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Wedding question - gel?


fly

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Hi Everyone,

(It's been a loooong time...)

I have a question and would be grateful for some info. We are getting married in May and want to have glass vases as the table centre-pieces containing Sarras and perhaps some Heliamphoras. One option is to fill the vases with sphagnum, but I was wondering if we could fill them with that clear gel stuff instead? Does anyone have any experience with this? I'm assuming it's fairly innocuous stuff, but am I barking up the wrong tree? As we'll be heading straight off on honeymoon we need the plants to survive in the chosen media until we get back 3 weeks later. I have a horrible feeling that if there's a chance the plants won't survive, hubby-to-be may decide to post-pone the honeymoon, which will make for a very short marriage .... :wink:

Thanks in advance,

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All you need to do is keep the pitchers' tissue full of water, and turgid. Anything designed to keep plants full of water for display, which I assume is what the gel does, will be fine.

As the pitchers are already cut off and have no roots, they don't need an acidic or alkaline environment - just something to stop water evaporating from the dying pitchers.

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Ahh, sorry, maybe I wasn't so clear - we're not planning on cutting the pitchers, but putting the whole plant in the vase, root ball intact. Hence the question - the whole point is to make sure we can keep the plants afterwards!

Thanks,

C

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Whats wrong with good old fashioned flowers, ballons etc as centre pieces :2095:

Sounds a bit risky to me. Plus, surely the last thing you'll want to be doing is potting plants back up after you get back from your honeymood........thats definitely one way to bring yourself back down to earth with a bang!!

P.S. Your Mrs must be a very understanding lady!!!

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Hmm, stop trying to confuse me Fred!! I know I used to be blonde but still......... :2095:

Assumed Fly who posted the question was a man...........and that the mrs must be very understanding for letting him have cp's as table centre pieces instead of the ususal stuff. As a woman myself I want the traditional stuff, I love my Sarras and heli's but not at my wedding!!!

Heather

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Guest FredG
Hmm, stop trying to confuse me Fred!! I know I used to be blonde but still......... :2095:

I did absolutely nothing to confuse you Heather.

It was Fly's fault for being female. :2095:

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Well the majority of people on the forum are male so assumed Fly was male!!

Note to self: never assume anything!! #-o #

Fly - perhaps you should set your gender in your profile to help those of use that are easily confused :2095:

Heather

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Ha ha - no, I'm definitely a Mrs, or at least a Mrs-to-be. We figured that as centre-pieces (in glass vases with some pretty organza ribbon) they would be a real talking point, and break the ice on the tables. Figured it could cause people to smile and inject some originality and add a personal touch to the day. And also, how many floral centre-pieces can you remember from weddings past? None in my case (although I do have a particularly poor memory :2095: )

Does anyone have any experience of keeping CPs in the crystal gel stuff? I've found info on line saying that you can grow plants in it perfectly as it acts as a soil-replacement and contains all the nutrients etc. Obviously this might make it too rich...?

Otherwise, cream pots it is...

:2095:

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Hi fly, if you look in the photos forum or do a search for wedding photos you find a post called a sarracenia marriage. this couple used pitchers for table decoration and the photos look very spectacular. Might be worth a look for some ideas. sorry i haven't figured out how to do a quick link.

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Hi,

Thanks for the info Alexis - I think the root ball idea is a great one. The alternative is to go with some cream vases, and just cover the top with sphagnum.

Martin - I can't believe that thread! Thanks for putting us onto it. Just taken a look and there are certainly some stunning pitchers in the vases!

Food for thought...

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Hi Jim,

That's so cool - thanks for sharing the photos. The wedding looks stunning.

I can honestly say that if I had listened to everyone and realized in advance how much work goes into organizing a wedding, we definitely would have eloped.

God knows how I'm going to fill my spare time once the honeymoon's over :(

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Thanks. Yes, I remember that it certainly was a lot of work to organise! We were lucky in that the bride's Mother came in very handy and was top organiser for the event. I was just mostly in charge of table decorations.

I wanted to use live plants to begin with but making them look nice and tidy would have been tricky. It was just easier all round to use cut pitchers.

We had our wedding in September which was a good time for getting pitchers that look good. We stuck a short stem of ivy inside each vase to break up the appearance of the cut ends of the pitchers (and to enable them to be put at different heights without looking odd). Across the top of each vase we made a criss cross pattern of sellotape/scotch tape and stuck a bit of lichen (as used for flower decorations) onto that. They looked good in the end but it was all down to the kind chap who let me use his pitchers - I think we cut them about two days before the wedding and kept them in water buckets until the day before.

The older pitchers last longer (about two weeks for some) in water than young ones which can start wilting immediately. Of course, using pitchers with little prey in helps the aesthetics!

I believe that cut pitchers are sometimes used as table decorations in the southern states of the US but that, unfortunately, many are greedily stripped from the wild for this purpose.

I hope you have a lovely a day as we did. Congratulations and all the best.

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  • 1 month later...

I know that it is cutting it close to the wire,and sorry I have not seen this before, but there are several types of the gel, many do not contain plant food. On e-bay type in water crystals and then select gardening and home. Make sure you pick one without plant food, several of them have buy one get one free offers on at the moment- have a good look around, lots of different quantities, Kit and I have bought a small amount to try out on one of three identical unnamed sarracenia which we have.

Again sorry it is so late in the day,

Fix

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I have tried using this today- first lesson it grows a huge amount. I used 6 small spoonfuls and it filled a beer glass, a wine glass, 4 honey jars a decorative bowl and a mixing bowl. Use a tiny amount and add more. Also, wait a bit of time and give it a good mix between adding any.

Also, I ran out of rain water part way through- so make sure that you have enough- sounds silly to say it, but there is no point in you making the same mistake if you go down this route. Sorry if you get the message many times over but it is for your wedding and it is fast approaching.

Last obvious point, you will be able to see the roots through the gel- the ribbon will help to hide this but not entirely.

Fix

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Hi Fix,

I've only just come back on the Forum so apologies for the late response but Thank you so much for all the info, that is very kind of you. Since I last posted we've decided to go with solid cream pots that aren't transparent. This means that we can just rest the Sarras in their plastic pots inside, then cover the top with sphagnum. Ribbon round the outside and we're done! Now all we need to do is source the plants, buy the pots, get the ribbon... :rolleyes:

Once again thanks to all for the responses - Fix, I may yet use the gel in the future and it's good to know how much it expands!

Camilla.

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