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I have a concrete(stone) vertical wall? I want to put picture on it using plants.

I have several limitations:

  1. I can not place external blocks to let plants growth on it.
  2. Initially picture should not be visible, so picture would grow out from the stone.
  3. I am not a scientist and have no access to industrial materials, so want to make it out with everyday materials.
  4. I want to put plants for 1-2 times, and do not come to them while they are growing
  5. Time is limited, I am living in norht hemisphere in the temperate zone, so soon automn is coming, so I have only 2 weeks to let plants growth.

The wall itself have properties:

  1. It looks on the south, so sun lights on it almost full day
  2. Overall direction is vertical, while it is not fully staright, it has relief
  3. There is little overhand above the all, so it would not get heavy water stream in case of staight rain

So I have several options:

  1. Mold or unicellular fungi. Idea was to put liquid with mold and nutrients on the wall. But as I know mold does not like sun places, but likes wet environment
  2. Grass. Here idea was to put seeds into nutrient soil and put it into small holes into concrete. But as I see these holes is 1-3mm wide , and it might be too small to grow the grass.
  3. Colored bacterias. It was similar to first option. But I do not know any possible everyday materials for this. And the sun again would bother them.

So I would be glad to here your other options, or workarounds to my ones.

bion anon
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1 Answers1

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This project is fundamentally a mix of art and living plants. I have assisted professionally with such projects in the past and inevitably the artist has to yield to the practicalities of living things. The constraint that it must be in colour in two weeks means you can only use plant materials already in flower, or at least in bud, and ready to pin in place. The grass idea will not work since as you say water will be a problem.

There is a technique that fruit farmers use to train apple and pear and such trees against a wall using pins and other structures to tie the branches to. You might want to look at a few examples which might spur a few ideas.

Here is a concrete example: say you want to present a red, white and blue flag on the wall. It's a matter of presenting three blocks of three different colours, one alongside the other. Given a vining plant such as clematis (which happens to flower in red, white and blue in different varieties) the artist could plant the vines in large pots at the base of the wall and train the vines into place using the pinholes you mention together with small wooden spiles. The flowers appear at the top end of the vines, so you could minimize the visual impact of the bare bottoms of the vines and emphasize the tops by suitable training. It would be hard work.

If you think the vines in pots approach might work then modify your question and readers here could suggest plant materials that might be useful to you as an artist.

No doubt you as the artist have much grander ideas in mind than this, but at some point the artist might need to simplify and retrench.

Colin Beckingham
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  • Well,water is problem, since the wall has no water inputs, and most of the time it is rather dry. But in case of rain it would be wet, but no more. I need to place all of this in security, so I can't put somehting visible beforehand, so any pots, pins etc would not work. So I was rather interested by the grass. And finally, drawing is just several letters, that might be monochome. By the way, thank you for your answer – bion anon Aug 24 '22 at 20:43