Creating a Tower of Beauty Out of...

Creating a Tower of Beauty Out of...

It’s definitely still winter in New Hampshire, although the snow has melted from under the evergreens up on the hill. My yard is still white with no bare patches. But Spring is coming. I feel it in the air. I see it in the brighter, higher sun. And I see the top layer of ice on the pond melting. The ice on the ponds and lakes is still frozen, thick enough to support the weight of the ice fishermen. I have a feeling this may be their last weekend.

A Visit to the Orchid Show

Looking for a way to embrace the coming of Spring, yesterday, I went with my friend to the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill to see the orchid show: over 2000 orchids on display! The display was splendid and definitely worth the hour-and-a-half drive from New Hampshire to Boylston, Massachusetts. By the way, this botanic garden was voted Best in the US! It did not disappoint and was a balm to my “I’ve been shut indoors for way too long” soul.

Inspiration from the Botanic Garden

Having been in the fence industry for 12+ years means my eye always looks for fences and uses for the wire mesh we sell. Duncan trained me to do this. As we would travel the unbeaten paths, he often pulled over to get a closer look at the fence he saw and snap a picture. At first, this seemed a bit comical, but I was embracing the same notion before long.

What I saw yesterday was unexpected and a pleasant surprise. The botanic garden has two indoor spaces for lush tropical plants, trees, and shrubs: the Orangerie and the Limonaia. Both are welcome on a cold or rainy day in February! The Orangerie is my favorite. The large wooden trusses, which look like Douglas fir to me (but I don’t know this for a fact), are majestic and raise your eyes to the peak of the building. Of course, being a conservatory, the entire structure is constructed of windows: walls and ceiling.

The entire conservatories were radiant with brilliant orchids. The colors ranged from bright yellows and magentas to fire orange and white. Everywhere we turned, there was a profusion of blossoms. The artistic arrangement of the orchids was mixed with bromeliads, ferns, and other evergreen plants. There were towers of plantings, including cylindrical towers about six feet tall. I began to look closely to determine the structure of the towers. And here’s where the surprise came. The inner workings of the towers were half-inch hardware cloth. What a clever use of this sturdy wire mesh. Like a doting grandmother, I turned to my friend and said, “We sell this!”

Creative Uses for Hardware Cloth

Hardware cloth has many practical uses, including keeping small rodents out of the garden or barn and from under your deck. Last year, while staying at The Swag in North Carolina, I discovered another use. I’ll talk about that in another email.

Creating beauty is one of my core principles of life. My ABCs are “Always Be Creating”™. A couple of years ago, I wrote an article on this topic. It went viral!

The sparrow netting I talked about last week would also work for creating your majestic tower garden. So why not buy a roll and build a tower garden and a canary cage? I’m continually looking for creative ways to use wire mesh, so please reply and let me know how you plan to use it.