Woodland Designed on a Welded Structure
For many years I have been interested in designing woodlands on welded structures. The problem was that I did not know a welder – until I found out last summer that the husband of my friend Heather did it as a hobby. I asked if he would teach me – he enthusiastically invited me over to teach the basics and offered the could use his equipment any time I wanted to. It seemed like a fabulous deal, until I tried it out… After a half hour I mentioned to Andre that I would be happy to hire his services – learning this new skill was not in the cards:-)
It has been a fantastic collaboration. Andre has designed many simple, yet interesting structures and this has opened a whole new world of woodland design for me . Do I ever love exploring the endless new options!
This is one of the designs I made last month – the vertical piece of the structure was perfect to secure the spiraling piece of wood that I brought home from North Carolina last summer – thank you Morgan Moylan for this treasure! I glued moss to cover the metal base. Lots of varieties of seedpods and other textures embellish the structure. The curly dried seaweed and the devil’s claw from Grand Prismatic Seed add more movement to the design and the birch branches with catkins divide the emptiness of the circle well.
Many thanks to Jason Hill for the gorgeous images!
Question: do you spray the tree cuts, bark, twigs, etc. with anything to get rid of bugs? I found a beautiful cut stump. Every night I would clean ”dust” – termites? I soaked in some solution. and then got new ‘dust’….Finally I threw it in the fire place.
If you are concerned about bugs on bark or pieces of wood, you can either put them in the freezer (place them in a bag first) or place them in the oven at 250F for 2-3 hours and make sure to check on a regular basis; the thicker and wetter the piece of wood, the longer it has to remain in the oven.
I have heard of people soaking the wood/bark/branches on a bleach solution. I googled it and this is the info I found:
soak it in a bleach and water solution – 1/2 cup bleach to 1 gallon water. Allow your piece to soak for 24 hours. This will not only kill bugs but any bacteria in it too. Once that is finished you need to soak it for another 1-2 days in water. Changing the water every few hours. This will extract the bleach from the wood. Once that is finished then you need to allow the piece to dry for a few days. It seems like a long process but for where I want to use mine – the precaution is necessary!