The Variegated Thumb

A couple of months ago I revealed my affinity for nice looking pieces of bark.  Recently I noticed that a piece of bark had fallen off of a stump in my backyard.  The stump was one of 8 sitting around our firepit.  During the winter of 2007 we had a really bad ice storm in central Oklahoma.  My wife and I went around town collecting nice stumps from our neighbor’s curbs after everyone had done their chainsaw work.

The bark on one of the logs just didn’t want to hang on.  This piece was much smaller than the subject of my previous post, though.  The piece measures about 12 inches long and about 6 inches across.  When I picked it up off the ground I thought it was kind of cool how it had held it’s shape, curved around the trunk of the tree.  Even though it had fallen away, it was still firm and didn’t feel like it was about to crumble.  So I figured I should save it for a project of some sorts.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran across a broken plastic hanging pot with a metal hanger.  I pulled off the metal hanger, tossed the broken pot and went to look for my piece of bark.  About 5 minutes later I had punched three holes in the piece of bark and threaded the hanger through it.

Staghorn fern in plastic pot (boring) and bark with hanger threaded through punched holes

I decided my Staghorn fern (Platycerium sp.) would be an excellent specimen for this hanging bark basket.  I plucked it out of its boring white plastic pot and stuck it in my new creation.  Then I added some good potting soil around the firm root ball and wrapped the top in Sphagnum moss.  I secured the plant and moss with string.  Maybe over time the Staghorn roots will cling to the bark and the string will be unnecessary.

Staghorn fern (Platycerium sp.) hanging in a bark basket I created

What do you think of my creation?