Thursday, April 2, 2009

Grandpa's Staghorn



Yesterday evening after I mowed the lawn, Dad and I decided to try and hang up Grandpa's staghorn fern. It was hanging up in the magnolia tree in the front but the wire basket rusted apart and it fell to the ground several months ago. Last week Dad and Mom tried to make a nylon rope macrame hanger for it but it turned out to be a cylinder - wrong shape. Dad and I went out and measured the plant and then using algebra I calculated the lengths between rows of knots for them. Last week the fence guy put in a metal post next to the house for us to hang the staghorn on. Now to hang the plant!

Dad and I used the old garage wood shelving to drag the plant onto and then used other shelving to slide it along the grass to the pole. That was the easy part. We tried various ideas of how to hoist the staghorn up to hang on the pole. That is one huge and heavy plant! Finally, I came up with a kind of pulley system (without pulleys because they haven't been unpacked I guess and who knows where they are) just using a nylon rope. I looped the rope several times over the pole and through the metal chain links that we are using to hang the macrame holder. Dad tied the end of the rope around him and did the pulling. It took a lot of work and time to slowly haul that monster up there - but we did it!

The macrame plant holder worked out really well but some of the leaves are caught between knots. Mom's carefully trying to pull them through but some are breaking. Hopefully it will just fill back in and look round and beautiful once again. Mom's grateful I have Grandpa's engineering brain to figure out how to haul Grandpa's plant up on that pole for everyone to enjoy!

Oh, just a sec. Mom is going to go out and take a picture of the staghorn to put on the blog. She would like it up higher off the ground so we'll probably raise it slowly up on the chain links; another challenge!

6 comments:

Joanne said...

When I went out just now to take a picture, a neighbor walking by stopped to admire the fern. She thought it sure was a beautiful plant and is sure that it will fill out again. Good job Mike and Brent! My heroes!

Grammyzanne said...

Staghorn really looks good. Grateful for brain and brawn.

Andrea said...

I'm impressed with your macrame holder! That is awesome that the fence guy made that pole for your staghorn! It really does look great.

Tamara Robertson Turner said...

That does look great! How fun to have a customized staghorn post! Can't wait to see it!

Austin's Mommy said...

Wow! What a plant. What an adventure!

Jocelyn Robertson said...

It's even more impressive in person. Speaking of which, I have your umbrella and you have my picture DVD from the trip. Perhaps we should meet up this weekend. Do you want to go to the Wild Animal Park? Perhaps I should call you...