Grow boats and Devil's claws

[Sabre52]

Howdy folks,

Just a couple of pics from my spring yard project. My wife unit wanted a butterfly and hummingbird garden and being on a rocky hilltop we have very little dirt so we bought three of these big "grow boats " from a local business and made raised gardens. In the Texas heat, man those plants took off and all three "boats are full to bursting with all kinds of wild native plants and a couple of exotics. Pics of the boats to give you an idea:





If you are not from Texas, this is a plant I wanted to show you, Devil's Claw. It's abut my favorite Texas plant. It's a native, I think, and a leftover plant from the ice ages. If you look in the center of the plant you will see huge hooked seed pods, like a giant claw. When the pods dry, they split into two connected hard hooks that were designed by nature to hook in the long hair of things like mammoths, sloths, rhinos etc and by that means, the seeds were distributed. Now we have to watch for them in horses tails as your mount will really booger up if one of those pods gets in his tail and jabs him good. Flowers are really pretty, kind of like huge lavender and yellow snapdragons but they do smell kind of weird.....Mel

[coloradocliff]

Looks great Mel. That frame work over the top is a great shade cloth holder or freeze protection early in the season. Heck of a big planter. Lined them up with military precision..

[morerockspleaz]

I really like the set up Mel. Looks like you could do year round gardening with those. Yes Texas weather is a force to be dealt with. Does it keep the armadillo's out?

[Sabre52]

Yep, our yard dillo, Tank, can't get up into them, nor can the skunks. They are great for veggie growing too. We have some friends who are kind of survivalist types and they have ten of those grow boats all full of veggie plants and you can cover them to get an early spring start too. We left the racks on to support all the vines and taller plants and it works great....Mel

[Deleted]

What materials are the boats?

[captbob]

Mel you have been busy!

[fantastic5]

Those look really nice! I love raised beds and those are really cool. What are they made of? And the Devils Claw is a cool plant too. Thanks for sharing!

[Sabre52]

Scott, They are made of that concrete foam stuff they are using for houses now. Only weigh maybe a hundred pounds each empty, and hold about 1 1/3 cubic yards of soil.

Bob, Yep that was a project. All are on a slope and have to be dead level. Really a project getting them that way and then of course, I had to shovel all that dang dirt. Work real well though, just full of butterflies, hummers, bumble bees etc. Have mesh on back of rack that is planted with a ton of neat vines that flower, Mexican Flame Vine, Cypress Vine, Snapdragon vine, Leather Flower and a couple kinds of beautiful morning glory. Waiting for the giant Mexican Sunflowers to bloom. They draw butterflies from miles away and should bloom right during late summer fall migration. Guy at Medina Nursery had some blooming last year ( he gave us the seeds) and I counted as many as a dozen huge swallowtails on each plant. Too big of a plant for the grow boats though. Next year I may do a hay bale garden for those plants alone.....Mel

[MrMike]

Way cool project Sabre52, watch letting the Cypress Vine go to seed. Had some planted on an arbor about 10 years ago. Still get seedlings every year.

[jamesp]

Inviting to plant those. The frames are perfect. Perfect dimensions for human reach. Height for ergonomic comfort. If you can't reach easy, don't grow it.

[Sabre52]

Wow very neat greenhouse James! Always been tempted to put one in but don't have a place where it would not spoil the view. I agree that raised beds are really nice too work with, especially if you are a tall person. We calculated height very carefully with these.

Mike: If you can believe it, with our lack of topsoil we actually have a tough time growing cypress vine. Have planted it several times and it refuses to reseed. Only had one come up in one of the raised beds. Hoping we have better luck with these beds as the hummers love the stuff...Mel