I am trying a few new projects, in between the barrowing of muck and the manic seed sowing, and one of these is to make a living picture, to hang on a wall, with succulents. The project is not complete but I thought I would show the early stages. The picture is about 1.2 x 1m in size and the first job was to make the structure to be planted. The marine ply back was covered in a plastic sheet and then a frame of timber about 3cm square and this is covered in stout wire mesh with holes about 2.5cm square. Once made it was ‘filled’ with compost – a mix of multipurpose with some loam and perlite and with some controlled-release fertiliser added. I gave it a good shake and a tap to make sure it was filled as evenly as possible but I am adding more compost as I go along. I thought about the pattern long and hard but decided to use a rough ‘Paisley pattern’ as the scheme and I roughly marked out where the teardrop shapes were to go with perlite.

Filling the frame with compost

filled with compost

Marking out the pattern in perlite

I bought a load of mixed sempervivums and sedums for the planting. The sedums are not ideal as I know they will have to be trimmed or they will overwhelm the sempervivums but I was a bit limited for the plants. Anyway, I split the plants so I could make the intricate pattern and so far so good.

Planting begins

A little later

Detail of the planting

After the planting is complete I will leave it flat for at least two months so the plants can establish and root into the compost and once they are I will screw on a picture frame and let you know how it looks!