Visitors. One of the reasons I chose this particular garden for this project is that I have to intentionally go there. It’s on the side of the house and really leads only from front to back. In winter, I would normally ignore it. If I had, I would have missed these wonderful calling cards.
Monday 4
There’s a new band of garden and landscape designers who are blogging together on a single subject once each month. I am really proud to be among this group of talented designers who write so passionately about gardens and their design. The idea that each of us can take a single topic and bring something individual to it speaks eloquently about the diversity of design ideas that a landscape designer brings to the table. (That pun was definitely intended!)
The Garden Designers Roundtable is going to be like having a great garden design magazine delivered to your blog feed each and every month. All of the writers are professional, practicing designers from different regions who each have their own blogs. It won’t be the same designers participating every month, since each has chosen a few topics that they’d like to write about during the course of the year. There will be links on the roundtable blog (click above) to each participant’s thoughts on that month’s subject.
I participated in the first two topics, but will be sitting out the third –to be posted on February 23–in favor of blogging about color in March. You can see the schedule of topics here and you can follow along with the group on the Facebook fan page. If you Tweet, the hashtag for the group is #gdrt.
See you around the roundtable!
It snowed last night. The predicted 1″ is more like 4. I was out early enough-before the melt and legions of snow blowers-to notice that many of the background textures of the gardens in my neighborhood were much more visible with their snow cover.
Structural players take center stage
Structure and texture are not something I usually think about when it snows, so I was surprised by my own observation. Background masses are suddenly front and center in the landscape.
Rhododendron sp.
Taxus sp.
Philadelphius sp.
I am wondering how to take advantage of this-even as I realize it’s serendipity-when considering winter gardens in my landscape design work.
Frozen. Days of below freezing temperatures have halted the changes that were occurring during the January thaw. A partial view through the garden from the street through to the back yard.
Monday 3
Are our lives poised to morph again with the introduction of yet another can’t-live-without-it gadget (the iPad) that will further separate us from each other and the land we live on? How will this latest greatest thing really add to our quality of life in the way that gardens do?
I can surf the web anywhere via computer or smartphone, find the closest Starbucks in a town I’ve never been to on GPS , turn on the TV without getting up, track my fitness level, text my kid, order new plants, figure out how high a hill is, and never, ever have to really interact with another living being or thing.
I’m not sure how much more technology I can adopt before I burst at the seams. I’m not overloaded yet, but I did not envision when I hand drew my first garden plan that I would spend my days wrestling with software, back lit screens and being constant contact with people (in some cases) I’ve never met in person. I’m not saying it’s totally a bad thing, but it is all a bit disconcerting and overwhelming. I worry that we will all become just a bit more isolated from each other.
This is a little bit of a cheat. I’m about 175 miles from my home garden…two states away actually. So before I left yesterday I went out to the garden. When it gets warmer I hope to make some drawings, but I’m not so dedicated that I’m willing to sit on cold damp ground to make them.
Monday 2
The photograph is in this context is more about composition and exploration, but it is also a portrait of one of my favorite shrubs. The Hellebores are already pushing up through hard ground yet this is the earliest plant to bloom in my garden- Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’–and its buds are plump and ready.
I have been determined this year to celebrate beauty in the winter landscape beyond evergreen plants, still standing perennials and grasses. In the clearly defined four seasons in New Jersey, winter can seem barren and devoid of much that we find interesting in gardens. If we can’t put our love of bloom and foliage aside, there seems to be nothing left except to wait for spring. Not so.
A small copse of native ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica)
I am lucky to live and design gardens where there are abundant varieties of deciduous trees. In winter, their bark’s textural interest can create a cold season landscape that is elegant and subtle in its beauty. Bark is the unsung hero of the winter landscape.
Heptacodium micronioides in the winter landscape
Years ago I took a class in winter tree identification. Before that I depended on foliage as a way to identify a tree. Since then, bark and branching structures have been the main features I use even in the summer.
Heptacodium miconioides bark (Seven sun flower)
In the stark, low light of mid-winter bark’s texture and wide range of colors and patterns are enhanced. In the overcast grey of January they become beacons in a neutral winter landscape.
Acer griseum (Paperbark maple)
Stewartia pseudocamelia (Japanese Stewartia)
Even during a January thaw without the contrast of a snowy background these textures are complex and interesting.
Cornus mas (Cornelian cherry dogwood)
Acer saccharum (Sugar Maple)
Acer palmatum 'Sango kaku' (Coral bark maple)
Salix contorta sp. (Corkscrew Willow)
Some trees, and many more shrubs have bark that is so much more than grey. Bark can also add a punch of color to the winter’s neutral color palette.
A grove of limbed up Picea abies and Pinus strobus (Norway Spruce and Eastern White Pine)
By no way complete, here is a short list of other trees whose bark enlivens the winter landscape.
Highly patterned jigsaw like bark: Platanus occidentalis (American poplar) taupe and white jigsaw bark, Pinus bungeana (Lacebark pine) shades of green and grey, Cornus kousa (Chinese dogwood)- taupe, brown and ivory, Lagerstromia indica (Crape Myrtle) –rust and tan, Ulmus parviflora (Chinese elm)–intricately patterned bark that I wrote about in a previous post
Striking bark color: Betula jacquemontii (Himalayan Birch) stark white and exfoliating bark, Fagus grandifolia (American beech) smooth pale grey, Pinus densiflora (Japanese red pine) –russet
Highly textured bark: Carya ovata (Shagbark hickory), Acer pensylvanicum (Snakebark maple), Betula niger (River Birch),
Metasequoia glyptostroboides (Dawn redwood), Cornus florida (Flowering dogwood), Malus sp. (Crabapple varieties)
I have to put aside my gardener’s eye to see beyond the tasks yet to be done. I also have to keep in mind that this is going to end up being about the sum of all the parts as well as each individual image. This morning was cold, wet and slippery on the narrow path through the garden.
Monday 1
A description of my year long project is here.
It’s not all about me today, but it is all about all of us.
Here’s a link to donate on line: Haiti Earthquake Relief (William J. Clinton Foundation | Haiti)
OR
Text “Haiti” to 90999 Your cell phone bill will receive an extra $10 charge, all of which will be passed on to the Red Cross for specific relief to the Haitian disaster victims without so much as a penny staying with your cell phone carrier or mGive.
Even in a recession, we can afford to each give something…even $1 will help.
I had planned to write a self congratulatory post on Miss R’s inclusion at Alltop as well as the Baltimore Sun, but feel that this space is best used today to appeal to anyone who reads it to send help–whatever you can–to the relief efforts in Haiti.
The power of a single view and a creative meditation on that view isn’t new, but that idea has been tossing around in my head for months. I thought I wanted to explore gardens and the possibility of design influence using Ando Hiroshige’s 100 views of Edo. Several of my favorites are included here.
View 57
I have long known that gardening intensifies the power of observation–just as learning how to draw does. So what could a sustained observation and the recording of one finite area yield creatively? If I just observed what’s right outside my window–a place that I have gardened in for more than 10 years–what would I learn?
View 75
For me, it’s an intriguing idea, that a small garden area that I believe I know intimately still has something more to teach me–not so much about gardening, but about creativity and how to see.
So next Monday and every Monday for the next year after that that I am able (I do travel a bit) I will record and post an observation (view) of my side garden which is much less expansive or exotic than Edo–or is it?
View 10
My garden is only 11 feet wide an approximately 45 feet long–and it is my favorite and often most neglected of my outdoor spaces. It is south facing and is bordered by my house on one side and my neighbor’s unruly and unkempt yard on the other. At each narrow end is a vaguely Moorish iron arbor–both left over from a flower show garden and there is a central path of slate recycled from a neighbor. It is, as all of my gardens seem to be, a hodge podge of leftovers and survivors.
View 47
I realize that this might be extremely uninteresting to anyone else, but the posting of the observations will insure that I follow through for a year and that I don’t get distracted by the next shiny thing as is often the case. Since this is the 21st century, I will include some images made by looking through a screen, but the observations will also include words and drawings or maybe even something else I haven’t even thought about yet–I really want to see where this leads me creatively so my only rules are those that I’ve stated–and I’m open to those morphing into something else and taking me down a new path–in fact, I hope they will.
