small pleasures

Some years ago I gave sister Terri a gift of a class with me at the Chicago Botanic Gardens making a living wreath. We used ivy and pansies in the class and came away with a sweet one piece wire frame packed with sphagnum moss with pockets of soil planted with the cuttings provided in class. It was fun and simple and the results quite nice.
Well, I still have the frame waiting to be replanted some day, but in the meantime bought a larger one that has a "trough" and a top to clip over it.  My intention, for longer than I care to admit, was to plant this with hens and chicks. I've been growing them in an old strawberry jar and let's face it, they grow even when they tumble out of the jar into stones. So this winter I had lots of little babies hanging on til spring and was determined not to let another season go by without planting them.
I decided the frame needed some sort of lining to keep the moss and soil in place on so large a frame. In the past I've had good success using landscape fabric to line open weave pots and baskets. I do not like the look of the tacky brown coir liners they sell. So I set about sewing a piece of the landscape fabric to my frame.

I nudged the little "chicks" out of their pots and planted them up.

Now they're filling in nicely and what were chicks a few months back are now becoming little hens, creating chicks of their own.

I had thought to hang the wreath on the chicken yard gate. I still might, emptying out the chickens' watering vessels onto it when I changed their water. But I've been working on another project lately which may be a better backdrop for this, so we'll have to see. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the small pleasure of seeing a long delayed idea come to life.