Is Her Grass Greener Than My Grass?

I'm sure you have heard the saying,

"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."

A friend of mine and I both grew grass for a party.

When my grass and I got to the party to set up,

I realized that her grass was different from mine.

Not that it mattered, but she had grown wheat grass

(pictured above) and I had grown rye grass (below).

Did hers look better than mine?

Did I wish I had grown wheat grass too?

Was her grass the proverbial "greener" grass?

The wheat grass has a thicker blade than the rye grass.

The reason I am sharing this info is that I didn't think

about the different types of grass having a different look

and with folks growing grass for Easter decorations

this time of year, they might have a preference.

Here are some photos of each type:

Wheat Grass

Rye Grass

Wheat Grass

Rye Grass

My rye grass also looks floppier than her wheat grass.

I think that is primarily due to the age of the grass.

I'm always nervous that the grass won't be ready for

a scheduled party in time so I usually start my grass

about three weeks ahead of time.  Her wheat grass

was only two weeks old.

The photo below shows the grass seeds being grown in the

containers they were going to be used at for the party.  At 

first I did not put soil on top of the seeds but after a few days

I could not see the seeds "doing" anything so I did put a 

thin layer of soil on top to help keep the seeds moist. 

  The pots at the top of the photo do not have their top coat of soil yet.

After a few more days, the tiny sprouts started coming up.

They probably would  have sprouted without the extra soil too.  People do it both ways.

When you are using containers to grow the grass seed that do not have drainage holes, 

be sure to not water the soil too much...it will "drown" the grass.

I just love watching the new blades come through the soil.

"I like it when a little tuft of grass grows through a

crack in the sidewalk. It's so heroic." George Carlin

You can tell when more blades are going to break

through the soil when the it starts to rise up like cake batter.

Sometimes little clumps of dirt stick onto the blades.

"Let my words fall like rain on tender grass." Dueteronomy 32:2

A few blades wear the tough outer portion of their seed like hats.

"Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh

at his so called scientific knowledge." Thomas Edison

This shows my grass "babies" sunning by the front door

at about two weeks old.  This was probably their peak.

I have had batches of grass that I was glad I had three

weeks for it to grow...who knows?

A few of the containers of grass were stunted and a

different texture than most of the group.  I wondered if

something in the make up of the metal container leeched

into the soil and affected the grass.

A solution to floppy grass is to give it a "haircut".

Before haircut

After haircut

"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work

of the stars." Walt Whitman

The day after the main party the grass was grown for,

I got them an invitation to a bridal shower so they

could show off their cuteness to more people.

"I asked the waiter, 'Is this milk fresh?"  He said, 'Lady,

three hours ago, it was grass.' " Phyllis Diller

The grass may look greener on the other side of the

fence but it still has to be mowed. 

The first blog post I ever did was a tutorial about growing grass for decorations.

If you would like to see it for "how to",  here is the link:

Growing Grass for Decorating

Pushing Up Daisies

This past weekend I helped decorate at

a party where we grew grass in containers

to be used as centerpieces.  The party was for

a guy so we didn't use a lot of flowers except

for a few daisies in vases on the food table.

I wanted to experiment with the party leftovers

to see how long daisies pushed directly into the moist

soil of the grass would stay presentable. 

You never know when that info would be

helpful in decorating for a future party.

When I couldn't find the kind of daisies that

we used at the party (the ones in the bottles),

I had to settle for the ones that have a

single bloom to stick in the grass pots.

The single bloom daisies had long sturdy stems

that I hated to cut off but you have to in

order for them to look right in the grass.

The daisy stems need to be long enough that

they will peek up over the top of the grass

and also be able to have at least one inch

of stem in the soil. 

Things just look better to the eye

(I don't know why) when they are in

a group of odd numbered objects so

for most of the containers I used 3 flowers.

Isn't that great to demonstrate that an odd number looks better that there is a flower from another pot in the photo?

This little basket has four containers in it

so I put a daisy in each one.

These photos are just a kind of re-creation of

the party decorations. At the party we used burlap

 tablecloths and wound twine onto the necks

of the bottles to tie them into the burlap visually.

These little galvanized buckets were so small

that I didn't try to put  flowers into them.

They had flower labels on them already.

By the time I got home with the "new" daisies

even in the west-facing side of the house,

I was running out of day light for this re-creation/

daisy-in-grass experiment photo shoot.

See the sunset in the background?

So the party had to be moved indoors

and use artificial lighting for the pictures.

Here are the same party elements arranged

in a more of a straight line fashion.

               I'll update this later to keep you up with how long

the daisies last in the grass soil but as of 12 hours,

they look fresh as a....well you know what.

UPDATE:

After 18 hours, only one of the daisies is a fail

being only in moist soil.  So this lets me know that

unless a party is in a hot outside location, that these flowers 

would probably last for several hours with no problem.

Cost-wise the grass seeds themselves are really inexpensive.

I got a large bag of rye grass seeds three years ago for $12

 and have used it for lots of centerpieces...I'm estimating the

seed for these would be about $2.50.  The daisies were $15.

  I already had the bottles and galvanized containers (and you

probably have bottles and pots you could use) but if you

 had to buy them, it would probably be about $75 for all.

So everything all together would be less than $100.

I did a couple of blog post last Spring on how to grow the grass

for decorations and different ways to use it.

Growing Grass for Decorating (my first blog post ever)

 and More Grass Centerpieces

Favorite Vignette

Alison over at The Polohouse has invited

all of us to come to a party at her blog called

"Favorites On the First".

 On the first day of each month she

hosts the party which has a different theme

every month.  For the month of March the theme

is your favorite vignette.  She said that we could

even re-post something that we had featured

before on our blog so I am going to the party

with my coral and starfish vignette from this  past summer.

Under the cloche, I had a piece of each type of coral

that I had made using floral items from Hobby Lobby

and Great Stuff spray foam.

If you would like to see how to make some of

your own, here is the blog post about that:

Do It Yourself Coral

This was the first time I had used my new cloche

in a vignette.  It was harder than I thought to

get everything underneath there.

In the large footed urn, I put my whimsical starfish

also made from Great Stuff.

I called them "Whimsical Starfish" because they were

no where close to being anatomically correct...

they just give the illusion of starfish.

If you would like to make some too, here is the link"

I really enjoyed this vignette all summer long.