Plants! Benefit of living in a small town

doletorts

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Aug 8, 2013
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First off sorry if this is in the wrong place i didn't really know where to put it cuz its kinda off topic chit chat but its about my enclosure. And second off sorry its long I'm just excited and everyone else just isn't as excited when i tell them i bought plastic plants. Anyways, so i live in a small town (pop. 2000) and we have a locally owned small business dollar store called "five star dollar" and they just have random off brand dollar store things and extra stock of other dollar/craft stores. They're closing sometime later in this month so they've started sales to try to get rid of as much as they can so i went today with $20 thinking i could get maybe like 5 plants or so but to my surprise all fake/decorative flowers were 75-90% off (probably cuz no one really buys fake plants) :). So i was there for probably an hour searching for the perfect plants for shade/looks/keeping in humidity and surprisingly they had some pretty good ones. I got 2 vines, a water Lilly candle holder and ill fill the cup for the candle with water for a little extra humidity, 4 easter grasses, 2 small fake bunches of grapes to hang, 1 rose vine/bush thing, 1 pitcher plant type thing for humidity, 5 succulent type plants but what i like is they aren't vinyl they are actually a rubbery/plastic that wont absorb water but will hold it, and i got a mini wooden shelf thing with legs and two bags of medium sized decorative rocks and I'm gonna fill the shelf thing with the rocks/marbles and stand up some plants in there. Heres a pic to give a visual of what i mean. ImageUploadedByTortForum1391478751.705549.jpg
ill take the legs off the shelf and open the bags of marbles. I got all of that for $12.28. Would've bought more had i found percentages right and not estimated 25 cents tax on every item, but i wanted to be safe. The only problem is that none of the plants have bases so ill have to stick the stems down to the bottom and support them with the substrate cuz the stems are pretty long since they're meant for bouquets. But does anyone have any better ideas to make easy inexpensive bases. I thought of cutting the legs from the shelf in half but that only makes 4 bases. I also want to make a hide using a piece of plexiglass and covering it with a vine. Would that work? I tried to find the most exotic looking plants cuz i have a redfoot so most of them ended up as leafy plants with few to no flowers/colors but green, but the vines and the roses have flowers. The funny thing was that im friends with the lady who works theirs son and she kept giving me weird looks when i would walk by with a basket full of plants and when i payed she was like "what do you need flowers for?" and i told her i have a tortoise and paying 12.28 for 18 flowers beats the one $15 plant i have. I plan on going back the day they close to see if i can just by whatever plants they have left for like $10. Heres a pic of all the plants (theres 18) ImageUploadedByTortForum1391477847.236618.jpg
And a pic of my redfoot, George, he's about 4.5 inches long idk how old. thats my favorite pic. He's doing his signature pose where he lays with his shell completely on the ground his back legs all the way in and his front legs to each side like he's a boat, he does it in his water bowl too and looks like the loch ness monster with only the top of his shell and his neck and head out.
ImageUploadedByTortForum1391477810.524283.jpg
 
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Yvonne G

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Hi Dale:

Wow...you made a killing! I love doing things like that.

Usually those stems are rubber/plastic over wire. You should be able to bend the bottom into an "L" shape and maybe tape (duct tape) the bottom of the stem to the bare floor of the habitat. Then the substrate and maybe some small rocks around each plant will hold them in place.

I'm interested in seeing your finished product.
 

Cycere

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Jan 13, 2014
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Haha, I'm excited for you! That's awesome you got so much for so little! :p
 

doletorts

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Aug 8, 2013
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Hehe I'm excited too. I'll try that yvonne. I have a few plants in the enclosure right now but they all keep falling down lol i need to fix them. As soon as i get the larger enclosure all the plants will be going in and he'll have his own private jungle :)
 
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