container planting | Deborah Silver & Co.

All Mixed Up

Gardeners routinely mix plants and design elements up in the landscape. They favor this soil mix over that one. They mix all kinds of fertilizer from manure tea to fish emulsion. Hybrid plants suggest a mix of that gene pool with another. A mixer suggests a party attended by people from very different points of view. This guarantees that a mixer will be lively and entertaining. Mixed reviews on a film suggests there are ups and downs-will you take a chance, and go watch it for yourself? A mix can suggest a special brew, an individual take on a theme. A mix of perennials in a garden can help keep that garden interesting throughout the season.

A mix of evergreen trees on the lot line is less formal, more natural, than a mass planting of a single species. A mix of bird seed will attract more than one species of bird to your feeder. The process of mixing up a scheme is a creative process. Mixing colors results in a visual display that has depth. Mixing a plant with big texture with another plant of a smaller texture can be striking. Adding another or an unexpected element to the mix-glorious.

Oil and water do not mix without enormous effort. A color mix from opposing sides of the color wheel can catch the eye. Side by side color mixes are harmonious. Certain mixes are bound to produce conflict. Thus the art of a seating arrangement at a dinner party or wedding. It is astonishing to think that every color imaginable comes from a mix of the three primary colors. Primary colors mixed together may make for mud. Colors mixed together in other proportions can produce colors of astonishing beauty.

Mix a violin with a voice-revel in the result. Mix a black eyed Susan with a liatris-glaring this. Mix a Sum and Substance hosta with Russian sage-this is horticultural discord for all to see. Creating a successful mix of anything is an art. By this I mean that no college offers courses in how to mix one material with another. Were I to follow a recipe for a cake to the letter, it still might look and taste bad.

For certain clients, we elect to fill their pots with mixed greens. The airy and contrasting textures seem appropriate, for whatever reason. A mix of evergreen boughs can produce lots of volume But just like imagining a mix of greens in the landscape, mixing greens in a winter container takes great skill. The mix involves cuttings from evergreen shrubs that have very different growth habits. How to make those cuttings work together to form a strong and cohesive statement-beyond me. My landscape crews have a hand. What do I mean by this? They have so many years behind them-planting. They have a feel for the natural shape of a bough, and they know how to work with it. Even more amazing is their ability to make evergreens of all types work together in a container arrangement.

No natural evergreen in the landscape has a mix of different types of branches, unless it is a grafted form from the Jean Iseli Nursery. Each evergreen has an identity all its own. Mixing the cut branches to harmonious effect, and a beautiful overall shape, is not so easy.

Most cut evergreens have a signature swoop. White pine and incense have very flexible stems. This means they can be flattened by a snow storm. We either support the weak stemmed evergreens with a neighbor that has a stiff and stout habit, or we stick the branch so they curve up. Gravity will have its say soon enough. Fresh branches have plenty of spring, but as they dry, they will droop. If you are a fan of weeping branches, then perhaps this is the route to take.

If your idea of celebratory is more along the lines of upswept, then stick arrange your branches so they all appear to curve up towards the sky. Before I hang a mixed evergreen garland, I cut in in half, and rotate one side, and reattach it. I hang the garland so the branches face up. As the branches succumb to gravity, the garland looks full. Garlands hung with the branches down look skimpy . Garlands hung with the branches facing up on one side, and facing down on the other will always look lopsided.

Sticking greens both up and down can be a lively choice. These pots are in a very protected location, meaning they will be shielded from bad winter weather. It takes a good eye and a better hand to spot how much liveliness is just enough, and not visually confusing and chaotic. But do not be discouraged in any way. It takes lots of practice to get good at anything. I have no idea how many winter and holiday arrangements we have done in the past 20 years, but a lot is a reasonable number.

There’s plenty of satisfaction to be had from learning how to do.

Posted on: November 24, 2013 8 Comments

Filed Under: Woody Plants, Holiday, container planting, Winter Tagged With: winter containers, holiday containers, holiday construction, evergreen boughs, cut evergreens, mixed evergreens

The Dogs At Chase Tower

My company Detroit Garden Works is in the garden ornament business. We buy and sell ornament for the garden – new, vintage, and antique and repurposed, from sources in the US and Europe. What is a garden ornament? Any object deliberately placed in a landscape or garden. This definition would include pergolas, sundials, sculptures, bird feeders, benches, trellises, staddle stones, topiary forms, grapevine or stone spheres. Fountains and water features. Found objects, fencing, topiary plants. Espaliered trees, arbors, and stone cisterns. Tables and chairs. Rain water collection barrels and boot scrapers. Containers are garden ornament. They may be handmade Italian terra cotta, or galvanized buckets. They may be old apple or tulip crates. They may be contemporary Belgian stoneware, or cast stone versions of classical garden urns. They may be lead, or steel containers from Branch. They may be concrete, or wood, or cast iron.

A garden ornament may be as modest as a gazing globe on a steel stand, or as elaborate as a waterfall and pond. No matter the subject or scale, a garden ornament makes a statement about the taste and interests of gardener in charge. The inclination to ornament or decorate a space is natural. People decorate their houses with objects that help to create that atmosphere which feels like home. How a home is furnished says something about the taste, values and priorities of the person who lives there. There may be objects treasured for their history. One person might decorate their place with art, and that art could be sculpture, or paintings, or quilts or hand painted china. Buck collects vintage doll heads, typewriters, scientific instruments, and accordions. His personal spaces are just like him, as they reflect who he is, and how he sees things.

A landscape or garden is no different. A garden endowed with ornament says something very personal about the garden maker. An ornament can infuse a landscape with an atmosphere of history, mystery, or whimsy. There are no end of gardens where roses are growing. But the garden that has roses growing in profusion over a picket fence has a much different feeling than the garden that features roses trained as single ball topiaries, planted in orangerie boxes. A 19th century cast iron bench is not just a place to sit. It is an expression of an aesthetic much different than what is created by 3 rough hewn slabs of granite assembled as a bench.

So why this discussion of decoration? Once the plants in the garden shed their leaves and go dormant, a landscape with no ornament can be bleak place indeed. I am thinking about this, as we have just begun our winter and holiday decorating. Topiary forms, arbors, and pergolas will get lights wound around them. Doorways will be festooned with garland. Containers will get winter coats and hats. Wreaths will be decorated, and hung on the front door. Lights in every shape and color will be hung from the eaves, or stuffed into the pots. A bench will get a cushion of fresh greens. The trees will be hung with grapevine and light garlands. A Japanese maple decorated with glass drops will glitter all winter long. A sundial will get a wreath boa.

As for the dogs at Chase Tower, they have a carpet of greens. The dogs look like they have just paraded through a stand of yellow twig dogwood, their leashes trailing behind them. They have topknots and collars that are one part holiday, and 2 parts winter. Is this really what was in my mind when we decorated these pots? Yes. Decorating that tells a story will have an impact. There is an amusing and charming story being told that will make the winter a little easier to bear.

See what I mean?

I do see the decorating outdoors for the holiday and winter as a form of gardening. A trowel or garden spade is useless this time of year. The sight of them on the shelf, dusty rather than dirty, is irritating. On the other hand, a pair of pruners and a spool of good garden twine might be all the tools you need to decorate the garden for winter.

Woof!

Posted on: November 17, 2013 15 Comments

Filed Under: Holiday, container planting, Winter, Garden Ornament, Detroit Garden Works Tagged With: Garden Ornament, winter containers, seasonal decor

Stick Work

Mid November is a good time to be planning what you might do to interpret the garden and landscape for the holiday and the winter. Early is the best time to get going on a scheme. The most compelling reason has to do with weather. The past few years, our late fall was very mild. Mild means it is reasonably easy to work outdoors. A really cold late fall makes so much work of any installation outdoors. For those gardeners that do their own work, dramatically cold fall temperatures is enough to make anyone consider skipping the winter work altogether.

My advice-don’t skip any experience of the garden. Plant roses, peonies, trees, and wildflowers. Plant bulbs in the ground, or in pots. Grow topiaries and espaliers. Plant clematis and tomatoes. Take a liking to asters, and amass a collection. Make enthusiasm for the garden and landscape a way of life. Plan to express a winter idea-you will not be sorry. On and off, we have had extremely cold temperatures in November. The temperature today when I came to work was 20 degrees. This is unseasonably cold, but by no means unheard of. I remember those years when we had to chop frozen soil out of pots in order to install a winter arrangement. Should night temperatures this low persist for much longer, our winter installations will be arduous. Tough conditions in the landscape are my problem-not my client’s problem.

If your winter garden is all your own to create, I would urge you to get dressed, and get out there. The forecast for our coming weekend calls for 50 degrees both days. All you need for a stellar winter arrangement in your pots are some great materials, a load of lights, and an atmosphere in which you have time to concentrate. Once I am in the process of stuffing a pot with sticks for the winter, I do not much notice the cold. The fresh cut branches we bring in for the winter season shrug off the cold-why shouldn’t I? I spent the entire day today outdoors, installing our first winter/holiday pots of the season.

Stick week-we take possession of so many beautiful fresh cut twigs. The stick work is what comes next. Those sticks can be bound together. They can provide the bulk and mass of a beautiful centerpiece. They can be stuck into the soil, one at a time. They can provide the stalk of a great winter topiary for a sideboard in the dining room. They can be woven around a form. Our bunches of fresh cut twigs delight and challenge me, in the beginning of that season when the landscape is going dormant. I find that the best antidote to loss is taking on the responsibility for a life that goes on. A gorgeous winter garden helps to take the sting out of experiencing a garden going down for the winter.

Nature provides a backdrop which is always interesting, and regularly spectacular. Figure in the wind, the snow, the sunny days, the gray days, the cold, the ice, and that special quality which we call natural. I have always posted entries to this online gardening journal of mine in real time. This year, my idea is to pose the questions, post the pictures, and speak to the season, ahead of time. In time for a reader to have time to consider all their options. Rob loads in all manner of materials for the holiday and winter season. I shop what he stocks at Detroit Garden Works for my projects. Sticks, picks, greens, garlands, magnolia, grapevine, sinamay, weather proof ornament-his selections are beautiful. Better than the beauty is the depth. He takes great care to represent a wide range of interests. Gardeners comprise a very big group with very diverse interests. Rob aims to engage each and every gardener.

We do anticipate the season to come-we have to. Rob and I shop for the holiday to come the previous January. We order materials in small numbers. We hope that each gardener will draw from a large group of a limited stock of materials to create a holiday and winter that produces an original and personal result. The order we place for sticks for your works happens in August. The holiday display at Detroit Garden Works takes weeks to create. We think ahead, so you do not have to. But this year, the weather may close out early. Our winter usually commences in January sometime. I am thinking the winter will come early this year. There is much stick work to do. If you plan to harvest materials from your yard, or from the roadside, or the empty lot next door-now is the time.

The curly copper willow that we installed in 12 pots downtown today is exuberant. Lively. I do so like the warm color. All of those curly stems are airy in a way only nature could create. Our part was to put together an arrangement in which the twigs would celebrate winter season in a striking way.

Our expression of the winter season for this client is a relationship forged from cut twigs, fresh cut greens, dyed kiwi vine, sugar pine cones, gold sinamay, and fresh cut magnolia. Any expression in the landscape revolves around a conversation. If you are a gardener, you have a voice. The season is another voice. Nature is the first and foremost voice. Multiple voices-harmonic.

All the voices interacting-love this.

Your winter season-love it up.

Posted on: November 14, 2013 16 Comments

Filed Under: Detroit Garden Works, Holiday, Plants, container planting, Winter Tagged With: winter containers, holiday decor, holiday containers, winter arrangements, winter garden

Fall Is For Planting

I like planting in the fall. The weather is cooler, and the rain more reliable. The work of it seems easier. Some plants are not so happy with a fall planting. I like to delay planting beech, birch, magnolia and dogwoods until the spring. Other species readily transplant in the fall, when they are dormant. Dormant plants suffer the trauma of transplant more readily when they are sleeping . I am uneasy about planting perennials much past the end of September, for fear they will not have enough time to root before the frost heaves them every which way- including out of the ground. However, it is never too late to plant spring flowering bulbs. Should you be able to get your shovel in the ground in February, the bulbs you bought in October will most likely be fine-provided you stored them in a cool spot.

This is our bulb planting week. We are tackling this project for clients later than usual-it has been a very busy fall. Most of our projects involve large spaces planted with tulips for spring. But we do have those people for whom we add a little of this and a little of that every year. No matter the scale of your garden, and the spaces you have available for spring flowering bulbs, taking the time to plant them is well worth the effort. When the winter breaks here in March, and the crocus come into bloom-that is a day I treasure. Both the Farmer’s Almanac and the National Weather Service is predicting a very cold and very snowy winter here. There is everything good about defending your gardening self with some spring flowering bulbs.

The spring flowering bulbs include tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and a whole host of small flowering bulbs. Don’t forget the alliums, which will bloom in June. All of the nurseries local to me have bulbs available. It seems like preaching to the choir to be encouraging gardeners to plant spring bulbs, but I have my reasons. Planting bulbs is just about the least satisfying planting done in the garden all year. When it is cold, windy, and wet, you are out there burying brown blobs in the dirt. When you are finished planting, you have nothing to show for all the work. Even more discouraging is the fact that the show is months away. I wouldn’t say that bulb planting is particularly pleasant for gardeners-it takes effort in conditions that are usually less than ideal. But the rewards in the spring-enormously satisfying.

As difficult as it may be to generate excitement for a job with no immediate rewards, the pleasure to come is worth the wait. Each one of those brown orbs is loaded with the promise of the gardening season to come.

I plant a lot of bulbs in pots. I find this easier than trying to imagine where my perennial garden might need tulips, or where I planted daffodils last year. I do not force the bulbs I plant in containers. I bury them under a huge pile of leaves, or store them in the garage, and bring them out early in March. I want them to bloom at the same time that they are blooming in the garden. Pots of spring flowering bulbs can be placed on a front porch, or by the back door, or dropped into a container. I like that I can move them around.

This may seem counter intuitive, but bulbs in pots will rot if they freeze solid through and through. The temperature of the soil is always warmer than the air temperature-but bulbs in pots do not have the luxury of the protection of the ambient warmth of the ground. There are certain places in our shop garage that are good for storing planted pots of bulbs.

Spring flowering bulbs are programmed from the start to come up, throw leaves, and bloom. Very little gets in the way of the way of that. I have had good luck repotting spring bulbs already in bloom into different containers, providing I handle them carefully. We did these grape hyacinths in little pots with the bulbs exposed for an event.

Miniature daffodils handle life in a pot a liottle better that the large flowered varieties. If I do pot up big growing daffodils, I keep the soil level well below the rim of the pot. That rim helps to keep the flowers and leaves standing upright. If I do bring potted flowering bulbs indoors, I try to find a relatively cool spot for them. An ideal spring for bulbs in the ground depends on cool weather during the day, and chilly weather at night. Once the weather gets warm, spring bulbs will fade.

The bulbs it would take to make a handsome spring garden could fit in a modestly sized box. I would seize one of the few remaining warm afternoons we will have, in pursuit of a little spring color.

A little box of spring flowering bulbs makes a big statement about spring.

tulips in the spring – indescribably delicious.

Posted on: October 22, 2013 14 Comments

Filed Under: container planting, Fall, Spring Tagged With: fall planting, spring flowering bulbs, spring flowering bulbs in containers

All Mixed Up

The Dogs At Chase Tower

Stick Work

Fall Is For Planting

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