Dream greenhouse, delightful and enchanting
Another garden that is not quite so wild and reckless is planted around a small pool under a greenhouse bench. The pool is actually a large plastic basin that must be emptied and cleaned with fastidious regularity. It would be better, of course, dug out and cement-lined, with a drainage pipe at the bottom. The plants are tropical, because they are in the warmth near the heating pipes; shade-loving, because a bench (even though it is slatted and admits some light) is above them. This is an excellent place for ferns, upright or climbing foliage plants, soft ground covers like selaginella. If I were to install fluorescent lights, I could add a number of flowering varieties.
A fancy to build on in the Oriental manner
The author’s succulent garden
A soil-filled bench is the site of my husband’s pet project, a grove of miniature fruit trees. There always seem to be flowers or fruits on the small orange, lemon, kumquat, and pomegranate trees. But again, we erred. We did not realize how vigorously these trees would respond to having their roots free in soil. The dwarf banana and ever-bearing fig now threaten to exceed dwarf proportions at any moment, even to go through the roof.
Rampant greenhouse with citrus trees, banana tree, and birch trunk covered with bromeliads
A naturalistic planting that occupies a minimum of bench space is a bromeliad tree fitted with a sturdy stand to hold it upright. (The stand we are using actually is a Christmas-tree stand.) For the tree itself, we selected the top of a birch tree which blew over in the woods behind our garage. The tropical green contrasts nicely with the white bark of the birch, otherwise our selection wasn’t too wise. Birch wood is soft and doesn’t last too long, hence we have been propping and wiring branches to keep them in place. Cracks, crotches, and pockets created for the purpose are packed with osmunda fiber tightly wrapped around the base of all kinds of brilliant bromeliads, some few orchids, a staghorn fern, and other epiphytic plants. The plants need not even be rooted if the osmunda is packed tightly around the base; if they’re wired in place so tightly that the spray from the hose can’t loosen them, they’ll soon be at home on the tree. Their roots will grow through the osmunda and they will attach themselves to the tree. Of course, the osmunda must be kept moist until the roots form. Once rooted they are fed by dusting the outside of the sphagnum with soluble fertilizer and watering it in. As a finishing touch, we threw strands of Spanish moss over the branches. The misty-gray moss thrives, and even flowers.