How does she do it: The Succulent Chair

We've had nothing but amazing and overwhelming praise for the Home and Garden show this year. One of the biggest attractions and things people have been talking about is my succulent arm chair! I've been sharing it all over social media and have had an overwhelming response there too!

The most popular question is: "How did you do that?" which is what this post is about.

I love gifs so very much.

The second most popular question is: "Where do you get your ideas?". Which I'm never really sure how to answer. My brain? My imagination?

However in an attempt to answer that question I'll tell you about the process I went through.

Early in my time at Bidwell we found out that we were going to be doing displays for the Home and Garden show. The first thing we were given as a theme was just "Pittsburgh". I immediately started thinking about what I wanted to do. Obviously it had to be really cool, fairly challenging, and weird. I like weird plants, and weird projects. It needed to be big, surprising, and whimsical. I'm a very whimsical person.

I've been really into succulent topiary for a while, wreathes and Christmas trees and the like. I was surfing around Pinterest looking for a way to make a succulent topiary sky line of Pittsburgh. Then I saw a picture of a "moss chair". There are a bunch of moss covered arm chairs lurking around Pinterest and I thought that was pretty cool. Then the light bulb went on.

Succulent topiary... Moss chair..... SUCCULENT ARMCHAIR

Boom.

From that moment on the idea was wedged thoroughly in my brain. As the concept for the show grew and evolved,  this chair stayed in my mind.  Initially it was going to be fully topiaried in succulents, no moss on the outside, but our Director informed me that would require entirely too many succulents, therefor: moss.

Of course I thought this was going to be a simple process. This is a common theme in my life, actually, coming up with an idea that seems totally simple and do-able but then ends up being far more difficult than anticipated. I always figure it out though.

This chair is begging for a make-over

The first hurtle I found myself facing was the fact that I needed a chair.  My plant was essentially to reupholster the chair in sphagnum moss and succulents. Which seemed perfectly reasonable. I've reupholstered things before. All I needed was to find a suitably ugly chair that I could tear apart.

Easier said than done. I recalled seeing many of these sort of wing back arm chairs on the side of the road being thrown out. Garbage chairs. Unfortunately as soon as I needed one there were none to be had. On Craigslist people wanted $50+ for them, and I really didn't want to actually buy a chair only to tear it apart.

To be fair, I also lacked the proper tools for the job.

Finally, one day, when all hope seemed lost, I found one. It was the ugliest arm chair I'd ever seen. And it even had some tulips on it, which are my favorite flower. I took it as a sign from the universe and hauled that hideous chair home. 
My next challenge was stripping the chair. As I've said, I've reupholstered things before. Stripping the thing was always the easiest part. Destructive and fun too. It was a little shocking when I discovered that even though it was old, stained, and ugly, this chair was remarkably well made. The fabric was thick, strong and attached to the base with these ridiculously strong, big, staples.

Thankfully, I did eventually get it stripped down. As is often the way with garbage chairs, it desperately needed some cleaning. Some scrubbing and a bit of bleach later, it was ready.

The next step was to cover any part that was going to be under moss and plants with thick black plastic (to keep the frame from rotting).

Not pictured: Any fucks given

At first this was an intimidating process, as I tried to get all my plastic creased nicely (which it was not made to do). Then I realized that this was going to be underneath the plants and moss, and no one would see it, so it really didn't matter if it looked like a hot mess as long as it as water tight.

It got much easier after that.

After the black plastic was on and secured I needed to go about building the frame into which the plants would be planted.

This was yet another surprise challenge.
Do you know how challenging chicken wire is to work with? It's really strong. I suppose it needs to be to keep the chickens in. However I've seen things with way more complicated than an armchair constructed from chicken wire and foolishly believed it would be a simple process.
 

You don't want to know how long this took.

Thankfully, I had a staple gun, plenty of refill staples and the determination of some one who has already found themselves in way over their head and kept going with the project.

Part of the seat cushion was filled in with styrofoam pieces to save on sphagnum moss, and to give the frame a bit of extra support.

The real challenge wasn't so match attaching the chicken wire to the chair as it was shaping the chicken wire to approximate the form of the cushions which now resided in the dumpster. Also baring in mind that this frame was going to have to be stuffed with sphagnum moss and support a large number of succulents, which eventually would grow and spread.

Quickly I figured out that it might be worth my while to stuff the moss while I build the frame. Working one section at a time, slowly building up the chair rather than attempting to set up a whole chicken wire frame and then add the moss. This was a much better all, the open ends of the chicken wire is how I got the sphagnum into the frame. 

Another Pro-tip: Always give your sphagnum moss a good soak before using it. However, don't leave it sitting in a bin of water for two days while you fight with plastic and chicken wire. It will end up smelling like some combination of hay, poop, and vomit. It's not good.

As I built up the frame I began to think about the black plastic around the outside of the chair and the moss I would be attatching to it. I realized that the moss, being a natural product and not astro-turf, would have some thinner spots where my plastic would show through. And that would look crappy. So I devised a plan to, once my chair was mostly stuffed, get it onto a rolling platform, spray it with floral spray paint (pro tip: it adheres better to plastic sheeting that regular spray paint). This was a perfectly well reasoned plan. I had intended on getting an assist from a classmate to get the chair onto the rolling platform, but he was busy and I thought. "I don't need any help, I'm a strong independant woman who can totally get this chair onto that platform all by herself".

Incorrect.

As I scooted the chair across the floor, it crumbled under me. One of the legs broke off, way up inside of the chair.

Rage.

How I felt inside

How I looked outside

 Thankfully I got by with a little help from my friends. A couple of classmates stepped in and, giving up time to work on their own projects, helped me fix my chair. Which is good because without their help I probably would've spent at least two more days trying to fix the chair all on my own.

Once the chair was repaired, I got the help I actually needed and got it  up on the rolling platform.  The outer edges were covered in the shiny black plastic and I didnt want to just paint to whole thing one color. If I painted the whole thing the same color it would just show through that color, and I'd have the same problem as if I'd left it black.

Git' R done.

So I decided to mottle the paint with the colors. I chose colors that were already in the sheet moss, browns, tans, and greens and went to town on it. It was a lot of fun. Sort of like tagging a building with spray paint. Which is something I've totally never done and wouldn't do because destruction of property is wrong.

Of course the effect of the paint colors was something akin to redneck camo. There was much mocking and teasing of my chair for replacing an ugly fabric cover with an even uglier painted finish.

Thankfully it didn't last long. I kept moving along with the sphagnum moss, stuffing a few handfuls at a time, then attaching the chicken wire back down, then a few more handfuls, watering here and there to keep it moist so that my succulents wouldn't be going into a bone-dry medium. Then, it was ready for planting.

 The actual process of planting the succulents into the chair was fairly simple. In one of the spaces in the chicken wire dug out a little hole with my fingers. Removed the succulent from its container, separated it if there was more than one in the container. Then I knocked the excess soil from the roots, dipped it in some water, and tucked it into the space I made in the sphagnum moss. In this way I slowly and carefully placed around 100 succulents onto the face of the chair. It took about two work-days to complete this part of it.

Once the succulents were all placed it was only a matter of attaching my sheet moss to the outside. Thankfully, this was actually not as difficult as the rest of the project. It took a combination of pins and hot glue to get it on there, but it went on relatively easily. However, my finger prints may never be the same after spending a day working with an industrial strength glue gun.

It took longer than expected to get the moss done. It wasn't a difficult job, just tedious, and after the juicy creative work of placing all my succulents, playing jigsaw puzzles with pieces of moss and scalding hot glue was some what less enjoyable.

Eventually it got done.

I wish I could say that it felt like heavens opened up and the angels sang down and that I felt an upswelling of pride at what I had accomplished. This weird incredible project that, as far as I could find on the internet no one else had done.

Instead I mostly stared at it with my eyes squinted and my arms crossed trying to figure out how I could smooth out this flaw or that flaw.

It wasn't until a few of my classmates and teachers came over to admire my work that I realized how proud I was of it. I bopped around the greenhouse grabbing any passer by I could find and dragging them over to see my handiwork.

 

 

Look at it! LOOK!

There were still a few challenges left to deal with.

For starters, who exactly does one water a chair? I'm in horitculture school and I can assure you this is something we haven't covered at all. The answer is, with a water can once a week, and spritzing with a spray bottle in between.

Next was the challenge of the Home and Garden show itself. How do we get this chair from the relative safety of the greenhouse down to the convention center, in tact and unmolested, with all the plants still alive?  Answer: With help from the Junior Horticulture class! Thank fully I made a few friends in the new class who carefully baby sat my chair as it was loaded onto the truck and then unloaded at the convention center. I wasn't there to see how it was secured for the journey, which is probably good because if I had known it was coming over I would've been an anxiety ridden wreck.

The show is huge, over 300,000 people walking around, shopping, talking, bumping into things, and touching things. Also during the four days of load-in and the one day of load-out the convention center is not heated, because there are giant trucks driving in through the big loading docks and onto the convention floor. And succulents are destinctly warm weather plants.

And the fact that the air in the convention center, even when climate controlled for people is absurdly dry and saps the moisutre out of everything.

It all made for a challenging week and a half. But we made it through. There was a lot of spraying of the chair. I kept a watchful eye on it when ever I was at the show, as did many of my classmates, and I may have had to threaten a few people who were discussing whether or not to sit on it. (Don't.)

In the end, I think it was one of the stars of the show. Lots of people taking pictures, talking and asking questions.
Hopefully this will be something I can use in the future (and hopefully in terms of future employment) to show off what I'm capable of.  I can make something really cool. And I am absurdly proud of the chair, the show, and myself.

In terms of the chair's future, the rumor is that it's going to go live at Phipps! We were there last Wednesday and the greenhouse production forman told me that they are in talks with our director in order to buy the chair. Which they will add more succulents to and make a twin for and have in the Summer Flower show!

So, if you want to visit my chair, stay tuned for news of it's second debut at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden this summer!