What is the sound of a digital clock ticking away the minutes to a deadline? Like the buzz of tinnitus? Or water drops in a still, clear pool? Here’s what it looks like: total bedhead me chopping tiny firewood and kindling and stacking it in place. I’m not freaking out. Well maybe just a little, for how weird the back of my hair looks. Onward!
The base plantings for the living roof are complete. Yay me!
I finished it up today, after marching with Pacifica Beach Coalition in the annual Fog Festival, dressed as a bee and playing a kazoo. (Our original plan was to kazoo Flight of the Valkyries, but that proved a bit too ambitious.) For those of you that know me less well, marching in a half-mile parade before hundreds, if not thousands of spectators, in a bee costume, could not be further from what I might typically choose to do. All that brave eye contact and self-in-presence! I celebrate with you, and you with me: we pick up trash on the beach, and our individual and collective efforts matter. Thank you.
Who knows what’s next?
Never say never. Say yes, instead?
To get more use from the many bags of preserved moss, I decided to shred the lower stemmy parts into a coarse scatter, and use that to plant around the taller rounded mounds. I practically got carpal tunnel from snip, snip, snip snipping.
The scatter also adds more texture and another level of growth.
This morning I realized I didn’t like the straw-colored moss clumps, and got out watercolors to green them up, like a photosynthesis devi. That was so satisfying I added some darker tones into the other plantings as well.
I let two of the red poppies sprout, but have determined they wouldn’t survive on the windswept roof. I still like them as flowers, though, so into a bucket for the flower stand (or as starts for planting) they will go.
Wanting to ensure even plant color distribution with a random appearance, I changed up how I’ve been “planting” the living roof. I’m going through vast quantities of moss because I prefer the fine rounded tops more than the stemmy lower growth, and colors are not consistent bag to bag. This way is more fun, too.
Poppy propagation continues, with a new flavor. This punch is about 1/4-inch (6mm) — compare it to the 3/16-inch (5mm) round — and reminiscent of a pompom variation red field poppy.
Sort of. I like the way they look, and think they’ll complement the CA poppies :)
nancyland.com 