As promised, I did finally haul myself upstairs, many times, in fact, since the houseplants at camp on the patio are starting to come in. Cool nights coming in fast, so I need to start cleaning them up, knocking off the wildlife, cleaning dead leaves off and wiping the pots. And all that.
Much stair climbing carrying heavy stuff ensues. The big Boston ferns are hung from the two ceilings upstairs, phew, that was the hardest bit, heavy and overhead, trying to see through the foliage to aim the plant hook over the ceiling hook.
The visiting snake plant is off home with its mom today, to north Jersey, with a promise to let her come back to camp next summer. She looks wonderful after the season outdoors in shade, new little snakelets around the foot of the established leaves. And the cuttings I took from her are starting to root, so next summer she will have friends to play with. Yes, I take it personally.
Anyway, in the course of bringing in plants and noting how they've all grown, so they can't fit back where they were in May, I had to figure out some inventive and cheap ways of staging them. And, as I was thinking about whether I had a plank which I could sling across two little tables which were also coming indoors, I took a look in my outdoor storage area.
And found the leftover "planks" three lengths, from the new floors upstairs. As I was saying, oh yes, you'll do fine, my neighbor suddenly showed up and said, I caught you talking to that wood, don't deny it! I also can't deny I've started a lot of thoughts with "and" but if Hemingway could do it, I can. And he couldn't raise houseplants for toffee, neener.
The planks not only work perfectly for the purpose, strong enough to hold plants up, light enough for me to swing them about, but they match the floor! like this, seen from above:
The bedroom has the real staging, two levels, the big time. Using two little wire table things I was given, and two tall stools I've had for years and years, no idea where they came from.
In the Nook, family name for the spare room, old family joke from childhood, is a single shelf on two low tables, originally found in the dumpster, brought in from the patio.
Results: nice looking very pleasing staging areas which keeps plants in light and off windowsills, and off the floor, and won't drive my cleaners mad. No tools involved. Total expenditure today: $0.
All the plants were either from slips or offshoots, one, the pony palm was a gift, the others all by propagation chez moi. This is just the advance party of plants, more to come when I get my strength back.
Now if this doesn't gladden the heart of a frugal DIYer, I don't know what will!
