Many years ago I watched a Martha Stewart episode which featured two men (Little and Lewis) in the Pacific Northwest who made concrete sculptures using giant gunnera leaves. It was quite mind blowing to see what they could do. They gave directions for a home project although, as gunnera can't be grown in many areas, they suggested rhubarb as an alternative.
I kept the directions in my project folder for years waiting for a chance to try it for myself.
Several years ago I tried it out with rhubarb and hosta leaves and while it worked reasonably well all the leaves broke fairly quickly.
Recently I was given rhubarb for my mom and was stunned by the size of some of the leaves.
Hmmmm. . . .
This time I called in the professionals.
Our friend Russ is in the stucco business and he was quite excited about trying something new and offered to come over with our other friend Bernie to help out.
It's raining today which meant they couldn't work so he phoned me up and said they were mixing up the concrete and heading over.
Here's what we did. . .

Russ added some black tinting to darken up the concrete. I did most of the sand shaping under the leaf and the guys did everything else. We used two 70 pound pails of concrete which means this leaf will weigh 140 pounds!
No need to worry about anyone walking off with this sculpture!
Now we cross our fingers for the next few weeks as the leaf cures.
I can hardly wait!

* Update. I just googled martha and concrete leaves and found the directions back for this project. First off they suggested hosta leaves not rhubarb, that was all my idea. Second the consistancy of the concrete they suggested is not what we used, although my sculpture will be much larger than they were thinking and third, I forgot to put plastic wrap between the edge of the leaf and the sand to keep the concrete edge clean. Sigh. . . Still keeping my fingers crossed. Pretty sure it won't look like the ones they feature on their site though. . .

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Jesse's out in the garage right now, building me a small plant stand.
His plans are rather ambitious and I was thinking about how much easier it would have been for him if he had kept it simple.
But he doesn't want to make something simple, he wants to make something beautiful.
It occurred to me that I may have passed on an inclination that will make his life more complicated than it could have been.
I can't seem do do things the the easy way either.
If I'm going to make jam for the first time I will of course research jam making and use the jam recipes from a recipe book full of blue ribbon winners, because if I going to do it, why not make the best jam possible?
Of course, when chatting with others about all the steps involved in making blue ribbon winning jam, most looked at me quizzically and said, "I just use the recipe on the Certo box. It's easy."
When renewing my garden this spring instead of doing one bed I did the entire back yard!
And then there are the plans for the community garden. . . .
It was my idea to begin with.
I inspired others with this vision.
Then we began to find out just how much work was involved.
Slightly daunted we forged ahead.
Complications arose,
I started driving Ev crazy with my flip flopping over whether to continue or not.
We finally decided once and for all that we would not go ahead with it.
Being who I am I couldn't leave it at that and agreed to meet with the outgoing city coordinator, (who had been helping us with the process) as well as a few other people involved with revitalizing our neighbourhood so as to keep the dream from dying entirely.
You Know. . .
Put it on hold for a few years. . .
Are any of you snickering yet?
As you've probably guessed the garden is back on again, although moving just one step at a time.
The woman in charge of revitalizing our neighbourhood was very enthusiastic, assuring me that money would be easily available and that she was more than willing to help out in any way she can. And telling me that the garden can be made in a few smaller steps rather than one large one.
So. . . .
I am so sorry Ev!!!
I promise this is the last flip I will ever flop on this project!
*Disclaimer:
(Unless something totally unforeseen comes up.)
Sigh. . .

Check out Ev's post on this same subject. http://achaoticlifestyle.blogspot.com/

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