Outdoor Televisions!

Phew!  It’s about time.  I was getting so bored and fidgety just sitting out on my patio with, like, no electronic devices whatsoever, wasting lazy summer evenings in quiet conversation with family or watching the birds and butterflies. 

Have a fancy beach place?  I am sure you are sick and tired of staring out into the azure sea, letting the rhythm of the breaking waves rejuvenate your spirit.  Those days are over, my friend, because now you are free to ignore the beauty of God’s creation and tune into The Kardashians on your very own al fresco TV set!

http://www.skyvue.com

Now that’s living!

Growing weary of the happy splashing and laughter of kids playing outside in the water?  Hey, no problem, that’s nothing an 80-inch LCD screen installed poolside can’t fix: 

http://www.mysporttrac.com

Your kids will be sedentary and mildly depressed in no time!

I like this next set up a lot:

http://www.ohgizmo.com

Hot-tubs are no longer about such things as “romance” or “intimacy” — no, your hot-tub experience is not complete unless you have a giant digital television peeping up at you over the hedge.  Make sure to position it so that it looks like it wants to get inside the tub with you and appears sad that you’re not inviting it in.

Here’s my favorite:

http://www.flasales.com

Why watch The Big Game on your embarrassing little 90″ screen in one of the sixty comfortable rooms of your giant white mansion, when you can watch the action on a fifteen foot screen out in the blistering sun in the middle of your featureless grounds?  This TV is a bit steep at $620,000 but they throw in the trained Irish Setter for free to make you appear a bit more humanized and less like the materialistic and vapid creature that you are.

Woo-hoo!  Let’s hear it for Trends in Outdoor Living!

What I have highlighted in yellow on the map, though, are actually my favorite parts of Dumbarton Oaks.  You will notice they are not the individual gardens at all, but rather the spaces between the gardens, the transitions.  To me, these spaces have always been the most compelling aspect of Dumbarton Oaks, and they are evidence that Beatrix Farrand was a freakin’ genius.

Farrand seemed to put as much thoughtful design into the garden’s transitional spaces as she did into the rooms themselves.  For instance, look how this narrow stone stairway beckons you up the hill….

At the top of the steps you find yourself in the Arbor Terrace, a shady and restful spot with a grotto-like fountain:

Farrand was completely masterful in her use of sound and smell in these transition areas.  As you travel the paths between gardens, you can often hear the sound of water trickling or gurgling from an area that you can’t yet see. For example, as you walk up this path, you can hear the sound of a fountain in the distance….

Turn left at the end of the wall and you enter the famous Ellipse Garden and ah-ha! there’s the fountain:

Farrand also lined these transitional paths with fragrant shrubs like lilac and honeysuckle, and she paid just as much attention to the walls, paving, and plantings in these “in-between” areas as she did to the major garden areas.  For example, here is the stairway leading to the pool — a feature more interesting than the pool itself:

Below is a picture of the path on the way to Lover’s Lane (a shallow pool hidden in the woods).  At the end of the path, a statue of Pan points the way to…

the pool, where undoubtedly you will be getting up to no good with your sweetheart:

You have to love a garden that encourages mischievous behavior (although in early April when I visited this area doesn’t have a very secluded feel — gotta wait for the leaves to fill in.)

Here is a little path that jigs off to the side behind some large evergreens.  The beautiful tiled roof pokes up and entices you over:

Turn left at the end of the path and you get a nice view of the cutting garden (just getting going) with the Prunus Walk in the distance:

And scattered throughout the entire garden are curving brick paths lined with boxwood, or rustic stairways that lead to hidden terraces, or peek-a-boos of secret spaces glimpsed between evergreens:

Please check out other perspectives on “Transitions” from my fellow Roundtablers:

Jocelyn Chilvers : The Art Garden : Denver, CO

Deborah Silver : Dirt Simple : Detroit, MI

Scott Hokunson : Blue Heron Landscapes : Granby, CT

Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT

David Cristiani : The Desert Edge : Albuquerque, NM

Last night I read this explanation for the shunning of magenta flowers back in Welty’s day (early 20th century, but the magenta aversion continues today for many gardeners):

“Historian Susan Lanman..points out that arsenic was was commonly used in pesticides, giving crops a magenta color that indicated that the lethal poison had been applied.  [Gertrude] Jekyll and others distressed by the effects of industrialization eschewed [magenta]for such associations with pollution, and its manufacture from aniline dyes, which themselves were derived from the coal whose smoke blackened England’s skies.”

Byzantine gladiolus. http://www.bulbhunter.com

Ew.  So magenta=toxic was part of the reason they didn’t like it. 

But also many gardeners and designers just found the color plain nasty.  Apparently, Gertrude Jekyll is the one who tagged it “malignant magenta” and another British garden writer called the color ”that awful form of original sin.”

Geez.

Poor magenta.  It doesn’t seem fair.  Everyone has their tastes, but who wouldn’t want to stumble upon that lovely sweep of Byzantine Gladioli (pictured above) on a drive through the country?

(Source: One Writer’s Garden, by Susan Haltom and Jane Roy Brown.)

First, an update on the play structure thingee I started building in February.  To refresh your memory, here is what it looked like several weeks ago:

And here it is today.  Ta-da!

The bottom deck is 6×6, and the top deck is 6×7.5 — cantilivered out, to provide a little more room upstairs.  The ladder and railing turned out a little…well, crooked, but thanks to encouragement from my fellow blogger and garden philosopher Calvin Caley, I have learned to embrace the imperfections in my handy work and simply call it wabi-sabi rather than stress about it.  Calvin shared with me his outlook on outdoor building: “after all, you’re not building a grand piano.”  Thank you, Calvin.

I still want to paint it or stain it (you can see where I tested a color), and maybe add some fun little touches like a pulley or something.  So far Charlie’s favorite thing to do is go up onto the second level (the Ledo deck) and fling his shoes off of it.

Next, I painted the little portion of fence and the gate leading to my backyard.  Here is before:

and now:

Not bad.  The metal sun and moon I attached to the gate was a purchase from a vendor at this year’s Philly Flower show.  It was created from an old oil drum by Haitian craftsmen with a hammer and nail. Pretty cool!

I want to paint some words on my gate, too, around the sun.  I think I want to name my garden…something French.  At first I was worried that would be too pretentious, especially since I don’t know a word of French and have never been to France.  

But then I remembered, this is my garden, I can do what I want!  Hurrah!

Third, I built this little trellis in a part of the yard where my annoying neighbor has a clear view of us.  He stands on his porch and often calls over with some unwelcome question or comment, so I figure if I can get a vine to completely cover this, it will reduce our neighbor’s comments by up to 80%.  (Seriously, I’m not being an ass here, he is genuinely irritating and weirdly intrusive.)

I made it completely out of stuff I found in my shed (I’m so sustainable!) except for the paint.  I’m proud of my bold color choice, but I have to say that the metal fencing between the posts is not too attractive, is it?  I am hoping an aggressive clematis will cover it up in one or two seasons, otherwise I will have to think of something else.

Last, I have a new retaining wall!  Early readers of my blog may remember the post where I dreamed of a stone retaining wall to replace the rotting timbers that are there currently.  Well, finally Mary collected enough pennies to make it happen.  So no, this was not a DIY project…

My old, terrible wall:

And the new!

This wall is cinderblock, with stone facing.  I also looked into brick and those decorative concrete blocks by Techobloc and Belgard, but the wall I wound up with cost less than half of the estimates I got for using those materials.  Anyway, I am pleased with the color of the stone they used, because the rusty color matches the natural stones I find in my yard.  I wish a nice thick capstone had been in my budget, but c’est la vie.  (Oh look, I do know French!) 

And while I love my new wall, I am very demoralized when I look at how decimated the little garden behind it was left.  Where there were once cushions of Carex pensylvanica there is now packed red clay and gravel. 

I guess a Landscape Improver’s work is never done.

–James Joyce

Then again, Joyce was a man of ideas.  I’m sure no contractor ever said to a client: “Oh, that retaining wall I put in last fall is collapsing now?  But of course!  How could something so bourgeois hold back the anarchy of our modern age??  Don’t you see??  It was futile from its inception!!!”

Anyway, it only took me a few minutes to compile a long list of mistakes that I have made over the course of my study of landscape design.  Here are just a few:

1. Giving landscape design advice to people who didn’t ask for it.  You might think that this would be obvious, but when you’re a new landscape design student all super-excited about what you’re learning, like I was, sometimes you can go a bit overboard.

Exposure to any outdoor environment would trigger my critiquing impulse, and I would start to mentally re-design every space I entered.  Didn’t matter whether it was a friend’s backyard, the planters outside the Mexican restaurant, or the National Mall — all were fair game. 

Sometimes my ideas did not stay politely in my head, like they were supposed to, and to my dismay my friends and family did not respond with the awe and gratitude that I imagined they would.  Instead I would get, “Hm, interesting.” or “Okay, maybe.” or, in the case of my dad when he caught me staring for the umpteenth time into his backyard: ”What now?”

A Corollary to this: Turns out most folks don’t care about the Latin names of plants, either.  So no need to announce to your friends that that’s an Ilex cornuta growing there by the McDonald’s Drive-Thru.

2. Drawing crape myrtles that look like unexploded mines or medieval maces.  Behold: 

I drew this for my first landscape design class — Landscape Graphics.  I’m not sure whether this crape myrtle is more likely to detonate or float away into the heavens.  Laegerstromia x ‘Nuclear Mushroom Cloud’

3. Buying pots that are too small.  This was a lesson I learned pretty early on: bigger is better when it comes to pots.  I only own a few large containers, and I winced a little at what they cost, but I have never regretted buying any of them.  They have become nice, substantial features of my landscape.  Plus, most of what I have planted in them survives the winter because of the larger soil volume.  Little pots look cute in groups, but big pots are real players.  I can actually grow a tree in a pot?  Amazing!

I’m not a real purist about the material either — I have a couple of large, glazed terracotta pots ($$$), but I have fiberglass and plastic, too.  I have not been excommunicated from the landscape design community for having plastic pots (so far).

4. Thinking I could have one of those Piet Oudolfesque kind of grassy landscapes for my very own.  This was the image that made me fall in love:

For a Principles of Design class, I traced over this image multiple times — once to show line, once for value, once for texture, etc.  In doing so, I became smitten with this landscape (Pensthorpe in Norfolk, England) and with its creator.  My mistake was in thinking that I could replicate such a landscape in my own shady (key word there – SHADY) backyard.  It took me a few years to accept that I would never have Sunlight Illuminating Glorious Sweeps of Grasses in my garden.  Luckily there are other beautiful arrangements of plants (Weak Sunlight Illuminating Dry Shade Groundcovers???), although violins still play a bittersweet tune in my head whenever I look at this image.

5. Thinking that designing for real clients would be as fun as designing for hypothetical clients.  I love doing design for people who don’t really exist!  They have so much money, and they are open to anything!!!  Contrast this with designing for real people who actually own the land that you want to mess with — dang it can be a real bummer!!  Why can’t this couple see that they need an enormous stone labyrinth here, not a patio!!!   What?  I have to make phone calls?  I have to collect bids?  There’s a budget?  You mean I don’t get to sit here and draw freakishly bulbous crape myrtle trees all day?

Sadly, this is just a small sampling of the mistakes I have made since stepping into the world of landscape design.  I have a whole other list of Gardening mistakes (top of the list: the time I lovingly transplanted what turned out to be Horseweed) but that is for another posting. 

In the meantime, may my mistakes be your “portals of discovery.” 

And here are a couple of other very smart people presenting “Mistakes”:

Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT

Deborah Silver : Dirt Simple : Detroit, MI

 Men.  There were lots of men.

Oh yeah, tomorrow’s Valentine’s, I realized.  So there were the men– old & young, fat & thin, hirsute & hairless, all kinds – buying flower bouquets for their sweethearts.  They all looked slightly bewildered, and they were all purchasing either Valentine’s Day Default Gift #1 — Red Roses with Baby’s Breath in a Plastic Sleeve for the Big Spenders – or Valentine’s Day Default Gift #2 — Pink Carnations in a Plastic Sleeve for the more frugal/slightly less-committed set.

I thought, awwww, how cute.  Until I realized how much they were clogging up the checkout lanes, and then I was like, get a move-on, you unimaginative bunch of lemmings! 

“Surprise! I put zero thought into your gift!”

Now, if you personally gave or received red roses or pink carnations this Valentine’s Day, pardon my snobbery.  Don’t get me wrong, I love getting any kind of bouquet from my husband (and full confession: this year I bought him a heart-shaped box of chocolate, talk about lemming) but usually I’m a fan of more creative and personalized gestures of love.

Anyway, I bring all this up because flower arrangements and floral design have been on my mind lately.  Last fall I purchased the extraordinary book Bringing Nature Home  by Ngoc Ming Ngo and Nicolette Owen, and it has quickly become the book I turn to when I need to get to a Happy Place quickly.  I will present you with a couple of the stunning images from this book because I bet not all of you have seen it:

Needless to say, these are not Your Boyfriend’s Pink Carnations.  But doesn’t it make you feel better just to look at these pictures?  I also have my eye on a couple of other floral arranging books that look great — Garden Bouquets and Beyond, by Suzy Bales, and The 50-Mile Bouquet, by Debra Prinzing.

As if I need another hobby.  In addition to gardening, I’ve lately been tinkering around with both sewing and carpentry, so really, I need to get a grip.  Still, I’ve already signed up with my sister for a one day floral design workshop at a local florist, so too late now.

Now, if you want to take a peek at Floral Design brought to its most glorious level, check out what will be happening soon at the de Young gallery in San Francisco.  Every year this art gallery brings in talented floral designers who create arrangements that “pay tribute to or draw inspiration from” various pieces of art in the gallery.  The exhibit is called “Bouquets to Art” and this year it runs from March 19-23.  Here is a sneak preview from the gallery’s website for this year’s exhibition:

In the image above, not only does the arrangement’s structure imitate the carved tablet behind it, but the warm colors also seem to be inspired from the tablet’s earthy tones.

The blue velvet draped at the base of this arrangement mimics the woman’s gown in the painting, and the pink and white flowers totally match her skin.  My husband could give me this rose arrangement for Valentine’s Day and I would be fine with it.

Don’t you just love the gorgeous swoop of stems and flowers spilling out of this arrangement?  It totally captures the curve of the woman’s cape-thingee falling off her shoulder.

I love it when a practitioner of one art or craft draws inspiration from another.  How about entire gardens inspired by fine paintings and sculpture?  And vice-versa. How about a piece of pottery based on a symphony?  A tapestry based on a garden?  A poem based on a sculpture?  A couture dress based on a great work of architecture?  A line of massed-produced children’s toys based on a Disney film?  No, no, scratch that last one.

But it kinda makes my head spin to think about the possibilities.  What’s great is that, as I have gotten older and realized that I will probably never master even one art form, I don’t mind so much the idea of being a Perpetual Novice.  I am content just to make enthusiastic attempts and enjoy the process, all the while feeling true awe and inspiration from the real artists out there.

Sooo…floral design?  Bring it on!

And long live the Arts!  Long live Romance!

Most importantly, Long live Men Bearing Pink Carnations!

Now please check out what my fellow Roundtablers have to say about Romance and the Garden:

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

David Cristiani : The Desert Edge : Albuquerque, NM

Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT

Deborah Silver : Dirt Simple : Detroit, MI

Jocelyn Chilvers : The Art Garden : Denver, CO

Sure, it doesn’t look like much NOW, but imagine it with both upper and lower decks completed, ladder leading up to trapdoor in the second level, painted in colorful yet tasteful hues, perhaps lightly festooned with an assortment of kid-friendly accoutrements like pulleys and periscopes. I designed this structure by consulting various building websites, flipping through carpentry books at the library, and squinting really hard at images of playforts online.

As a person who, two weeks ago, had zero carpentry experience, I have gained a new appreciation for people who can build things well. Just laying out a 6 x 6 square (on a slight slope, mind you) was an exercise in frustration. I got lucky digging the post holes, because I did it after a warm, wet spell (those puppies are like, 30″ deep). But then trying to “level” and “square” just those four outer boards (deck builders would call them rim-joists, in case you’re wondering) took hours.

Then, there was my doe-eyed excursion into the Lowe’s lumber aisles to seek out the proper boards. “Can I help you ma’am?” asked a guy in a blue Lowe’s apron, who must have noticed me looking terrified.

“Um, yes please, I need some nice boards. What do you recommend?”

He was very nice, and helped me load four gigantic 4 x 4 posts into my cart. (This is how lumber is sold, by the way, in short, average, and gigantic lengths.)

So the posts went in, and then it was time to pull out my husband’s scary cirucular saw from the basement. After watching a Youtube video called How to Use a Circular Saw, and getting a little tutorial/warning from my husband (“don’t cut your fingers off!”) I started cutting the boards. I told my son to stand at the edge of the patio while I used the saw, and with the adorable confidence of a little boy in his mother, he ran clear across to the other side of the yard.

If you squint just right these boards might appear “flush” “tight” “square” and “level”

It’s still in the early stages of this project, but so far cutting the boards has been the easiest part. Much easier than leveling and squaring things. But then again, I am a proud alumna of TEI (The Eyeball It) Academy, so that only stands to reason.

I will try to post more pictures as I move through the building process. If no pictures are forthcoming, it is probably safe to assume that the project went awry and I converted the structure into four huge, oddly-spaced birdhouses.

Photo Credit: US Mission Geneva

In the Final Comprehensive of my Landscape Design Course, we had to work in teams of three. I was in a group with two other talented people (both professional designers), and our task was to redesign a small park on the campus of GW.

We brainstormed. We sketched. We had meetings — many, many meetings. We discussed. We argued. We tried to change one another’s minds and we attempted compromise.

In the end, I don’t think any of us were particularly pleased with what we’d designed, and neither were our professors.

It was a frustrating experience.

I recalled this experience as I read a fascinating book called Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. The book is about how our society — whether it’s politics, the workplace, school — has come to reward extroversion to an almost embarrassing degree, and suggests that we begin to value the unique contributions of introverts.

The author, Susan Cain, also presents loads of research to suggest that our current infatuation with “Collaboration” is overblown at best. Group brainstorming, for example, has been shown in myriad research studies to be completely ineffective, often hindering individual creativity. The best creative work, it seems, is accomplished by individuals working alone (think Steve Wozniak, Albert Einstein, WB Yeats).

Which is why, I believe, the design my group produced during my Comprehensive course was less than stellar. I believe that — had we each worked alone — we would have created three superior designs instead of one mediocre one. (I also believe that designing individually would not have taken any longer — that the time we saved by splitting up drawing tasks was less than the time we wasted meeting, arguing, and emailing over details.)

If you are a designer, I would be curious to know how often you work with teams during the design phase and how that works out for you. I realize that the large scope of some landscape design projects makes working in teams necessary, but I’m talking more about the conceptual phase, I guess. Do any of you actually work with others to come up with the initial concept of a design? How does that work? Do you ever feel your ideas are compromised?

I ask, too, because I am aware that my own profession — education — worships at the altar of Teamwork and Collaboration. God forbid you are the kind of teacher who stands in front of the class delivering a lecture, and then allows the students to sit quietly and work independently. No, everything now is “Cooperative Learning” and “Peer-to-Peer” “Group Projects” and “Collaborative Teams.” And I believe that educational bureaucrats justify this model because they feel they are preparing students for the “real world” of business, where apparently everybody works in teams all the time.

So I am curious to hear from designers — or from anybody else in a creative profession — about your thoughts on working in teams. When you work with others, is your imagination energized or stifled? Are your best ideas nurtured by your colleagues? Or hindered by them?

Open your kitchen curtains and look
out into the chilly morning.  A little
mist circles around the trunks of dogwoods,
rises up to the pink stars, fades to air.
There is color where you didn’t notice it before.
You step out.

2. Allegro.  A Sudden burst… A sentiment both elated and religious…

There is mud on your soles and honey in the air
tulip poplars like sentinels, like cathedrals, and
gilded arms of sun warming the bluebells and
over there shy corollas –  white, yellow, blood-red –
turn their eyes up to the light and so do you.
The force that wakens the world, that
courses up through root and vein, leaf-blade
and fingertip, cloud and cotyledon,
is our creator.

3. Moderato.  Scene of tenderness and passion.

Take off your shoes, feel the wet grass.
Remember this: an age ago, you watched your daughter
skip-twirl here to there, collecting stems,
leaves, tiny twigs.  A length of clematis trailed
from her fist and you suppressed a cry as she
plucked and sashayed her way around the yard. 
She sprawled in the grass on her belly, bare feet
tracing circles in the air, and there you were,
squatting down over the henbit, never satisfied.

When her plump feet appeared you looked
up to her solemn offering:  a crown
of green shoots and leaves, loosely woven.
Smiling, with arms outstretched, she presented
it to you, the keeper of this magical domain.

4. Quite Fast. Revivalist…Folksy feeling.

Now, from behind the woodshed, a squirrel darts
madly into an elderberry, disrupting the
slender branches. Its tail flicks like an angry
feather duster as it leaps now to the fence,
giving each crevice a frenzied inspection.
Last fall ten dozen walnuts were stashed
in places you’ve discovered gradually: nestled
in the brushpile, wedged in the forked trunk
of the lilac, resting (presumptuously) on the rack
of the barbecue.  Like a man who’s lost his keys,
the squirrel flits around in frustration and
– voila! –  new walnut trees are born.
Forgetting and remembering:
the world needs both.

5. Subito Allegro.  Extremes of joy and fear and wonder.

You reach a hill draped with hemlocks hiding pockets
of dark air, recalling cold slopes of mountains,
cracked slabs of rock – monoliths! – a dizzying tilt
in the earth.  Some ancient fern, wind-frayed,
bedraggled, rises out of the duff and sends spores
across a narrow valley.  And through the valley runs
a silver braid, home to sunfish and bass, flowing
over honeycombs of limestone. 
Caves.  Secrets. 

The best way to reach this place is from right
where you stand.  Take that narrow path edged
with broken brick.
 

6. Very Slowly. Transition scene to music reminiscent of the introduction.

 Soon you will reach a clearing. 
Here, young grasses and wildflowers
nod in the breeze, and the way the light
hits is like a chord of music you heard
only once, like a promise whispered
in your ear by someone long gone.

Stay for a moment then move on.

7. Doppio Movimento.  Simple Gifts.

 the baby mantid that broke from its case
and the jay that snatched it
the daffodils you waited for and
the mud you tracked in
a chorus?
a climax?

The path through the glade, the trillium bud
the scoop of earth in your hand, warm and alive
the scattered petals, the soft thunder
the drowned worm, the fawn’s gaze, the spinning samaras
the grain of pollen that drifts from the top of the oak to the tip of your eyelash
an ending? 
a refrain?
 

8. Coda/Moderato.  Quiet and strong. A hushed prayerlike passage.
There is color where you didn’t notice it before.
It is time to go.  Mist circles around the trunks
of dogwoods, rises up to the pink stars,
fades to air.

Here is my exclusive, professional-quality footage:

Turf renovation on the National Mall

The renovations include: the turf itself, its underlying soil, improved drainage and irrigation, and a nifty granite edging that really sets the grass off nicely. Looks pretty sharp, don’t you think?

For the sake of comparison, check out how it looked in 2008:

Photo credit: David July/mountsutro.org

Ugh. I am so glad they are fixing up the Mall, because it was actually getting embarrassing bringing out-of-town visitors down there. Many people call the Mall “America’s Front Yard” and frankly ours was starting to look like that neighbor’s yard — the one that everyone bitches to their HOA about.

I know that, as a nation, we are trending away from lawn, but I think that lawn makes sense here in front of the U.S. Capitol, where people gather to protest laws, march for their rights, celebrate national holidays, and play frisbee.

This is America, damn it. If we are going to have giant lawn in front of our Capitol, we should do it better than anybody in the world! Or at least better than the Clampetts or the Ewells would do.

Oh, and P.S., according to the sign below, as of this posting, the US Government has less than 24 hours left to complete the renovation!