If you had to choose one place in the United States that you felt all Americans should visit, one landscape or landmark representative of the “American ethos”, what would it be?
I started pondering that question last week after reading a piece in the great gardening e-mag Garden Drum. The article’s Australian author, Catherine Stewart, writes of her pilgrimage to Uluru (more familiar to us as Ayers Rock), the giant monolith located smack dab in the middle of the Australian continent.
Yesterday I came across this article about a competition at the University of Alberta called “Strip-Appeal” in which architects and other designers submitted proposals for re-purposing abandoned strip malls. As big box stores and online retailers like Amazon claim more and more business, strip malls have started going empty.
Photo credit: Sten Odenwald
I had a look at some of the submitted designs and I couldn’t help but feel a little weary. Design proposals included:
1. several variations of a park/greenspace/community garden (Yaaaaawn.)
2. turning the strip mall into a mixed-use town-center-y kinda thing with underground parking. (zzzzzzzzz.)
3. a plan where people could just come in and use the building materials from the old strip mall to build whatever they wanted because there would be no zoning regulations for the new space. (Sounds like anarchy but at least it’s different.)
4. a gathering place for mobile “pop-up” retailers. (In other words, one week a space would be occupied by Dahn Yoga, the next by Haagen Daaz? Is this feasible?) Continue reading
I hate to bring this up, but sooner or later your body is going to rebel against the physical demands of gardening. It is not going to appreciate the fact that, within the course of an afternoon, you hauled 30 cubic feet of mulch on your back, bent to the ground from a standing position 167 times, and — on tiptoe — leaned forward while stretching waaaay out with your hedge clippers to reach the top of the damn yew hedge, so that the torque on your lower back was approximately 1200 foot-pounds per square inch, or however you measure that.
He will be sore tomorrow. (www.theoccasionalgardener.com)
Physical therapists, yogis, and other healthy types strongly advise against the strange contortions and repetitive stresses such as those we perform out in our gardens.
Nothing announces the mood or atmosphere of a garden more so than Garden Ornament. Sure, you can plant an Acer palmatum ‘Shishigashira’ and a carpet of black mondo grass, but it’s really the stone lantern that declares:
“This Japanese Garden. Please now be feeling sense of reverence and quiet awe.”
In the case of one of my neighbors, it’s the red Victorian gazing ball held aloft on the ears of three stone rabbits that announces:
“YOU’RE IN THE PRESENCE OF WHIMSY. FEEL FREE TO PRANCE ABOUT! WHY AREN’T YOU PRANCING????”
I love all kinds of garden ornament, from dignified to kitsch, which is why I face a dilemma. Since garden ornament tends to set the tone of the garden more so than any other individual garden element, there should be some sort of consistency among the pieces chosen. An overall statement should be made.
Personally, I’m torn about which direction I want to go with ornament in my garden. On the one hand, as I get older I find myself drawn to more dignified, classic pieces. I love the idea of a stone column in my garden, surrounded by ferns and set off by evergreens…soothing, dignified, timeless.
But I also like this:
Gnome-B-Gone, by Fred Conlon
I mean, I know my garden is MINE, and I can do whatever I want with it, but I don’t want it to appear completely bipolar.
Luckily, there are some pieces of garden ornament that are more neutral and can fit into any scheme. Most pots, for example, don’t hit you over the head with their personalities; they’re like the Zeligs of the garden and can blend into cottagy, modern, whimsical, or classic schemes.
This is why pots are all I have at the moment. Pots and a couple of metal dragonflies hovering among my perennials.
Perhaps my difficulty with garden ornament speaks to a larger problem with my sense of self. My garden doesn’t really know what it is, therefore, perhaps I don’t really know who I am. Should I wear floral scarves or chunky metal watches? Should I try to do more serious writing or should I learn carpentry? Should I take a stand more often or just laugh stuff off and go with the flow?
Am I a stone column or a Gnome-B-Gone?
Next week I will be participating for the first time in the Garden Designer’s Roundtable, a website that features a monthly round-up of blog-posts by garden design professionals. Each month, several of the Roundtable’s designers provide their unique perspectives on a given topic, with links to all the posts published on GDRT. Cool!
I’ve read quite a few “blogoversary” posts lately, or posts where the blogger “takes stock” of his or her blog and announces to readers where the blog is heading. The latter seems kind of funny to me, sort of like evaluating your relationship with a boyfriend and deciding whether or not it’s working for you. (“I will always have feelings for you, Blog, but I just don’t see us being together long term.”) Anyway, since this is me and Blog’s six-month anniversary, I thought I would do my own li’l reflection.
“Abandoned Garden” copyright by David Irons. Used with permission.
We gardened as if we would be there forever, in an immediate pleasure in the moment that seemed to imply an inexhaustible future. Little of what we did there then remains, though the daffodils must, and that thought is very pleasant to us.
Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd
Our Life in Gardens
I came across this quote today and I know it is going to be haunting me for days and weeks to come. Only a select few gardens are preserved and maintained after their owners pass on. Since we know our gardens will almost certainly change beyond recognition once we leave them, in what other ways can we leave a garden legacy? Photographs? Diaries? Teaching? Writing? Seed saving?
How do we leave traces of our passion?
This is a picture of my grandfather, who grew wonderful flowers and vegetables in his small urban lot in Detroit. It was taken in July of 1959. He died long before I was born. A few years ago I asked my mother what kinds of flowers he grew. “Hmmm, roses and peonies. Oh and dahlias, I think,” said my mother.
At the time I thought: too bad, those aren’t really my thing.
But in April of this year I found myself curiously, unexpectedly, drawn to roses. In April I planted a bareroot ‘Therese Bugnet’ in my side yard. And I’ve been pausing over the dahlia pages in nursery catalogs.
The garden is a habitat of mighty forces, and I’m not just talking about photosynthesis.
Black Walnut Dispatch 