Veggie Garden Vignette

Every year for Easter we create various vignettes for our bunnies to ‘hop’ around. One of my favorites is to individually pot a variety of vegetables, allowing them to be shifted around to suit the setting and/or collection of bunnies, chicks, ducks or other barnyard critters. Rather than designing a large arrangement of mixed vegetables, the individual pots are much easier to assemble and can then be used as components in a variety of ways.

Any collection of pots suited to each other will work, but I usually use a collection of terracotta pots and paint them with a ‘mossy finish’. Terracotta is available in a multitude of shapes and sizes, readily available and inexpensive. Of course, they can be used as is and look fabulous, but the terracotta color isn’t always suited to the setting, and sometimes less contrast between the plants and container is better. The mossy finish is the perfect neutral (If you want to see how to create the mossy finish check out our video: http://www.shophouseofdesign.com/#!painting-techniques--mossy-pots/csm2

Materials needed:

Vegetables

A container for each vegetable (or group if you are potting several of one kind together such as carrots or spring onions)

Foam enough for all the containers (1-2 bricks depending on the size of containers)

Bag of Spring Green Reindeer Moss

Water

Hot glue (glue pan or hot glue gun)

Wood picks for stemming vegetables

20 gauge wire to make fern pins (optional)

Assembly:

1. Cut a square of foam to fit inside the container. It should stand ¼ inch below the rim of the container.

2. To attach the foam, either gently wedge it into the container or use hot glue.

3. If the vegetable has a stem attached, insert it into the center of the foam. If it does not, insert a wooden pick or piece of 16 gauge wire into the vegetable, attaching it with hot glue if necessary.

4. To cover the foam visible around the vegetable(s) attach reindeer moss by either hot gluing it to the foam, or pinning it to the foam with a fern pin (you can make fern pins by simply bending a 2-6 inch length wire in half (20 gauge works well for this application). Misting the reindeer moss with water will make it more pliable, making it easier to fill in with and pin.