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Wolfie's Foundation Planting


Wolfie

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Bear with me now, this is going to be somewhat tedious and not for the faint of heart! It is also going to be a long post!

As you know I'm building the Pierce which has a corner staircase which leaves ample room for foundation plantings! I have thought about this little project for a long time now. I've made some smaller things, the mailbox, the island, etc., but I'm thinking why not use the foundation plantings as a coverup for wiring, etc. So I am going to start by making removeable planting segments - moveable for ease in moving the house and for repairing or just changing things around.

These are the basic supplies now:

a piece of green floral foam approximately 5 1/2" by 3" wide. I will be cutting and using these blocks of foam around the foundation of my pierce. You can make one long one if you like, cutting to the length of the area you want to cover. I have pressed down the edge slightly that will fit against the foundation. The other side I am sloping down to a walkway so it's now like a raised planter. See picture 1.......

Glue - Tacky works! Quick Tack works as well. Thick and gloppy!

I am using an AMSI tree trunk with branches in which I have bent the branches the way I want them.

Steel wool or dryer lint or whatever you have that will hold gazillions of leaves. Pull it out and then take small parts of it and make loose "balls" of it.

A 1/4" maple leaf or oak leaf punch.

Painted paper - plain white bond painted on both sides with 3 or 4 different shades of green mixing together and letting some of each color show through. Let dry on one side before turning over......have learned this the hard way.

Old tobacco or coffee grounds for mulch. Tobacco looks better. Buy a small bag and let it sit out and dry up and you have mulch! Coffee grounds make better soil! But if it is what you have - so be it!

This is what you will need to start with. Basically today's tutorial is what I have started already! And thought I would share it. You will have a hunk of styrofoam with a "tree" planted in it, surrounded by mulch, and you will be putting leaves on this little tree.....

1. The first step is to take the floral piece and using your thumbs and fingers just press the long edges down....rounded more or less in the area towards the foundation, and flattened out gradually towards the front so that it looks more or less like a raised area. Leave the sides alone as they will be butting up against another same such foam piece. Set aside.

2. With craft paint I painted my tree trunk in brown, and because the AMSI trees have flat trunks, I took brown floral tape and rounded the trunk a bit. It now doesn't look as flat. Then decide where you want your tree to be. Off center. Centered, etc. I chose to make my tree at the left end of the piece of foam......and made a hole and "planted" the tree trunk with glue, and made a circle of glue around it about 3/4" and pressed the tobacco mulch in it. I will be surrounding that area with hosta plants.....shade loving plants would work too. That is up to you. I'm a hosta freak! LOL

3. I pulled apart my steel wool - you can also use dryer lint or whatever you think will hold the weight of the leaves. I spray painted my "stuff" green, then made balls of it by rolling between my palms when dry - very loose balls - and do wait until that paint is dry......sigh....green hands are not pretty! Then I glued those balls to the branches using tacky glue.....Some of the branches will show through and that is fine. This is supposed to look real and you know me, realism is my middle name! Let dry while punching! No not your partner, DH or anyone else....you are now going to punch leaves!

4. Hopefully your painted papers are dry now.....cause it's time to make the leaves! Punch a gazillion leaves! And believe me if you think you have enough, you don't. This is something you can do watching TV or listening to opera or whatever....... Punch until your hands hurt! Each leaf will have to be cupped a little - so what I do is punch about 25 then taking a blunt toothpick just curl the leaves by pressing the toothpick into them until they writhe in agony and curl up! Then taking tweezers and one by one, dip the stems of the leaves into glue and just start pressing them into the green balls. Do one ball at a time.....and don't skimp on the leaves! The picture I'm showing still has some gaps in it! I figure it will take a few days to do this up right.

So the next installment will show the leaves on my tree - probably by Saturday or Sunday! This will give you all time to either do it, or wait with baited breath for Part 2! Landscaping should be planned and thought out and not hurried through. REalism takes a long time to achieve!

As you can see from the photos, 1 is the beginning, and in #7 one "ball" is almost finished! What do you think? Is it real looking? Or just a mess? Picture 7 still needs more leaves! When I said a gazillion I really meant it!

This is not the grape stem tree here, although if you don't have a good tree trunk you could glue a bunch of those together and cut off the lower branches and still get a good tree effect.....

Here are the pictures - 1 through 7...... Let me know what you think so far and if I should continue or not? If not I'll just cry and never post again, or if you want Part 2, we can do it! If you have any questions ask here and I'll answer.

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WOW!!! Gina, you have an amazing amount of patience and the results are absolutely worth the time and effort. I can't wait for Part 2 and I hope they will pin this, because when and IF I ever get done with the main part of my DH, I will definitely want to do this...perhaps put on "Phantom of the Opera" soundtrack and drive my family outta the house :D :lol: Hubby and teen son are no help anyways!!! :o

Anxiously awaiting the next steps....

Chris

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>chanting, clapping hands and stomping feet...< part 2, part2, part 2, yay!!!!! Part 2, part 2 part 2....

>feverishly looking round to see if there is something that could be used as pom pom balls while cheering, but nothing apart form the mouse is avaliable, hmm....<

:) I would definitley appreciate the next part :p

Hugs

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Now ladies, Part 2 is going to be finishing up the leaves! And finishing up your trees. Have you been gluing?! I don't know about you, but I am still working on Part 1. Gluing....punching, cupping. It takes a lot of time to create a tree. But I will be kind and give you part 2....... But there are no pictures.....yet.

Actually Part 2 is making the hosta to put around the base of the tree; and some flowers. This will partly cover any irrigularities in the tree trunk, and also make a nice foreground for the tree. In front of the hosta you have a choice of making pansies or perhaps purple cone flowers or brown eyed susans. For all these, here are the supply lists.....

Floral tape in various widths and colors - greens, browns, white.

A 1/4" circle punch.

A 1/4" Sun punch - looks like the circle with spikes radiating out from the edges - used for the purple cone flowers and/or the brown eyed susans.

An Oak Leaf punch for flower leaves.

A three in one heart punch from Fiskars.....we will be using the smallest of them for making pansies. Also a medium sized heart punch and a small heart punch. The last two are for the pansy leaves.

Marking pens

Straight or common pins

Colored paper or painted paper - hot pink for the purple cone flowers, sunshine yellow for the brown eyed susans, purple and yellow or any two pansy colors you like.

Brown craft paint

Sharp scissors and a pair of old scissors to use for cutting the floral wires.

An old mouse pad.

Toothpicks.

Tacky Glue

Floral wire - plain green, and covered as well. If you can't find covered, you can cover your own. If you don't know how to cover wire I can teach you quickly.

A cheater booklet of pictures of flowers - do you get Burpee's catalogs? Do you get any floral catalogs? Have any perinnial plant books? Any plant books at all?

Figure out how many flowers you want in your little garden around the tree. I plan on circling my entire tree with hosta plants and then adding a few flowering plants just in front of the tree.

Now in order to do the purple cone flowers, you must use the sun punch and punch out a bunch of the "suns." These should be hot pink. Cut a bunch of your wires anywhere from 1 to 1 1/2" long. Use old scissors for this type of cutting. Dip the ends in brown craft paint and let dry. Continue dipping until you have a nice "cone" on the end. Find a picture of cone flowers and compare the cone to the picture. It should be like the very end of an ice cream cone ......if you tip it upside down and look at it - only very tiny. Let dry final. The color should almost be chocolate brown. Place your petals on a mouse pad and spread them out one layer thick. With a straight or common pin make a hole in the exact center of the "sun. Put a drop of glue just under the cone and push the "sun" up flush with the cone. Set aside to dry. Make a whole bunch of these.

For leaves; use the painted paper described under the trees. With the oak leaf punch - punch about twice the amount of hot pink suns. Put each of the leaves on the mouse pad and with a toothpick make it curl up! Come on now, you can do it! Run the toothpick down the center of the leaf giving it a "vein" and making the leaf curl up. It should almost look like a feather when it is finished. Take some glue and put it on the flower stem about 1/2 " down from the flower and then place the spine of the feathered leaf against that glue and let dry. Give some stems two leaves and some one. When dry gently push the petals of the hot pink suns down so that those petals are facing down - check a picture to see how the real ones look. And there you have purple cone flowers. Hummingbirds love them!

Now on to the yellow brown eyed susans. Following the directions above, make yellow suns. Make the cones, but not as high, more like a disc rather than a cone. Again make a hole in the sun and push it onto the wire gluing securily in place. But do not push the petals down - rather, push them slightly up from the bottom....check on a real brown-eyed susan for reference. Again, add the same kinds of leaves!

Now on to the pansies! For this you will need the heart punch! Punch purple ones and punch yellow ones. This flower is not the easiest to master. It took me about two weeks to get some decent ones. But do not give up....I'm a natural blond, you redheads, brunets, etc., should not have any problems.....LOL

Basic pansy: Cut wires about 1" long, and make a curl in the top like the electric burner of a stove making the stem hang down from the burner. A very small burner. Take a small circle punch and punch a bunch of green leaf paper dots..... Glue a green circle to the top of each of the "burners." Make a bunch of these and let dry. Now for the fun! Take a purple heart - try all the sizes and try to make them tiny and medium but not too large! Take a purple heart and glue it to the little green circle so that the pointy part of the heart is in the center of the circle. Make a bunch of these and let dry - make some with yellow and some with purple....or you can do yellow and orange pansies, pick a pansy color and just try this. When dry, take two slightly smaller yellow hearts (contrasting color). Place a dot of glue right on the pointy part of the heart you glued down and place these two hearts like a bow tie with their pointy ends right on the bigger heart's pointy end. Make sence? It will look like a bow tie. Then after doing all of yours, let dry. Then put another dab of glue on the three pointy ends and lay a matching size heart to the first heart right there! So that now you have what appears to be a little face..... Can you see it? Look at a real picture of a pansy and see if it looks like yours. If you need to adjust and the glue is not dry, you will not have a problem....however if the glue is dry, try again! LOL Now comes some fun. With very fine markers in black, make it look like a real pansy! Check your real pictures again....I add dots and lines and then go around the outside of each petal with the black...... You can make yours look more real, and you might even want to use red/brown markings with those gold pansys.....it's up to you.

I would use the oak leaves for these flowers, but curling them very tightly and raggedy! Try it! It's really fun and after you get the hang of it, you can get more fancy. If you are using creape paper, you can use your toothpicks to make the edges ruffley! It's really quite fun and you can get more creative the more pansies you do!

Now for the hosta. Cut your wires about 2" long. Unroll some floral tape and cut some pieces about 4" long, some about 3" long, and some 2" long and a few 1" long. Spread some glue on your rape and fold it in half on top of those wires! You should have between 1/4" and 1/2" of bare wire on the bottom or covered wire depending on what kind of wire you are using. Press your fingers over the wires to make sure you have a good vein in there. Then let dry. Again refer to your real plant source to see how to hand cut each leaf for your hosta...... Be brave and using your sharp scissors hand cut each hosta leaf remembering that somehosta looks almost as thin as spider plants and some hostas have large broad leaves. Refer to your plant books and cut accordingly. Bend the stems gracefully and set aside. Now some hostas have white stripes and some have deep green stripes....use marking pens or craft paints to paint lines on your leaves representing the natural hosta colors. If you don't feel comfortable painting these, just leave them plain green as Hosta also comes in plain green. Hosta are also called Plaintain Lilies. Yes, they do have flowers, but we are not going to make them here in this workshop. I will find an easier way to make them later on and you can just add them. Use the medium heart shaped punch to make leaves for the pansies.....cupping them gently on the mouse pad.

Now armed with our armload of tiny cone flowers, brown eyed susans and hostas this is what we will do! Take your hosta leaves and gather up about 8 or 10 of them in varous sizes leaving one shorter one rolled up sort of for the middle. Bend the stems to resemble the real leaves and begin planting them around the base of your tree. Hostas grow in a circular fashion, so just go round and round in a little tight circle pushing the wires (after putting glue on them) down into the styrofoam in a circle with all the leaves facing out. Hostas look best when made close to one another.....as that is how they multiply and grow in real life. I start on one side of the circle and make a plant....then one opposite it. Then one on the end and one opposite that and then fill in....I imagine you can get 5 or 6 good sized plants around that tree! Then in front of the hosta you can fill in with little plantings of the other flowers. I may make up three cone flower sets - probably with 5 or 7 blooms in each - the three spaced around the tree. I will probably make uu 5 sets of the yellow brown eyed susan plants with 5 or 9 blooms in each - again spaced equally. Then I will probably randomly put the pansy plants here and there around the others....... When all are dry - these must be glued in place, I look to see if more leaves can be added. You want greenery mixed in so that the place looks verdant and luxurious with flowers. I will then glue coffee grounds in and around the flowers for soil.....and perhaps make a border of small rocks around the little garden there......

When the little garden is done, you can either put grass over the rest or add something else of your choice! I'm only giving suggestions here.

Good luck!

I'm thinking about Part 3 now....... Remember if you have any questions, ask here!

Wolfie

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You can keep adding to this topic. As long as you add it here (Part 3 and etc.) people will be able to find it. When people chop things up, I don't post the links because it just becomes too confusing :p This is a Great Tutorial and I think everyone who reads it will feel the same :) Thanks Gina Dear!

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I'm very happy your all like this tut and I hope to get pictures of the purple cone flowers and the brown eyed susans up tomorrow. Right now I'm kind of tired.....sigh....been gluing leaves! LOL

But before you make your flowers and the hosta, you should really finish your trees. This is where the realism really begins, is with the trees. I may be revamping my island tree - adding the "balls" and then the leaves......I think it will look far better then! I was hesitatant to do this though, due to all those short stubby branches, but I may do it.....but not until this is done.

I've got a Greenleaf Sunburst arbor all put together and stained.....I want to cover that with vines and have climbing roses. Is this something you would like to do as well? Perhaps after thr foundation plantings?

Wolfie

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Hi, Gina, I made climbing roses for the trellis that came with the Magnolia, to put on the Laurel rehab, and I used greenery "vines" I found in a dollar store. I think the Small Stuff archives have directions for making the vine part out of steel wool, but I'm too visual a learner to follow the thread. Your tutorial is great so far because the pictures go with the plain, easy-to-understand text, and I would love to see one for the climbing roses, as well. I also need to find the sun & triple-heart punches.

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Thanks Wolfie. Great TUT!!!!!! Very timely for me and my oak tree for one of my projects! I found the little punch someone else suggested from Michaels and I am experimenting with different papers for the leaves now. I have plenty of dryer lint and will certainly give it a go!!!!!

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I've got a Greenleaf Sunburst arbor all put together and stained.....I want to cover that with vines and have climbing roses. Is this something you would like to do as well? Perhaps after thr foundation plantings?

Wolfie

I've been thinking about that Sunburst arbor - it's gorgeous, and just what my Healer Witch would love to have - I still have to finish making her cottage first, and then .... I know she would be thrilled to have that arbor in her garden! (She's very into Nature, and particularly the Sun.)

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Here are some more pictures of what I have done so far......there is much more to do. I mislead you a bit with the hosta...... If you check it out, the pictures show many colors of hosta....I have made three varieties in my scene - plain green, white bordered, and gold bordered. It's all wonderful. When you make your leaves, remember to take a toothpick and "texture" each leaf - on each side. they came out pretty good and look much like the pictures of real hosta in the book. Anyway look at my pictures and tell me what you think. Have any of you started yours? If so, remember to post pictures on here!

My water is made of silicone tub caulking - clear! When it dries it should show the fish in the pool and the bottom colors!

Anyway here are the photos!

Wolfie

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Well my first block in my foundation building blocks is finished! Now I can fill in with other blocks that will be cut to fit the various parts of the foundation on my Pierce. This particular block will probably go under the kitchen windows....and then other blocks will be fit in around the porch to the porch steps and then around the other side up to the chimney that will be made for the fireplace wall in the living room and beyond around the whole foundation eventually. The ones under the opening to the dollhouse will be very low plants, more flowers probably or else lawn sloping down to the edges of the base. Note that in the second picture there are goldfish in a pond with water lilies as well. I do love the look of little ponds, but this one is the only one that will be included in the foundation planting segments. the other segments will have shorter shrubs - more flowering types of shrubs, some ivy secments, lots of hosta and basic plants you would find in the yard around a home. Remembering that these ones will be for spring and summer....... I may make up totally new segments for winter and/or the holidays. But not this year. This first go round will be summer/spring. The basket will go on the porch probably by either the door or on the steps. The basket itself is made from manilla folder and painted and trimmed.

Wolfie

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  • 2 years later...

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