The Story of the Stick
The road to using a stick as functional, indoor plant decor was a long and winding one. It began as many brilliant ideas do, while watching reality TV with my sister in Indiana.
“Do you like my stick?” She spoke with the swaggering defiance of a woman who had found an amazing stick while out on a deep woods hike, and knew it. That’s what struck me most about the exchange. Her stick bravado. It wasn’t so much the stick itself, at least at that early stage in the game. It would be some weeks time before the seeds she had sewn on that day began to sprout in my mind.
My living room window had been a source of disdain for quite a while. My cats long to be there. All three of them. Nothing can keep them away from that window. They can see the activities of the entire neighborhood. The lucky cats that live a life on the outside, the birds, the passersby, they serve as the most desirable form of entertainment for my cats. Every other day, I was picking up a plant, replacing a pot, hoping that no permanent damage was done. It had become so commonplace to have some variety of cat accident in that window that I no longer breathlessly ran straight there whenever I heard a crash. I just resigned myself to getting to it whenever I happened to be in the area.
Additionally, I had long thrown away my blinds in an attempt to forever allow the light to shine on my plants in the most natural way. Sunrise to sunset, I like to let them see the sky. This, however, isn’t the most private way of life. Naturally, I needed to cram more plants into this space to create a plant curtain that would eliminate the possibility of prying eyes. All the plants were on shelves, as seen here, leaving the top free and clear.
It was cluttered, and I wanted more coverage coming from the top. This means that I’d need hanging plants, but the ceilings in my old home are beautiful, odd as it sounds to say about a ceiling. I didn’t want to muff them up. I chose, instead, to use wall hooks like I used for the other window in this room. I didn’t know what I was going to do with them just yet, I just knew that wall hooks would be in the mix.
It was around a month ago that I realized the extra pizazz that a stick would bring to this window. I wanted something more than hooks. I love hooks, but they’re all over my house. You don’t have 250+ houseplants without also having hooks. A stick, on the other hand, that’s new to me. I had envisioned an old, weathered stick for the space. I dug around in my back yard, and everything I found seemed a little too frail and fragile with age to support the substantial weight I was going to ask it to bear. I eventually settled on pruning a tree in the back yard that had grown over one of my planting beds. The plants could use more sun, and I could use the limb to make the strong plant support that I needed.
Before we get too far into it, this was a cost free project for me. I had all the supplies on hand. Yes, I bought all the supplies at some point in the past, but it has been at least two years. Some of the supplies were recycled from projects even older.
The supply list goes something like this:
The stick
Pruning shears
Rope
Scissors
Three long hooks that drill into the wall
Electric drill
Plaster screws (my walls are plaster, so normal drywall screws are likely suitable for most homes)
The plants!
Rather than the usual picture tutorial, I’ve filmed a video for this project. Let me know in the comments below, on Instagram, or by sending me an email if you like the video better than the picture tutorials!
One thing I love the most about this versus plain wall hooks is that I can allow my Hoya to vine up and around the stick. I’m looking forward to when it’s completely covered with wild vines twining all over the place!
The Plants
The top row from left to right
Hoya lacunosa ‘Snow Caps’
Hoya diversifolia
Hoya carnosa ‘krimson princess’
Bottom row from left to right
Hoya (Eriostemma) coronaria
Hoya pubicalyx
Hoya pottsii 'Sp. 22 Khao Yai’
A Note About Eriostemma
If you have been here for any amount of time, you probably know that I have been fiercely devout to my Eriostemma. You probably see that the new set-up has one Eriostemma rather than many. Over the years of collecting those plants, they got huge. Some of the plants consisted of several feet of vine. I got to a point where I accepted that I didn’t have the space for several plants of that size, and freed them to move on to homes where they would have literal room to grow. They’ve found loving homes so far, and I feel good about it.
I am, as a long-lost friend once said, a chaos gardener. I am not someone who cuts and propagates plants often. When I do, it’s usually because I stepped on a vine when I was carrying it to the sink for watering. So reducing the size of the plants wasn’t really an option to for me.
I have said to many of you over the time that I’ve been here that I am not a seller, but I did sell and am selling more of my original Eriostemma collection. The only ones I’ll be keeping are the giant coronaria, and the Eriostemma that I got from Ted and Dorothy Green themselves.
Conclusion
I love this. I’m glad I tried something new, and I can’t wait to see how the plants take to it!
As always, I love to hear your thoughts! Share with me in the comments, on Instagram, or email me to let me know what’s on your mind. Tell me about your projects! I love new ideas!
Plants and pottery are on Etsy if you want to check them out. All plants on Etsy are mine and were bought, loved, and cared for by me. I am not a traditional seller, I just release the plants that no longer spark joy and/or have outgrown my space, in the case of the Eriostemma. You can link to Etsy in the banner at the top of the page, or at the very bottom! Very soon, I will have Etsy synced with my webpage for a more seamless experience.