Vertical Garden (continued)
Short on space, this Los Angeles couple hung their garden--a collage of shapely succulents--on the wall.
First, they sketched out an impressionistic plan of how they wanted their piece to look. Next, they canvassed nurseries for flowerlike echeverias and aeoniums, plump sedums and crassulas, finger-shaped senecios and fuzzy kalanchoes. These small gems run the gamut of hues, from soft silvers to pink-flushed golds and greens to shiny reds and near-blacks.
To set them off, the designers devised a three-by-five-foot steel armature fitted with two layers of metal mesh to create a wide, shallow box. They laid their box on the ground and had it stuffed with a blend of sphagnum moss and cactus mix and planted with hundreds of cuttings, arranged to balance forms and hues within a frame of black Aeonium 'Zwartkopf.' Some 45 days later, once the plants took root, the piece was ready to mount, with eyebolts and heavy brackets.
In the two years since, the juicy picture has continued to fill out and evolve in its west-facing spot, where surrounding eight-foot walls shelter it from the baking sun. Most surprising to Lehrer and Kuwayama, the plants, with just a weekly spritz from a hose, have grown so lustily that maintenance has been a challenge. Certain aeoniums, for example, have shot up far beyond the five-inch height that's optimal for a uniform, painterly look. So these--roughly ten percent of the composition--must be cut back periodically and the small cuttings reinserted in the mesh. Many plants also bloom, producing stalks and sprays that require snipping.
But fertilizer is never needed to spark this lavish tapestry that now greets visitors who come through the gate. In Southern California, even with the heat and sun, these plants are survivors.
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