Get To Know Hilton Carter, Gardening Guru And Author Of Wild Creations

Get to Know

HILTON CARTER, GARDENING GURU AND AUTHOR OF 'WILD CREATIONS'

Story by Diana Keeler / Photography by Hilton Carter © CICO Books

Hilton Carter is a Baltimore-based plant expert whose passion for plant care and talent for styling greenery has fueled several popular books and a hugely influential Instagram @HiltonCarter. In his latest book, Wild Creations, Hilton shares DIY ideas - like making a plant chandelier from a model canoe - as well as deeply informative tutorials like making your own potting soil.

Hilton Carter has a new book out, and it’s required reading for plant lovers — experts and amateurs alike. Wild Creations: Inspiring Projects to Create plus Plant Care Tips & Styling Ideas for Your Own Wild Interior expands on his earlier books — Wild at Home and Wild Interiors — with a new collection of plant-centric DIY projects, from concrete planters to hanging leather holders (also for plants). The common thread between each book is Carter’s emphatic advocacy for plant health: For the Baltimore-based expert, plants are never simply Instagram props, but living, breathing (yes) companions who deserve our time, attention, and love. Wild Creations is in some ways Carter’s pandemic project. “In April 2020, so many people were suddenly at home — and I thought, You know what?

If everyone's at home, there's gonna be a lot of people trying to figure out how to make their space feel a bit better — a bit more alive,” Carter says. “And if that's the case, I thought it would be awesome to make a book that had a lot more DIY projects in it. The projects would be the focus — but of course I didn’t want to forget to do a lot of ranting.” (In fact, during our 2020 talk with Carter, he told Bloomist that at the top of his to-do list was a new book composed of nothing but rants against plant-owners who treated their purchases with disrespect.) Equally at home — alongside the DIY projects and the rants — are deeply informative tutorials on subjects like creating your own potting soil and understanding how much light your plants need. I figured a lot of the things that I had already done in my home could work as a DIY project — so I put some of those in there,” he says.

Pictured: "It's the unexpected, the non-traditional, that can make something so normal, feel so wild. I love that! And it's one of the rules I stick to the most when plant styling a space - always do the unexpected. It was with that rule in mind that I decided to create a plant chandelier out of a model canoe."

“I FIGURED A LOT OF THE THINGS THAT I HAD ALREADY DONE IN MY HOME COULD WORK AS A DIY PROJECT – SO I PUT SOME OF THOSE IN THERE.”

– Hilton Carter, author Wild Creations

"I've always been in search of the "wow" and finding ways to sneak in a bit of greenery and tie in plant life to your gallery wall can take you there."

"What I love about propagating is that you're able to take a cutting from a plant that you've spent so much time loving and caring for and gift it to someone that you also love and care for. I call propagation the gift that keeps on giving."

“I figured a lot of the things that I had already done in my home could work as a DIY project — so I put some of those in there,” he says. “For other projects, I reached out to local artists — people in my circle, people whose work I loved. It was a no-brainer to have a book that really just focused on DIY projects because so many people love being able to utilize their space and put their own twist on things.”

Carter assembled a “test kitchen of sorts” to try out all the projects in the book — and weed out those that disappointed, like a DIY water spike. “It was really cool — I wanted people to be able to make a really cool, unique water spike for themselves,” he says. After going through the development process, he checked the project costs against what he found online: “I looked and found a set of three that you could buy for $5 — and I said, ‘We’re done.’” (Unique water spikes didn’t make the cut.)

Pictured: Hilton shares step-by-step instructions on how to make your own leather plant hanger.

“IT WAS A NO BRAINER TO HAVE A BOOK THAT REALLY JUST FOCUSED ON DIY PROJECTS BECAUSE SO MANY PEOPLE LOVE TO UTILIZE THEIR SPACE AND PUT THEIR OWN TWIST ON THINGS.”

His favorite project in the entire book is the jungle-by-numbers wall mural — truly a project for everyone. “The reason why I love that most is because maybe you don't have a green thumb, or maybe you don’t have any space or a lot of light,” he says. “This gives everyone the opportunity to create a lush environment in your home — it’ll be something that will live and remind you of the outdoors. And it'll never go brown on you unless you decide to use brown as your main color.”

"I reached out to my good friend Drury Bynum, a painter, director, and just an all-round great artist, and asked him to help me design a jungle-themed mural that plant lovers could create at home themselves. For the mural here, we decided to go with a green color scheme, so we selected a medium-hue green, a dark green, and, of course, white"