I bought a couple of these towers from Raintree. I got them because my garden space is quite limited where I am now. The first one I got was the short one--that one was not a bad idea. I would recommend it. It has about 2 dozen holes for the berries. When you grow the berries, the pots fill up with roots and the soil gets depleted. You do have to clear them out every so often and renew the soil. I went to an all day class at Raintree on March 22nd and they said in one of the sessions that the berries only produce well for 2-3 years and then you have to discard them. That may be simply that the soil in the containers gets exhausted? I am no expert on that one. As to the larger tower. I emptied it out yesterday as most of the plants in it were dead. It is nearly as tall as I am 5+ft. It was awful to try and get the tangled roots out, and that is a job you would have to do periodically. I think this is important to know. If you have very little space for gardening, you might want to go for it anyway? But it is useful to know ahead of time. That is the tradeoff for the taller tower. And it is also heavy to pick up to knock out the old soil. As I said before, the shorter tower was easier to manage with regard to this issue. I am going to sell the larger one because I plan to move to a colder planting zone and the roots would freeze in the winter in that tower if they were not planted in the ground. Also, where I plan to move, space is not an issue. YMMV. Abs

Looks great, Shirley. You screwed or nailed that together yourself! You really have been working hard hauling a lot of heavy dirt around. Your milk jugs look so much bigger than mine. Are they gallons or larger? If larger, where did you get them? Is that heuchera to the left of the air conditioning tower? What kind & could I grow it in a lot of shade? Congrats, looking good! Thanks again for the Lady in Red seeds. Lots of blooms right now & I'm taking pics. The shade of red is really pleasing.

My dream! Too late for me though. Getting the plant and rock scale right will be the tricky part. I saw a garden RR once where the tracks led right into his garage through a special motion sensitive door. The train was parked in there when not in use. He also had a 'cowcatcher' on the front of one of his locomotives to clear the track of debris. You're gonna have fun! Mike......green with envy.

Treeskate, I use a microwave terra cotta press that I bought several years ago. Lee Valley microwave press Its trial and error to time the pressing right -- generally 30-60 seconds will do it. Its easy to overdo it. Sometimes I will do 15 seconds at a time and check. Then I store them in flat plastic storage containers with silica gel packs. (Start saving them when you see them with many products). I keep it all in a closet until ready to tackle the project. I'm so glad you asked about the pressing. I am excited to see that Lee Valley sells the replacement pads for the press. I need some and I couldn't find them anywhere. I didn't even know what they were made of til I just went to that link to find the press. I've been using felt (when I burnt my original pads this year) but it isn't quite as good. There is a plastic version of a microwave press too. I'm sure the old-fashioned book method is just as good, but I only used it for a few ferns that were too big for the microwave press. I also used some leftover 13" square tiles (with papertowels). Terrene, your bouquet sounds lovely but now you're getting into an area that requires skill and creativity!!! The solo foliage is soooo much easier. I think just foliage is also a more contemporary aesthetic. I would like the bouquet, but I don't think my recipients would so much. When I first got the press and started collecting flowers for it, I found them much harder to work with. Many flowers have to be "re-built" petal by petal if they have thick centers. Flowers also strained my limited creativity. Simple foliage is a no-brainer. Right up my alley! Also as far as UV protection, I checked the glue I use and it does say it is UV resistant. Unfortunately, I did not use it as a top coat over the foliage. I think I will try an experiment with coated and non-coated and put them in a sunny room and see what happens. There is also such a thing as UV resistant glass, but I didn't pursue that. ALso, when gluing the foliage on card stock, they don't always lay flat when glued, depending on the leaf substance. I put a piece of waxed paper over them and then put them in a really big book (American Hort Society Encyclopedia of Gardening) for at least a couple of hours. Then they are secure for further handling and framing.