Chairs: They aren’t just for sitting....

When I went to my sister’s in Fort Worth recently, she twisted my arm and made me go with her to Calloway’s, a big garden nursery near her neighborhood. Having just moved to the Hill Country, I’m not in the market for plants yet. My front yard still has a pile of building material in it and lots of rock left over that was unearthed during construction. There are drainage issues that have to be resolved and retaining walls and a pergola that have to be built before I can even think about getting down to the fun part—hauling in dirt and settling in plants.

The undone rope seat shows the red color

After stapling the screen I added sphagnum, but ended up
taking it out, adding dirt first, then an edging of sphagnum 

But there I was at  Calloway’s, on a beautiful warm day with my sister, also a gardening addict, confronted by tables and rows of gorgeous green, flowering beauty. I didn’t intend to buy a thing. I told myself I was already tending enough that I had brought from my old house, trying to keep it alive until it could be permanently replanted. But in spite of all my self-lecturing, I left that nursery with a whole wagon load of stuff. I moaned to my sister about it. Where did I think I would plant any of it? She tried to soothe me with some excuse. I said no, I’m sick. That’s all! Hopelessly addicted to playing in the dirt! (She knows. We’re exactly alike!) Most of what I bought was tiny ... miniature cyclamen, a small kalanchoe, a little pink and green-leafed ground cover. Delicate angel vine.

So, yesterday, I got this idea. I dragged out of my shipping container this small chair I found some weeks ago while junkin’ in Georgetown, paying less for it than I would a good-size clay pot. It was a chippy, bright, fire engine red with a woven rope seat. My look but not my color, so I undid the rope seat and spray-painted the chair green. Then, using my staple gun, I tacked a piece of screen to the seat opening, pouching it to hold enough dirt to plant in. After settling in the plants, I added a rustic arbor, a birdhouse and a little birdbath and voila! If I can’t have the people-size landscape I see in my mind’s eye, I can create it in miniature.

Now, if only I can figure out what to do with the four tiny, adorable ferns and two equally fetching mini, double-flowered African violets I bought....