Desert Lavender Elements

Desert lavender is a frost sensitive perennial that grows to 4-8ft tall and 3ft wide with gray foliage in southwestern United States of Arizona, Nevada, California and northwestern Mexico in Sonora and Baja. It has blue-lavender flowers. The foliage is scented with a sage-lavender odor. A major bee plant. It likes perfect drainage and a little water after established.It needs full sun. It will freeze to ground on cold winters. It seems to be hardy to about 25 F.. The odor is rich and luxurious. 

                                 Desert Lavender

I gathered lavender stems to add to my wood collection and when dried sufficiently  cut them into segments.  Some of the straighter stems I saved in tack for a special art piece I had in mind,  A photo of that piece follows.

                                   Desert Lavender Elements

The full length stems were used to form the outline of the walls of the piece.  They were held in place at the base by penetrating a solid Sycamore board and the tops were held in place with a piece of 1/4" Formica.  The brown ring around the top is the edge of this Formica.  Fiberglass cloth was draped across the upright stems on the inside of the vessel.  When the fiberglass had set up wood segments of desert lavender were attached to fill the spaces between upright stems.  The bulges in the fiberglass gave thr irregular contour to these surfaces.  As you can see it took many a segment to complete these surfaces.  Many hours of sanding and shaping were required to reach the final surfaces you see here.

Copper wire was strung from the top of each upright stem through holes in a cast resin piece, thus suspending it in the top of the vessel.  Many feet of smaller, reclaimed copper wire were woven around the cast resin piece, forming a mat on the support wires.  A closer view is shown below.

Provisions have been made to mount a small directed light, inside the vessel to highlight the lavender resin disk.  The piece was finished with several coats of rubbed oil and a final paste wax treatment.

*More detail can be found on my art at my website <www.apatchablue.com>