When I was thinking of decorating my home office (plant room,) I knew I wanted a planty accent wall. Months ago I came across @ _forthehome on Instagram. A picture of her bathroom with what looked like a floating propagation wall became the inspiration for my own wall. I really wanted it to look like the tubes were floating but also wanted to be able to take the vialtubes off the wall so I could change the water easily. Scrolling through Pinterest I found a pin, from @ fuelproofhealth, using magnets. And this is how I put my own wall together…
What You’ll Need to Make This Propagation Wall
I do glue the magnets right to the wall; Just wanted to put that out there in case that is not something you want to do. It is fairly easy to scrape off the glue to take down the wall. This may mess up the paint on the wall. I plan on keeping my Prop wall up for a long time, so I am okay with the possibility of having to repaint if I do take it down.
Here are the materials you will need:
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- Test Tubes or propagation vessels
- Magnets
- Gorilla Glue/Crazy Glue
- Tape Measure
- Level (I used a free app on my phone)
- Masking/Painter’s tape
- Plant Cuttings
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Propagation Wall Layout Design
Having a design is not necessary. You can make it as uniform or random as you want. I came up with 2 designs using the Canva app and then took a poll on my Instagram. Follow me over there @ thepeculiarrose if you want to see more visual planty content. This is the layout design that won:
First I measured out the wall space that I had to work with. My wall was about 3FT wide by 5FT tall.
Taping Out the Propagation Wall Layout
When all my supplies came in I used painter’s tape to outline my design on the wall.I started with the top and bottom of the wall area and placed those pieces of tape first (each 3 FT long). My ceiling is sloped so I used a level to make sure the top and bottom pieces of tape were straight.
Next I placed the left and right sides of tape to finish the wall area outline. I used a marker (but I highly recommend using a pencil) to mark on the tape, where the highest tube would go. I put another piece of tape down the middle of my rectangle so the top three tubes would be spaced equally apart within the area. More tape was used to mark where the test tubes would go.
The Spacing I used:
Wall Area: 3FT Wide by 5 FT Tall
First Row (Starting at the top left) : 3 Vials Space 1FT Apart and staggered at 3.25inces (each vial was 6.5 inches long)
Second Row (First Vial starts right below the the first tube in the first row but 6 inces in (midway between the first 2 tubes in the top row,) The second tube is staggered down from the first tube in the second row by 3,25inches and is midway in between the last two tubes in the first row.
I alternated between the 2 different Rows all the way down the wall. I started with 15 test tubes ( 6 alternating rows) but added one more row at the bottom for a total of 18 test tubes.
Adding Magnets to Test Tubes
After the tape was up and all the test tube placement was marked I moved on to adding magnets. I liked the idea of magnets because it makes it easy to remove each tubes from the wall to change the water. It also saved me from having to screw any thing into my walls.
I decided to add two magnets to each tube, for extra security. Using Gorilla Glue I placed two magnets on the first tube. I spaced them couple inches apart but left room at the bottom just in case I needed to add a third magnet. When the glue dried on the first tube I attached two more magnets to the glued magnets. And glued the new magnets to another tube. I did this so the spacing would be exactly the same.
TIP: If I were to do this again I would probably make sure that all the magnets on the test tubes were opposite of the magnets on the wall. The way I did it only half of the tube will stick to each place of the wall. This isn’t a big deal for me but it would be convenient if all the test tube magnets would stick to all of the wall magnets. Magnets have a positive and a negative side. A positive and negative will attract each other but a positive/positive or negative/negative will repel each other.
Gluing Magnets to the Wall
To make sure that the magnets would attract each other I attached the magnets to be glued to the wall to the magnets already glued to the test tube. I then added glue to the magnets and placed them on the wall. I held each one lightly against the wall for about 10-15 seconds, until I was sure the tubes would not fall off.
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Add Water and Plant Cuttings
After gluing all of the magnets to the wall I let it all the glue dry overnight. The next day I removed each test tube to make sure one set of magnets was on the wall and one on the tube. I then added water and plant cuttings to complete my propagation wall.
It may not matter be necessary, but if you are clumsy like me, I advise taking the vial off the wall when adding the water and plant cutting. I broke three test tubes because I tried stuffing a fiddle leaf fig cutting in the tube while it was attached to the wall. I had to order new tubes.
It might be possible to add sphagnum moss or perlite to the tubes, if water propagation isn’t for you. I’m thinking of converting more plants to LECA so Water propagation works well for Semi Hydro growing.
Note: The test tubes I used are slightly bigger than the ones I linked. The one’s I ordered are out of stock. They had a 30mm diameter in a pack of 15. The one’s I linked are 20mm diameter but come in a package of 20.
Let me know what you think of this accent wall and if you try it out I’d love to see your prop walls too 🙂