Living wreath

I made this succulent plant wreath about 10 years ago.  (Honest, I did not steal the picture off Martha Stewart's home page.)  The wreath lasted several summers on the garage wall until a squirrel(s) ripped it apart just for the fun of it. This wreath was Martha Stewart beautiful so I was rightly outraged at those varmints and threw the frame in the shed.

But time heals all wounds.  I pulled the frame out last week and used old coco fiber from hanging baskets and filled it with left-over compost. Why buy new materials just to provide amusement for the squirrels?

But on the top I used some of the extravagant Oregon sheet moss I bought at Sky Nursery for the miniature garden. To make a living wreath correctly, the directions say to line the frame with about $50 of the fancy stuff.

Then I scrounged around the flower beds scraping up bits and pieces of succulents that grow everywhere now. Gosh, I'm getting cheap.  Buying whole pork loins and refusing to spend $3 for pots of hens n' chicks at the nursery.  What's next?

Getting the frame planted is messy, tedious work because you need to poke the delicate plants through holes punched in the moss and fiber.  Hopefully the tiny starts (or at least some of them) will root over over the summer and it will eventually become another thing of beauty.  

For now, it sure looks ratty.

As squirrel  insurance, I sprinkled the thing with Critter Ridder.