On Our Lanai

White Bird of Paradise Blooming all over our Property

White Bird of Paradise and Chinese Palms

Living in Florida means a mild climate and beautiful tropical flora and fauna.

The Most Comfortable Spot on our Lanai

We spend a great deal of time on our lanai. it is the “between”, inside and outside. A lot of things go on in the “between.”

Our Beautiful Lanai

My desk faces toward the outside so that I don’t miss a thing. There is so much wildlife here in Florida that swoops down, crawls under, slithers by, or flies in. I like that! That’s generally when I grab my camera and run outside to photograph whatever beautiful creature pays us a visit.

Me Enjoying the Lazy Day and Waiting for Gordon to Start Grillin’

Outdoor grilling by Gordon, cooking up the most fabulous meals.

We LOVE Eating out here as well!

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Our Backyard Pump

Our Back Screened Door to our Backyard

When we get too much rain our backyard can flood. Luckily we have a drain with a pump that will pump the water through a pipe to the side of our yard so that our lanai doesn’t flood.

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Our Pugs Also Enjoy Being Out Here

(But not dressing up.)

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But we also do projects out here.

We love the outdoors, planting, nurturing, and creating something lovely with nature.

Me, and one of my many projects that I have going on.

The brass planters that you see in the photo below belonged to my grandmother. I have some succulents in them that I plan on making into a wreath.

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An old pot from the backyard where I would find succulents that would blow into our yard, I would then pick them up and put them in here. Now that I’ve accumulated quite a collections of them, I will use them in other ways.

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I love my little lanai cart that houses my projects.

My Succulent Wreath Project

I will bring you the finished results, stay tuned…….

But first:

Find the Mojitos!

Hmmmm……

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Loving Our Lanai

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Gordon’s Living Trellis

This idea originated from a living air plant screen that we saw at Bok Tower Gardens. They had taken some sort of fishing line and had tied several air plants onto them creating a lovely trellis.

The Air Plant Trellis at Bok Tower Gardens

These air plants we pick up in our backyard throughout the year.

All they need to stay green and beautiful is to spritz them with water about 3-4 times a week.

Most of our Beauties we find in our Backyard

The difference between our living trellis and the one saw at Bok Tower Gardens is that we are incorporating more living plants and using sea shells, and glass ornaments, also some lovely vanda orchids.

The sea shells we found on the beaches here in Florida.

Gordon watering his living trellis by spraying it with water 3-4 times a week.

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Here is how to make it:

By Gordon

We had to find a place which didn’t get very much sun, and could be seen easily.

I then placed some hangars up on the wall to hold the wood of which we will then hang our plants from.

This type of hook has a catch which won’t let the wire come off of it. I used wire in the way you would use it to hang a picture. Then simply place the wire on the hook and the latch keeps it locked in.

Here, you can see we used driftwood with a shell hot glued to it.

Julie found the driftwood along the back docks at the beach condo.

I placed eyelet screws about one foot apart to hold the fishing line to the wood.

Here you can see the spacing.

I then used pre-made fishing tackle which is used to hold two hooks and a weight, with all the metal clips attached making it easy to hook a few of them together.

In the picture above you can see the orange bobbles from the pre-made line and below you can see eyelets that I used to attach the line.

I used a 2 oz. led weight at the bottom of each line to keep them taunt. I also helps during our windy days.

We used two different pieces of driftwood to give the hanging garden some contrast.

I used the pre-made attachments for what would usually be the ‘loop fishing line of hooks’ to attach some of our plants. Here you can see one which is naturally grown attached to a small oak twig.

Below, I was looking to use some clear glass X-mas ornaments to hold some plants.

I used some thin wire to wrap around the ornament a few times making a loop at the top to have something to hook onto.

This is a great picture of the pre-made fishing line which is used to keep your hook at an angle jutting out, and not hanging straight down.

I did the same thing with some shells we had which were big enough to hold some of the smaller plants.

It also continued with our ocean theme going well with the driftwood, fishing line, and other shells.

Space out your plants in order to keep your eye drifting to new things.

Another larger shell and some clear glass. These were more difficult to wrap with the wire.

Another interesting thing to use to hold a plant… a sea urchin.

Wrap your wire around the urchin making a makeshift hanging basket.

Beyond Gordon in the backyard is a lovely view of one of our many white bird of paradise trees.

It was Julie’s idea to then use Spanish Moss at the top of each board.

This is also something that we can just pick up around our property. It blows from yard to yard, tree to tree.

Here is a great picture of the different items we have in our living trellis.

And now the finished project!

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I wish that everyone had a nice lanai where they could retreat to just to get away from all the stress of technology.

I grew up sitting outside on the screened in porches of my Grandparents, and my Great-Grandparents. We would fan ourselves on those hot Georgia nights looking at the lightening bugs light up the yard. Hearing the trains go by in the distance and the lovely noises that they made. Listening to all the crickets chirping. I loved that swinging bench on my Great-Grandmother’s front porch. It had the largest springs supporting it. We would sit there swinging back and forth fanning ourselves and talking for hours, Grandma Keith and me.