Plants Through Time HOWTO

Some initial thoughts

The first thing to do is to decide on what you'd like to communicate with your display. The "Walk Through Time" was mostly a linear, scientific, rational presentation of the evolution story through words and pictures. My motivation was to broaden the experience by allowing people to visualize the evolution of plants in a poetic way with living plants.

The bonsai format allows the viewer to see, touch and smell the plants. If done well, the composition evokes a sense of beauty and wonder.

Only when we really value our "green companions" will we be motivated to protect and maintain our wild places.

The writeup

The text writeup was printed on an HP designjet printer, then cut up and glued to black foam-core board. I made the posters double-sided and attached them to the windows with black velcro tape. This allowed the display to be viewed from both sides of the windows. During the crush of the display, I noticed that several people in wheelchairs read the posters from inside the building.

I'd suggest having the posters laminated in plastic. I had a problem with the text peeling from the evening dew, and had to do some emergency gluing to keep the posters in good shape. Alternatively, a good spray sealer should be liberally applied after the posters have been glued down.

There is no copyright on my text. Feel free to use as much of it as you wish. I'd appreciate it if you'd pass the favor along by not copyrighting your own derived text, and by offering, in turn, to help anyone else who asks you. I'd also enjoy receiving an email from you with a description of your own project, and a copy of the text that you used.

I'll then make your text available from this same web page to help others who might like to do their own display.

The pillars

I gave some thought to the symbolism of the display. For example, I choose to use 7 pillars in my display. Seven was chosen to evoke the image of the seven days of biblical creation, the seven notes of the scale, and the seven days of the week.

The pillars were built from 12" diameter cardboard tubing ($5/tube from Home Depot) sold for casting concrete footings. I cut each tube to different heights for variety, and to match the size of the various plantings.

The top and bottom of the pillars were made by drilling a pilot hole in a 3/4" sheet of plywood. A router with a hole cutting attachment was used to make a 14" circular cutout centered on the pilot hole. A second pass was made with a 1/4" routing bit to cut a 12" diameter groove half-way through each disk. This groove was used to glue the base of the cardboard tube to the endcap. A half-round route was applied to the outside of each cap to make them look more finished.

After gluing on all the bases (The tops were left unglued, so that the pillars could be used as storage containers), the pillars were painted with texture paint. I purchased the cheapest possible grey latex paint and mixed it with a commercial texture additive (fine-ground perlite). The paint was applied with a small roller.

After the texture paint dried, a coat of imitation granite spraypaint was applied to each pillar ($5/can from Target). The granite spraypaint simultaneously applies 3 different colors of speckled paint.

I chose the pillar colors to start with Black Granite for the first pillar and gradually change to Pink Sandstone for the final pillar. This symbolized the gradual change from interstellar space (black background, white star-flecks) to human stewardship (pink/brown/yellow speckled) - or alternatively, the transition from inorganic to organic.

After painting all the pillars, I sealed them with with several coats of Jasco Waterproofing Concrete sealer. This is a cheap clear glossy latex coating that keeps the cardboard from getting waterlogged and collapsing. I brushed it on liberally, both inside and out.

The pots

I purchased all the pots from Home Depot. They were Malaysian "Pickle Pots" and were between $8 and $15 apiece depending on the size. The ceramic legs were about $1 each (3 per pot).

Shopping around can save lots of money!

The plants

This is where you have many options. Feel free to duplicate my choices, or to adapt your display to what you have available. I found several nice web pages to help me out in my choices. You might also give your local university a call and see if you can get help from their geology and paleobotany departments. U.C. Berkeley has a good WEB page overview of plant evolution.

Here's a list of plants (including some I didn't use, but which might be easier for you to find in your local area):

1. Lichens - These can be found on landscape stones at most landscape supply houses.
2. Horsetails - Call around to aquatic plant nurseries. Equisetum hymenale is very widely available. I got my specimens from a road cut near a local creek.
3. Sellaginella (clubmosses) - A good mail-order source of Horsetails, (Equisetum) and Clubmosses, (Selaginella), is Glasshouse Works mailorder nursery.
4. Dawn Redwood is widely available from local nurseries.
5. Cycads are also available at most local nurseries.
6. Ferns can be purchased locally, or by mail-order from many different places. Local plants are best, as you can then visualize how you'll do your planting before you purchase.
7. Gingko biloba . - A modern plant that still looks identical to the fossil record from 100 million years ago. Gingko is thought to have been preserved up to the modern day due to the habit of Buddhist monasteries to plant them in their temples. It is thought that there are no truly wild plants in existence. Ginkgos have recently been found to contain medicinal substances that aid in blood oxygen transport that are proving helpful in treating repetitive strain injuries.
8. Bonsai Oak, Apple, or other fruit/seed bearing trees The text could talk about how many modern plants have co-evolved with man, or have been specifically modified by thousands of years of selection pressure to be food sources for mankind.
9. Conifers (pines) first appeared about 250 MYA.
10. Magnolias (tulip trees) first appeared 125 MYA.
11. Grasses and Flowering Plants first appeared 65 MYA.
12. Coastal Redwoods, Cypresses and Monterey Pines The California Coastal region is a fossil relic of plants that were once much more widespread. After the last Ice Age, the plants that had adapted to cool humid conditions were cut off from these conditions by the rising of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Those Redwoods, Cypresses and Montery Pines that were West of the Sierra range have survived, while those to the East died out in the much drier conditions. Today over 90% of the Redwoods present at the arrival of the Europeans have already been logged.

Many of the plants should also be available at local nurseries. You might also look in the yellow pages and see if you have a local bonsai club that might be willing to participate in your project.

The rocks

A wide selection of rocks can be found at nearly any landscape supply center. Here's some hints (largely due to Doris Sloane, Berkeley Geology Department) for incorporating rocks into your plantings:

1. Coal formed mostly in the late Paleozoic, 300-350 million years ago, and then again about 40 million years ag, you might use your chunk for Station 3 where it would go well with the idea of coal swamps and lagoons common at those times. Coal can be purchased at many hardware stores.
2. Limestone is most appropriate for station 2. In the late preCambrian to early Paleozoic, 800-450 million yrs ago, limestone was formed extensively in shallow seas at continental margins around the world. Liverworts and club mosses were growing on land and that time, so the fit is good. Limestone is mostly formed from the carbonate skeletons of microorganisms and molluscs; diatom skeletons are silica and they compress into diatomite and then chert. Both of the latter are also interesting rocks you might use.
3. Granite is an appropriate choice for stations 4 and 5 because 100-250 million yrs ago was a period of extensive plate collisions along the western margin of North America. Granites are formed as part of the subduction process at colliding plate margins. You should be able to find greyish and white granites easily.
4. Sandstone - The pink sandstone for station 6 also should be easy to find because there are a lot of reddish to pink sandstones quarried for flag stones. Mostly they are older geologically - often dating from 260-290 million yrs ago when the earth had an extensive period of hot and dry climate, but they look just like sandstones of a younger age and would be perfectly suitable for your purposes. Sandstones often are fossil bearing, which would also make a nice opportunity to tie the display into the text.
5. Pumice Stone is a volcanic rock, and can be good for any geologic period. Would give an opportunity in the text to talk about volcanism. There's a very nice pink pumice that comes from the Long Valley Caldera in Mono County that we have good-sized chunks of. The best pinkish California lavas I've seen come from the Lassen area.

The Hand sculpture

The hand sculpture was built up with clay on a wire armature.

The final pillar top endcap was drilled with a 1" diameter hole. The bottom endcap had a threaded pipe flange screwed onto it before the baseplate was glued to the cardboard tubing.

A threaded pipe-fitting was soldered to a 4-foot piece of 3/4" copper pipe so that the pipe could be screwed into the baseplate of the final pillar. This let the top of the pipe protrude out of the hole in the top plate.

I then xeroxed my hand at 1.44x magnification and cut some 1/4" aluminum armature wire to the same length as my magnified fingers, leaving some extra to mount the wires to the copper tube.

The wires were then attached to the pipe with a hose-clamp.

Crumpled aluminum foil was then used to fill out the wire frame to approximate the flesh over the bones. An expanded aluminum layer (available from hobby shops) was then put over the foil to make it easier for the clay to adhere.

Everything was then wrapped with fine wire to attach it firmly together. Some final bending was used to make sure that the fingers would be properly spaced to hold up the Ecosphere. A basketball was the same diameter as the sphere that I used, and was a much safer stand-in at this stage than the sphere itself.

I then used a "pasta rolling maching" to make thin strips of clay which I used to build up the lifelike structure of the hand.

As the clay dried, there was a fair amount of cracking, so the hand was reinforced with several layers of cheesecloth and whiteglue (a-la fiberglass) to keep it from cracking.

After the cheesecloth layer was dry, I gessoed (an art sealer) the entire hand and painted it with a couple of different colors of granite spraypaint. I also did an intermediate wash with a brown woodstain and then speckled on an final layer of pink paint. My intention was to produce a mix of realistic multi-ethnic skin tones: pink, light brown, yellow-brown, dark brown, and black.

The Ecosphere

The ecosphere was the most expensive part of the display. I purchased it mailorder from the Ecosphere company.

Budget and Timing

I did most of the work myself, and it took all my spare time for about four weekends. With a few helpers it would be much easier.

You can probably do this for a lot cheaper than I did. The first iteration always includes a few false starts.

    Date                Description                    Cost

  03/28/97            Pots, paint                   93.12
  03/28/97            Planter Feet                  21.72
  03/29/97            Plants (Redwood etc)         135.59
  04/02/97            Clay Sculpture Supplies       83.85
  04/02/97            Pipe Fittings                 30.01
  04/05/97            Granite Paint                129.00
  04/06/97            Landscape Rock                48.51
  04/06/97            Cardboard Tubes               33.45
  04/09/97            Art Supplies                  11.54
  04/10/97            EcoSphere                    471.60
  04/10/97            Foam Core, Glue               49.00
  04/12/97            Glue, pipe fittings           10.98

                      TOTAL                       1118.37

Summary

It was very gratifying to talk to the visitors as they came by the exhibit.

I was initally a bit scared to be so outspoken in the workplace, but many people thanked me for doing the display. They said that they had similar concerns about environmental stewardship, but were hesitant about whether it would be acceptable to discuss at work. They felt that it was liberating for someone to have "broken the ice", creating an opportunity for dialog.

I felt that the "Walk Through Time" helped to validate environmental stewardship as a factor to consider when doing long-range product planning.

I learned a lot just building the display, and feel that it was personally well worth the effort.

If I can help you to do a similiar display, please feel free to contact me at the address below.

Good luck!