The Test Garden, Volume II – a leather collection for gardeners who experiment
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of leather stamping studies.
A September study – Volume II.
The Test Garden is a small leather collection for gardeners who treat every season as an experiment – the kind of people who mix their own soil and write down what the plants thought of it. Five stamps, each pressed into leather.
First, the slow introduction. A greenhouse cactus meets full sun a little at a time, because a careful gardener rations the exposure – so we drew the sun coming out from behind its cloud in three steps with a small cactus waiting at the end of the sequence, and wrote FULL SUN EVENTUALLY beneath. It runs lengthwise along the luggage tags; travelers acclimate too.
Golden tan for the desert light, pale sea-blue for the clearing sky. It looks genuinely beautiful.
The black tag carries the design in gold – the full sun, finally delivered.
Next, the character reference. A perennial dies back to a stub and returns on schedule, and the people who plant them share the temperament. We drew the cut-back stem with one new shoot already rising beside it, and stacked PERENNIAL OPTIMIST underneath.
One fob in deep green for the returning leaves, one in dusty lavender for the blooms worth waiting on. Looks great when stamped onto the leather.
Then, the foundation. Good gardening starts below the surface, with a base you mix and then amend until the plant approves – and a toiletry bag is where a person keeps their own foundation. We tipped a trowel of perlite and coarse sand into a waiting mound and set START WITH A GOOD BASE beneath the pile, pressed small into the corner of the bags.
The stack runs warm mid-gray over chestnut – pumice over potting soil.
After that, the huddle. Houseplants grouped closely share a pocket of humid air, and they do better in company than alone – so we gathered five pots into one close crowd, windowed leaves against striped ones, and set GOOD COMPANY beneath. A catchall tray keeps the same kind of company for whatever your pockets carried all day.
Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the golden tan leather.
And finally, the one we liked the most. Every garden is a test garden. We drew one low bed holding four trials side by side, from a sprout just breaking ground to chamomile in full bloom, each with a blank stake waiting for its verdict – and set THE TEST GARDEN beneath the bed. A journal is where the verdicts get written.
One journal in deep navy, the color the desert saves for its bluest blooms; one in classic caramel, the color of amber tea on wood.
We made this out of love. Leatherius Woodman is on a mission to create and share artifacts of beauty, craft and love – this study is one of them, and we hope the feeling is mutual. Every image is a render – how we prototype before cutting a die.
If you’d like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.