it is fascinating to see how the rootbound trees and perennials find their balance when held aloft by strings. Maybe I could try growing a bonsai'd banyan tree in this way!

As I was browsing through the magazine aisle the other day, I stumbled across a special publication from Sunset magazine with a gorgeous vertical garden on the cover, designed by Flora Grubb Gardens and made with Woolly Pockets. It even has bromeliads!

If you're more of a DIY type, Fern from Life on the Balcony shows us how to make a vertical garden using nothing more than a shipping pallet! Obviously you can replace the plants that she's used with drought tolerant epiphytes. Just imagine one of these pallet gardens decked out with glistening bromeliads and dripping with ferns!

Oh, and this is no April Fools joke, I assure you. You can grow dragonfruit in North Florida. About a month or so ago I had the pleasure of visiting this remarkable woman from Cambodia and her insanely amazing garden. Along her driveway stands a large pergola that was built by her late husband, and growing up that pergola were the snaking stems of Hylocereus, otherwise known as dragonfruit! I bet you're wondering how she manages such a feat with winter temps in the low 20's. Here's how: she wraps Christmas lights all around the columns and covers the structure with all the sheets and blankets she can find. I'll be shareing more of her inventive garden later on, but I just had to share her dragonfruit trellis!

Oh, one more thing. For a whole book on vertical gardening, look no further than Garden Up! by Susan Morrison and Rebecca Sweet! It's been on back-order at my bookstore, but you can still purchase it over at Amazon.com.

UPDATE! Mark and Gaz alerted me to a new blog post from one of my favorite blogs, The Tumbleweed Traveller! Have you ever admired the massive living walls of the legendary Patrick Blanc but thought they were impossible to create yourself? Wrong! The wall planted above was homemade! I remember seeing a post on this DIY vertical garden before, but it looks like he's finally shared how to make one. Thanks, Jamie!

Last but not least, here are the entries for this month's Epiphyte Day!
-Tropical Texana posts about an unusual "little" bromeliad hybrid that's not very little at all.
-Kim of Garden in Paradise shares her wealth of Tillandsias, right from her own backyard!
-Candy "Sweetstuff" shows how a strawberry planter can be used for succulents and epiphytes too!
-Cats and Catts (I still love that name) posts about some of the toughest and most interesting orchids around: Oncidiums!

In case you're new to The Rainforest Garden, here are some more nifty ideas that I've shared over the last year.

-  Tropical Vertical Garden
-  Balcony Makeover
-  The Epiphyte Balcony
-  Does This Make My Balcony Look Bigger?
-  Epiphytes for Small Spaces

.