Stone:Can’t Get Enough Of It
May 9, 2008In response to Nan’s topic this month for Garden Blogger’s Design Workshop, I have only one thing to say: I can’t get enough of stone: beautiful, authentic slabs of stone in different intensities and blends of color, textures, shapes and thickness. These stones are a real turn on for me: perhaps because they are so directly linked to the earth.
A Cutting-Edge Garden Tool
May 5, 2008I really meant to join in on the Garden Bloggers’ Hoe Down sponsored by Carol over at May Dreams Gardens last Saturday. Really I did. But [insert list of poor excuses here, because I know all the rest of you are busy gardening too, and yet many of you made the time to participate…]. To be honest, my collection of hoes is rather pitiful, and I very seldom use them anyway, so they’re pretty crummy-looking, and they’re buried somewhere in the back corner of the shed. Instead of taking the time to extricate them, I figured I’d write about a hand tool that I rarely have to hunt for, because I guard it carefully: my hori hori knife. Read the rest of this entry »
Musings Under The Magnolias
May 2, 2008
One of the great things about garden making is not knowing where my efforts might lead. As a designer, I’m strictly fly-by-wire, so I never really am sure, exactly, how things will turn out. Many of my gardens have evolved in unexpected ways over the years. In the same vein, many of the paths I’ve made in those gardens have led me to places I never expected to go. Read the rest of this entry »
Garden Bloggers’ Design Workshop - Stone in the Garden
May 1, 2008
Stone may seem like an odd topic for a design workshop, I suppose. But in the last year of blog-reading, I’ve noticed that many of you incorporate stone into your gardens in one form or another: as gravel for paths, slabs for paving and patios, rocks for walls, and boulders for accents. I thought it might be interesting to hear why those of you who don’t naturally have stone on your property chose real stone over concrete masonry units or other manufactured building products. And to those of you who’ve been blessed (or cursed) with stones large or small, how about showing us how you’ve coped with those challenges? Read the rest of this entry »
GBDW - Front-Yard Gardens Wrap-Up
April 30, 2008
It seems we have plenty of readers here at GGW who aren’t shy about showing off their love of gardening where everyone can see it. As with any garden, these front-yard spaces are often works in progress; even if others think they look great, we know what we had in mind and tend to focus on what didn’t work and what we haven’t yet accomplished. Still, let’s not overlook the value of even the smallest front-yard garden in lifting our spirits and adding a welcoming touch of cheer. From traditional foundation plantings and flower beds to out-of-the-ordinary front-yard meadows and vegetable gardens, we have a lot of posts to look at this month, so let’s get busy! Here are all the posts I know about to date, in no particular order. Read the rest of this entry »
Grocery Store Gardening
April 29, 2008
Around here there are all kinds of chichi food stores and Latin and Asian markets. And in some of them, the produce sections bulge with all manner of intriguing looking items: tropical bulbs, rhizomes and who knows what all. I have no idea what these strangely bulbous things are, other than a part of somebody else’s diet. Read the rest of this entry »
Flowers: Keeping Selections Simple
April 27, 2008
I promised myself this year that I would run over to Chanticleer once a week to maintain a record of what is in bloom. As I sprinted through the garden last week on a beautiful spring day, I was blown away by the magnificent spring plantings. After scanning through the photos at home, what struck me was how the same specimens were used in abundance and with repetition in containers and garden beds. In the photo above, a group of containers is filled with grape hyacinths and a few selections of narcissus as its centerpiece, with other plantings acting as its supporting cast. In the photo below, near the entryway of the garden, is a solo, low rising container of blue grape hyacinths. Read the rest of this entry »
Front Yard Controversy in England
April 24, 2008Last night as I was browsing through the latest issue of Gardens Illustrated, I came across a short article on page 11 that touched on front yards from a political/environmental standpoint. Since our Garden Blogger’s Design Workshop’s theme this month, thanks to our dear Nan, is on Front Yards, I couldn’t resist passing this onto you. I can’t wait to hear your comments!!
Paving The Way
“It used to be said that England was a nation of gardeners-but over the last few years many householders have chosen to pave over their front grardens. Now Environment Secretary Hilary Benn says legislation will be introduced this year requiring home owners to secure planning permission before covering gardens with impermeable materials. The move follows recent research by the RHS which found that 12 square miles of front gardens in London are now paved. The Government’s concern is not horticultural, though-it’s worried that instead of soaking into the soil, rainwater will run off paved surfaces and into overflowing sewers, causing floods. Benn says that provided they use porous materials, householders will still be able to cover their gardens-without planning permission. www.rhs.org.uk/Learning/Research/GardeningMatters“
California Pack Trials .2
April 22, 2008Where did I leave off ? My last posting California Pack Trials .1 ended with observations of how plants are marketed to the younger generation. I think it was this:
Making Lemonade
April 22, 2008For those of you who have visitied Chanticleer in the last few years, you may remember a grand vessel, a Turkish oil jar looming in the courtyards. In a rare display of restraint, I have avoided planting this wonderful piece. For one thing, I couldn’t decide which of the many plants I work with that was worthy of this preeminent stage. Secondly, to fill a vessel as large as this one would require a soil mass likely in excess of 500 pounds…dry. So, empty it stood. The nice thing about it being empty was its mobility. Season to season, it would reappear in other areas: as feature, as focal point, as foil. Well, ths spring, upon its emergence into the garden, disaster struck. In a move I had done dozens of times before, a carefully choreographed dance to move this pot, I lost control of it and down it went. It didn’t crack. It didn’t shatter. It nearly vaporized in a cloud of dust, imploding upon its own substantial weight.
Never to lessen the severity of the day’s event, but like the towers as they fell that fateful day. Well, one can cry over spilt terra cotta, or one can work with it.
