Birch trees set up

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Blumenhaus

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Apr 29, 2003
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Park Falls, WI
www.theblumenhaus.com
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My July 16th wedding reception venue is a large hockey rink. Decorators will be doing pipe & drape all the way around the inside to hide the glass & crummy walls. They will also be putting up the ceiling, lighting, and all that. there will be color light wash on the walls that change colors about every 1/h hour . My part in this ( besides all the tables & flowers ) is to put up natural birch trees that are being cut now - before they bud our. Brides mom wants them about about 8-12 feet high ( not a problem), trunks of the trees approx. 6 feet apart so there are lots of shadows from the lighting. Any suggestions for keeping these standing besides putting in sand / quick-krete?
We are also doing a 60ft 'tunnel of trees with white lights for all guests to come thru. But these will be easier than the walls.
Any ideas would be appreciated. thanx
 
Yikes! That's alot of birch trees. I guess you are getting what, maybe 150 trees? That's alot of heavy lifting!

I do not know of any better way than concrete or sackreet to set the trees in...wet sand works well too, but is more difficult on delivery.

As for the tunnel...we did a floral tunnel a couple of years ago, and ours was only 15 feet long, by 8 feet across, and we used a base of pole and drape,(without the
drape), and then blanketed it all with southern smilax. Then we top-dressed it all with about 1000 stems of flowers that we had previously put in water tubes.
I suppose a 60 foot tunnel would cost 4 times ours, and ours was about $2000.
That would make yours about $8000.

I'm curious... what is the budget ?
JP
 
How about using an x like you do for a christmas tree and then using smaller plants to hide base (or what ever you were thinking to cover buckets)? That's a lot lighter.....
 
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You have to understand, we live in an area where there are loads of birch and logging. The man cutting the trees ( about 200 trees ) is also making the white birch fencing for the MOB's 'garden area ( we know it as the smoking area. ) , the 800 small birch slices for the seating / names and he is covering an outside wall with birch. The MOB is also having fireworks after the reception. She is the owner of our local Pepsi distributor and spends lots of $$$. She gave me a list 6 pages long with items I will be using for the tables that she had purchased since her daughter got engaged. Most of it is beautiful but there is a lot of silver & glass to figure out places for and still make it look 'simple but elegant' it's giving me a headache. We had our 2nd 2 hour sit-down this morning . I still haven't got all the details down pat yet .
 
We did something similar except with long limbs of trees and a lot of up-lighting.
We bolted on a criss-cross made from wood to the bottom of a tall bucket (home depot) then filled the bucket with the quick-krete and tree.
We then made nice white silk covers for the buckets.
Your MOB may not like seeing a bulge at the base of the tree. Our trees were placed amongst modern furniture so the bulge was ok.
 
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Is the floor cement or earth? The reason I ask is because if it's earth, I would drive rebar or metal posts into the ground and have the man cutting the birch drill holes up the centers. Then you would not have any awkward bulkiness at the bases.
 
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By July 16th, they'll be fully leafed out, they will need to be in water. We've done this several times, we use 7 gallon pails (3-4 3" trees will drink 2 gallons in 24 hours indoors) with 8X18" cinder blocks down in for ballast and wedge with green sheet styro, then cover the base with white fabric or Oasis with moss and ferns, or boston ferns, or...

Likewise, when they are cut, they will have to go into water within a few hours, or they'll look like poop...
 
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BOSS said:
By July 16th, they'll be fully leafed out, they will need to be in water. We've done this several times, we use 7 gallon pails (3-4 3" trees will drink 2 gallons in 24 hours indoors) with 8X18" cinder blocks down in for ballast and wedge with green sheet styro, then cover the base with white fabric or Oasis with moss and ferns, or boston ferns, or...

Likewise, when they are cut, they will have to go into water within a few hours, or they'll look like poop...
Click to expand...

They are being cut now - before they bud out. They'll just be leaf-less in july and I'm guessing the MOB doesn't know how brittle they may be in July! But I guess I'm the one that has to worry about that. the guy cutting them will store them in his building till we need them. We're going to use sand & quikcrete in buckets. I'll be practicing this shortly to see just how much of what my husband & I will be using .
Bride called today with the dimensions of the wedding cake. 8 tiers set on a 45 inch square tempered glass base held up on 6" square vases with hydrangea in them. Under the glass will be tulle with lots of white lights. Should be really kewl!
 
We use a piece of plywood as our base, then glued and screwed a flange (think toilet) to it and added a pvc pipe to the flange. Holds trees perfectly and once on location add sand and a bit of water. Makes this easy as pie for set-up. The base is mossed. We use it to put trees on tables. The below pics show one of the times we've used this. We actually have one of these trees put on a table in our studio. Works wonderfully! Hope this helps.
show close-up table design.jpgshow table design.jpg
 
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rewolf said:
I like your technique. The tree looks good.
But where are you adding the sand and water? In the pvc pipe? And is it really necessary for a one night gig?
Thanks for the pics.
Click to expand...

It has proven successful as we have done this several times now for wedding work. Once they are made (ahead of time) the real work is already done. The pvc pipe holds the water and the sand and doesn't take any time for it to set.

Now, I'm not sure that 200 of them can be re-used, but I use pvc pipe all the time, so the elements that are being used are definitely recyclable.
Cheers!
 
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