Intro to Faux Plants and flowers

When it comes to plants you are either have a green thumb or don’t so if you don’t what are your options? Well I’m here to tell you that you can have plants in your home that would trick even the well trained eye. I want you to understand that high quality faux plants or artificial flowers are not cheep. They often cost the same as the real thing, or in some instances are twice the amount. Considering that they will last a lifetime if stored and cared for properly I consider a worthwhile investment. Rooms that are decorated with some organic accents look much better than one that is stark and sterile.

Even the worst plant killer can usually grown some real plants and this helps to make a display that contains some fake look all the more believable. Below you can see were I have utilized some succulents in a window full of mostly real plants. Succulents while drought tolerant are not tolerant of poor light. They will quickly get leggy, pale and develop soft spots if grown in poor light. Since succulents are also a premium item having them die and deteriorate is discouraging and costly. also since succulents have a matt to glossy waxy surface and succulent leaves in real life they lend well to faux imitations.

Location Location Location

High quality artificials need to be placed in a believable setting. If you have a bunch of artificial plants sitting in the center of a room that always has the shades pulled its a dead give away that they are not real. Place your faux plants were they would actually potentially grow and thrive if they were real. Below I show a mix of fake and real plants on my office desk which is located in the basement of my home. What makes it believable is that i have a artificial light source for the few real plants. The fake plants are grouped around the light source as if they were there to get the light as well.

Faux plants don’t ever need to  be watered which helps if your using delicate furniture that you don’t want moisture coming in contact with. They don’t drop leaves or get bugs. Really the only downside to faux plants is that they do need to be dusted occasionally. They can fade if they are located in a setting with high light. One way to avoid this is use real plants that utilize most of the direct light. This keeps only the dappled light reaching your faux plants as seen below.

Who doesn’t like flowers on their real plants? Well of course everyone, but the fact of the matter is most plants do not continuously bloom non-stop. The relative low light in most peoples homes as well as the fact that most plants marketed for home use are low light. This leads to  infrequent blooming and adds to the disappointment. This is were faux plants come to the rescue providing cheerful blooms when your real plants are resting. below I have inserted a couple stems of faux real touch phalaenopsis orchids into a real plant that is currently resting. again placement and articulation of the flowers is critical to making it look natural. look up reference pictures if you don’t know how the flowers should be positioned.

Avoiding filling a space with only blooming plants as this looks pretty unnatural. The most believable set up is when you mix some foliage faux with flowering faux plants. as seen on my booster table in the kitchen.

This photo below is all faux plants and it mixes flowering and texturally interesting succulents to make a nice display.

Again using some artificial light source i have placed real plants around this faux peony bouquet and it helps accent the creamy petals as well as make it look more realistic.

Lastly this faux brassica orchids height works well in the corner of a semi lit corner.

I hope this article helped you see that faux plants can look real natural and downright gorgeous when used properly. Go and cheer up your space with some greenery even if you can’t grow the real thing.

Where to get awesome looking faux?

some great places to get realistic plants are http://Pottarybarn.com, http://Pier1.com, http://hobbylobby.com, and http://Michaels.com. I prefer to purchase in store to ensure that I’m getting what I want. Lots of times the way the faux plants are depicted online are not what they look in real life. I tend to avoid the ones that are poorly painted, or have to many obvious mold seems that are pretty obvious.

By: Daniel Greiner 

Natures free bounty rains from the sky each fall so why let the squirrels have all the fun?

Believe it or not Michigan boasts many edible varieties of edible nuts. If your not in Michigan fear not because most of these species occur over much of the United states so you’ll at least be able to harvest some of these in your area.

Lets start out with Hickories:

Hickories are super tasty and my all time favorite! They are super buttery and sweet. The easiest and most recognizable hickory would be the shag bark hickories. You can spot them from a long distance by their characteristic shaggy & exfoliating bark.

They are  extremely long lived and often reside along fence rows and roads. The time to collect these is in mid to late September. The drup is often still covered in a green hull that is quartered and easy to pull off.

Once you harvest them you can drop them in a bucket of water and the ones that sink are 100% good and the ones that float may either have a worm or a small air pocket that allows it to float. I still crack open the floaters and have found them to be mostly good.

Second nut on the menu is Black Walnuts:

Now i know what your saying already….”Black Walnuts! Who eats those?!” but seriously you gotta try them. The obvious thing about them is they are literally everywhere. If you don’t know what black walnuts look like then your an idiot, just kidding lol. Black walnuts grow to be large trees with dark furrowed bark and bright green leaves that come out in bunches along the branch as seen below.

I like to think of them as Michigan’s coconut trees as they have that tropical feel to them. Once the nuts start to rain from the tree is when you need to get out there and pick them up. I gather them up in five gallon buckets.

as you can see above the walnuts I picked are perfect. The outer husk has soften and bruised and this makes for removing it a breeze. I then take a knife and cut into it and pull the husk off the nut. After you have done this wash and rinse the nuts till the water runs clear. Don’t forget to wear gloves unless you want your hands to look like someone did Indian henna art with a 4 inch brush. Trust me I have not used gloves before and you get some weird looks from people when your at the store picking out produce. It looks like you have brown crap all over your hands from hulling the walnuts. The next step after hulling and washing is drying and curing.

Here is about a bushel of black walnuts that sat in the sun for three days to dry out and begin the curing process. This allows the nut meat inside to mature and dry down a bit. If you try and eat them sooner its pretty gross so just cure the darn things okay? Curing takes 2 weeks. Hang them in a mesh bag to keep airflow around them.

Third nut on the menu is Chestnuts.

Yes i said chestnuts. You can find them in certain areas you just gotta scout it out and get there before the deer and the squirrels.

Now before you go running down the street to the tree that you think is a chestnut lets get a few things strait. The edible kind are the ones that will make your hands bleed if you try and pull the spiny hulls off them before they release.

I usually use  a stick to pop out the loose nuts. better to use a tool then make your hand bleed.  Now the “common” chestnut that most people think of is the Horse Chestnut. These are not edible and if you try to eat them you will regret it as they are oh so bitter and astringent.

Yucky chestnuts that you shouldn’t eat. The hull is spiny but not that much of a deterrent so thats a good sign its not the right kind.

So now that I’ve laid it all out for you guys go out there and make like a squirrel. Try some of natures “organic” “free” and downright tasty gifts from the sky. Stop loathing those black walnuts that you keep mowing over and pick them up and eat them!