Christine de Beer - effortless floral craftsman
Grow a wheatgrass patch for an almost entirely edible Easter display
- 29 March 2023
- click to send Christine a smile
This design takes a bit of time to prepare... well... grow... but that really is the fun part. You will be amazed how quickly the grass shoots up!
You will need about 1/2 a cup of wheatgrass seeds...
Cover the seeds in luke warm water to soak.
Soak the seeds overnight.
Line a sieve with a few sheets of paper towel.
Spray the towel with water so that it follows the shape of the sieve.
Pour the seeds into the paper towel to drain the water...
Let the water run through the paper...
Fold the paper towel over the seeds to make a pocket.
Spray the paper towel pocket filled with seeds with water and place it in a container.
The seeds should be moist but not soaked. Pour out any water that accumulates in the container. Keep the seeds covered until you see tiny roots poking through the paper towel. Mine took about 2 days. Spray the seeds when it starts to look dry... but do not let it sit in water.
After about two days you will have heathy growth on the seeds.
Pour the seeds into the container you want to grow them in. Any container will work... as long as the water can drain out completely. A clear packaging container works wonderfully.
Make sure you have a deep layer of seeds in the bottom of the container.
Spray the seeds for day one so that the roots become entangled and from then on water it with running water twice a day.
Within a few days (5) you should have a healthy patch of grass. Nine days later... I was ready to design with my grass patch.
In our email today I show you how I made sure that there is no mold growing in the grass roots. You can sign up to receive the weekly bonus tip email below this post. The email is also a great way for us to connect. If you have comments or questions... or want to say hi, simply reply to the email.
Cut a vine from your cut garden. Grape will also look gorgeous. I used a passion fruit vine because of the gorgeous tendrils.
Carefully remove the foliage from the vine.
Measure the vine to fit snugly around the base of the wheatgrass.
Shape the vine into a wreath that sits snugly around the plastic base of the grass patch.
See the Tutorial below for detailed instructions on how to make a wreath.
Cut away the sides of the plastic container so that the grass still sits in the bottom part but the sides are exposed.
Leave a bit more of an edge if you want to display candy on the wreath so that the plastic keeps it from getting wet.
Place the grass on a display container. For my design I chose an upturned wine glass.
Book readers: to hang the design look at page 179... you don't need to cut the container at all simply hang it to drain.
For more information about my book:
The Effortless Floral Craftsman
Slip the wreath from the grass side up onto the plastic rim of the seed container.
The wreath should sit around the plastic so that you can remove the container to water without damaging the wreath.
Slip in tiny water tubes to keep the flowers hydrated... again see the email of this week for an explanation on why the flowers will require a separate water source.
I make my own water tubes from pipe or drinking straws. See the Tutorial below.
Place the flowers and the strawberries so that they are nestled into the grass patch.
And add in the Easter eggs...
... well... I say this as if the eggs will last on the display design until you need to water the grass again but just in case, if you use candied eggs, like i did, simply add them to the dry wreath part of the design. If you used covered eggs or egg shells you can scatter them around the grassy patch.
Enjoy!
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Tutorials
When you need to keep a tiny stem hydrated this is just what you need. If you can't find a suitable drinking straw... I also have an upgrade: tiny food grade pipe water tubes.
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