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Urban Jungle Bloggers: Hanging Plants

Time for another Urban Jungle Bloggers post! Unbelievable that a month has already passed since the Plants and Tea theme in January. Is it just me or does February always fly by? Here in Italy we’re already heading into spring and experiencing beautiful sunny warm days. Everyone is walking around with a smile on their face and a spring in their step. My favourite time of year despite the itchy watery eyes.

When I first heard this month’s UJB topic was Hanging Plants images of polyester, multi-toned orange and brown macramé monstrosities from the 70s came to mind. But after browsing through some shops in Milan and Copenhagen and doing some research on Pinterest I came to realise that there are so many beautiful and contemporary ways to hang plants in your home nowadays.

2015UJBhangingplants2 After thinking about it for a few days and looking for the perfect spot in my house for a hanging planter I decided I was going to go the DIY route for this month’s post. I thought it would be a perfect little creative project to do with my kids while they were on February break and my daughters were happy that their room was going to finally get some greenery. First we made some little pots with air-dry clay that I found in a local craft shop. It was really easy to work with and was dry the next day. Plus, I love the milky white colour and texture of the dried clay so there was no need to paint them. Since my daughters are experts at decorating sticks with coloured yarn we decided to get some bamboo from the garden and deck it out a little. The result is so cheery and colourful and perfect for my twin daughters’ bedroom.They’re pretty wonky and crooked but I love them. And more importantly, so do my girls.

*Urban Jungle Bloggers is a monthly series initiated by 2 bloggers: Igor (Happy Interior Blog) and Judith (JOELIX.com). Every month they share ideas to create an urban jungle through styling ideas, DIYs and green tips & tricks. You can find additional inspiration on their Urban Jungle Bloggers Pinterest board and keep up-to-date on our website and Facebook page. Want to join? Use #urbanjunglebloggers on Twitter and Instagram. Or let them know and they’ll share the badge and upcoming topics with you. Let’s bring some green into our homes and blogs!

Tags: gardening, greenery, home garden, photography, plants, succulents, urban jungle bloggers

Comments 12 Comments
Categories Creative, daily life, diy, Family/Kids, Living in Italia, Living in Italy, photography, urban jungle bloggers

Urban Jungle Bloggers

25 Apr

Time for another Urban Jungle Bloggers post. I had so much fun with last month’s post and especially admiring all the other images done by some seriously talented bloggers, stylists and photographers. This series is really taking off and I love being part of it.

This month Judith and Igor chose the theme “Show your green balcony or windowsill”. I love the idea of having windowsills overflowing with assorted green plants in colourful pots. It gives a room so much life and colour.

Unfortunately we have to keep our windowsills pretty clear due to the fact that we have to open our windows twice a day in order to close and open shutters (too many break-ins to risk leaving them open all the time). But living in gorgeous Italy makes it all worth it.

The last week I was visiting my in-laws in Belgium and since they have such a beautiful garden filled with the most lovely plants of every kind I decided to do my UJB shots there. And being the great sports that they are they didn’t even mind me rearranging their whole terrace and moving plants, pots and garden furniture here and there. I lucked out in the in-law department.

And since it was a warm and sunny day I decided to use an outside stoop next to a large window. I guess you could call it an outdoor windowsill?

As you can see my in-laws have a great collection of Tuscan flower pots (bought at a shop close to me for a fraction of the price as in Belgium).
They also have a great collection of green plants and succulents of every kind. And I have no idea what half (or more) of them are called.Fermob furniture in tones of purple and red match the whole garden perfectly.I couldn’t resist including a few colourful flowers.
Doesn’t this look like the perfect place for an afternoon tea and book reading session? And look, I accidentally made it into one of my UJB images!

Can’t wait to check out all the other Urban Jungle Bloggers posts this month. If you’re interested their FB page is overflowing with lovely greenery.

Tags: gardening, greenery, indoor gardening, plants, ujb, urban jungle blogges

Comments 9 Comments
Categories Creative, photography, urban jungle bloggers

Elephant tin time of year

26 Apr

Finally after all these weeks of cold and rainy weather we had a lovely sunny day. Well at least half the day was sunny and warm. In any case there was enough time to dig out our elephant tin full of seeds to plant for our upcoming orto (vegetable garden).Full of seeds from years past and new seeds collected over the last months. And a few pairs of miniature garden gloves for those little gardening assistants we couldn’t do without.Making decisions about what to plant and preparing our seed-starter mini-serres for indoors.One of this year’s orto projects is planting as many different kinds of heirloom tomato plants as we can find.

Pink Thai Egg Tomatoes, Striped Stuffer Tomatoes and Fargo Yellow Pear Tomatoes.Snow White Cherry tomatoes, Black Brandywine tomatoes and Purple Cherry Chocolate tomatoes.

Piselli (sweet pea) is also a must.A little bit of water and a lot of luck and hopefully some of these plants will start sprouting soon.My salad bed (5 different kinds). Anyone know if I planted them too closely together?