The 2011 Woodward Dream Cruise is today. It is the world’s largest 1 day automotive event, drawing over a million visitors, and upwards of 30,000 classic cars. I went early this morning. It’s a happening, yes.
Archives for August 2011
At A Glance: Dream Cruise Today
Posted on: August 20, 2011 1 Comment
Peak Season
The containers on my deck have grown like crazy in the past month-we are approaching peak season. The weather has been perfect; most days have been sunny. Even so, we have had night temperatures lately in the 60’s. There are signs of summer’s end, as much as there are signs of summer’s peak. Though I could easily do with this weather a few more months, September 1st is just 2 weeks away. Once labor day comes, our summer is in decline. The nights are colder; it seems like less heat and energy comes from the sun. 
Annual plants grow and bloom with one end in mind; they need to set seed, before they are done in by frost. This is an exhausting task. All the while my container plants are putting on size and blooming great, there are signs of stress. The mildew I have struggled to avoid on my dahlias-it has claimed a few stalks. The fancy leaved geraniums pictured above are so rootbound I have to soak them every day. The Japanese beetles have discovered my canna flowers. The coleus despises the cooler night temperatures.
The mildew seems to be spreading to my petunias, for heavens sake. And the aphids on my licorice-this is a first for me. Do all of my containers grow to perfection-not even close. Just close enough to provide me with a lot of pleasure, looking after and at them. There are a few things I do to make the best of the last leg of the summer. I do feed my pots with liquid fertilizer regularly. Geraniums like lots of feed-ferns, not so much. Each one of my containers has a lot of plants in them, or plants that have grown large. I soak my pots with water, and then soak them with feed. Liquid feed is like a shot of B-12; I avoid the next watering as long as I can, so the plants benefit before a watering washes it all away. I am sure to flush my pots through between waterings, to prevent a build up of salts that can become toxic.
Most of my containers have grown skirts by now. When I water, I lift the plants up so I can see the soil. I water the surface of the soil-not the plant leaves. There is no sense encouraging mildew to spread. I soak them thoroughly, and then let them get quite dry. The rectangles on my north wall only get water twice a week. Overwatering begonias in hot weather is asking for rot. Caladiums will hang their heads when they need water. I snap off the old leaves out that get too tall, and threaten to engulf my chartreuse Janet Craig dracaenas.
Growing plants in containers is a live and learn proposition. As in-this rainbow coleus is a very big grower. This means there are big sections of stalks between sets of leaves. This makes it tough to get a good shape from the plant in a container. These Italian terra cotta urns look like they have top hats-funny, this. This variety would make a great hedge in the ground.
I know Milo is pretty handsome, but the message here is about keeping things clean. I remove dead or diseased foliage. I sometimes thin plants to improve air circulation. And I pick up what falls on the ground. I leave no debris. What I would gladly let decompose in my garden I don’t think is good for my containers. My big Norway maple is raining disease ridden leaves; I pick them up, and throw they away. Fungus can live over the winter. Sometimes clean gardening practices is your only defence.
My terrace is my version of a kitchen garden. Buck cooks here, and I look after the pots. My small bi-level deck has 14 containers. It is a rare evening that there is not something to putter over-I like this. I only get into trouble when I let them go too long. Consistent attention is much better than an occasional look. Hauling the containers here from the basement, filling them with soil, and planting-that’s real work. The work now is not that tough, and at some time during the process I plain start to feel better.
The jumble pot of petunias and trailing verbena has been great, and still looks great-even on the inside. I have been very careful to pick up the plant mass hanging over the edge, and deal directly with the soil. I have kept this on the very dry side-a strategy that seems to be working.
I only had one shot left on my camera before the battery died the other morning. The pink light at dawn-wow. My little garden is anything but perfect, but at moments like this, I am very glad to have it.
Posted on: August 19, 2011 4 Comments
Finished Fountain
I wrote a post earlier in the week about painting a fountain; this was the last step in the renovation of this space. This was the look in 2005. Once the fountain painting was done, we painted the interior of the pool with black pool paint. The water plants came last.
Posted on: August 19, 2011 Leave a Comment
That Plastic Grass Sculpture
What lies behind ball number 3? I could write a novella about this client, but here is the short version. She has kept me on the edge of my design seat for better than 10 years. By this I mean she encourages me to be the best I can be. Her point of view takes unique and original to an entirely different level. She collects contemporary art, and has a fierce love for great architecture of any description. Her landscape is unlike any other that I know of, and is mostly of her own doing.
8 years ago I made this plastic grass sculpture for her. To be installed in this very fine and rare example of 19th century French iron cutwork urn lined in tin. She bought the urn from the shop-her ideas about how to plant it startled me. Would it have been my idea to plant this urn with spheres of plastic grass-no. I followed suit-this is mostly what I do with her. Had I ever made anything like this before-assuredly not. Did I like it-yes. Even on a gloomy day in January, there is a garden party going on. I am skipping over a lot of discussion between the two of us, but in the end, I believed these grass planets hovering did her particular style of justice to the urn, and the space.
Many years this sculpture endured the sun-I had a call from her a month ago asking that I redo it. The fire had gone out of those spheres. I find even the most UV light resistant material will eventually show signs of fading. The materials available now are somewhat different than what I had to work with 8 years ago, but the interior structure and urethane spheres were intact. These spheres bob all around on a windy day; I was pleased to see that the only part of the sculpture that needed attention were the grass mats.
Once the urn and sculpture were delivered to my shop, we removed all of the faded grass mats and assessed what materials we would need to recover and redo those 7 urethane spheres.
The grass mats are comprised of a plastic grid; each intersection of that grid has a tuft of grass. Given that the lime green plastic grass had the best resistance to fading, I decided to do more spheres in that color, with a variety of textures. The mats come 12 inches square, so fitting them to the curved surfaces takes a little ingenuity, and a lot of time.
We removed the grass tufts, and fitted the grids in much the same pattern as the original. Even on the largest sphere, no 12″ by 12″ grid would lay flat. We had to cut the grids just small enough to enable a smooth surface. Once the grid pieces had their tufts reattached, we filled in any areas that seemed thin with grid pieces 12″ long, and one tuft wide. Each piece of grid is secured to the surface of the sphere with greening pins. A lot of this work had to be done on a ladder; the overall height of the piece is about 7 feet.
This chartreuse plastic grass has vibrant color, and great texture. Neither the urethane balls nor the grass mats absorb water. Both rain and snow keep it clean.
A new life for this sculpture-we finished it today. I like a working life that has lots of variety, and in this case, a little off beat. Does it bother me-the plastic part? Not at all. No matter the material, the sculpture is the result of the work of a group of real people.
We loaded up the sculpture this morning. A large diameter steel ring fastened to the interior of the urn keeps the sculpture upright. This was an important part of the construction, as the finished piece is extremely heavy. This also meant we were able to move the entire piece with relative ease.
The sculpture is back in place, doing its provocative best to tell another kind of story.
Posted on: August 17, 2011 6 Comments