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Buck’s Charisse Box

I am so very pleased that one of our Branch boxes is featured in an article written by Marian McEvoy in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal.  Even though I have already written about it on the Detroit Garden Works facebook page, there is a story behind the design, development and fabrication of a container for a garden that might be of interest.      

First off you need a building-a studio.  That studio needs tools both big and little.  A few five ton bridge cranes have turned out to be very helpful.  But most of all you need people who can turn an idea into an object. I have always wanted to design and fabricate beautiful containers and ornament for the garden.  A container that can withstand any climate or season, from the salt air in Florida to the heat in Texas and the cold in Minnesota, is a container that can provide many years of service.  Given that lead, that classic material for garden ornament, sculptures and containers has become incredibly costly, steel with a finish that brings the color of lead to mind seemed like a good idea.  The Charisse box is not so easy to fabricate.  The frame and handles are made of both tubular and solid round lengths of steel.  Welding one section to another requires a lot of cutting and precise fitting.  Sal, Dan and Buck fabricate for Branch, but these were Buck’s to make.    

Each box is assembled from a lot of pieces that need to be cut fairly close to perfect.  Mistakes in the length and angles of a piece, times many pieces, can add up to a box that bears no resemblance to square. The only square stock in the frame is a diamond, welded from curved lengths of steel.  Buck’s other boxes have a simple and solid design.  I was interested in making one box that was a more graceful.  Making steel look graceful is not so easy. 

It took quite some time just to get the frame together, square and true.  Since the original Charisse boxes were made in 2005, changes have been made.  Though Buck does multiple CAD drawings for everything he builds, the finished box tells the tale.  Certain dimensions have been altered.  It takes more time than I ever thought it would to get the size and proportion of a box just where it should be     

The scrolled steel handles and diamonds came next.  The tops of the tubular steel has small steel shperes welding to them as a finishing touch.  Steel straps are welded to the bottom of the frame, to hold the steel box that would slip inside the frame.

The legs have an inverted flower detail.  Each leg has several of them welded together, for strength.

The bottom of the leg has a sleeve of thicker and larger steel, for stability.  This is a very heavy box, supported by very slender legs. 

There are plenty of details, and lots of curves. 

handle detail

snail scroll handles

the Branch Studio tag

The article is a very interesting and well written discussion of containers in the garden, and garden containers that will withstand fall and winter weather.  Containers filled with plants in the landscape in all of the seasons sounds appealing.  Something in the landscape to look at besides snow on the ground and gray skies is a good plan.  That Buck’s Charisse box would be on her list of beautiful and weather-worthy containers -all of us are really thrilled about that.  

WSJ.com – Hot Pots For the Chilly Lot

 

 

 

Posted on: October 14, 2012 Leave a Comment
Filed Under: container planting, The Branch Studio, Garden Ornament, Detroit Garden Works Tagged With: , , , ,

Thinking Spring

The last two nights have been astonishingly cold, considering it is early October-not early November. This morning, my brown sweet potato vines were limp-the effect of too much cold, and gravity. The summer season is indeed coming to a close.  Most of my pots have been cleaned out.  The olive tree and rosemary have been repotted, and have been brought into the greenhouse.

The red leaved hibiscus looks much like the potato vine-all of its spirit has drained away.   The summer season is coming to a close much faster than I bargained for.  But I have a spring ahead, that needs my attention.  The spring flowering bulbs need to be planted now, if I plan to see them begin to bloom next March.

There are lots of good reasons not to plant bulbs.  The air temperature is cold-the soil temperature is wet and cold.  Planting brown orbs is momumentally unsatisfying.  Once placed below ground, there is nothing to show for the effort.  The fruits of the efforts are months away.  Do you remember where you had crocus, and where you need more?  I don’t either. 

Can you remember where you thought a few more alliums would be good?  Me neither.  Are you tired to the bone from trying to keep your garden watered in extraordinary heat that characterized this season, and irritated about the lack of rain?  Can we not get some rain? 

As irritating as a frustrating gardening season can be, the future requires a fresh eye.  At this time of year a fresh eye takes the form of a round, brown, and plump bulb.  Or in the case of anemone blanda, a brown, wrinkled and dry bulb. 

It is a miracle of nature-how a tulip and its flower and leaves are sleeping, entirely contained inside a bulb.  A tulip bulb is a small, fairly round, and brown papery promise of what is to come.

Number one grade daffodil bulbs are more complex in shape-but they are just as brown and inert.  Globemaster Allium bulbs are quite large, and juicy looking.  Allium albopilosum-is anyone in there?    I understand that when my fall bulbs arrive, they are dormant.  They need planting.  They need a cold period of a good many weeks.  But to look at them, it is hard to imagine the life that is inside.

 

Spring blooming crocus are such a relief in March.  They are not so expensive-it is very easy to sign up for a hundred or more.  Once those 100 bulbs arrive, the thought of planting one hundred of anything seems formidable.  The small package that they arrive in is easy to loose track of.

 

All of this said, I would be most disappointed in myself if spring arrived, with no spring flowering bulbs breaking ground.  I would only have myself to blame.  It would just be much better if I could break free of that image of my cold sacked potato vine, and invest in my future.

I rarely plant spring flowering bulbs in the ground.  Most of what I do in  ground involves crocus, hybrid trout lilies, and snow drops.  Planting bulbs in pots is easy, quick-and eminently satisfying.

I am not interested in forcing bulbs.  Other people/nurseries do this far better than I could ever hope to do.  Do I buy forced bulbs in March-yes. Anythoing that blooms in March lifts my spirits.  My personal plan- I like potting up bulbs in planters, and storing them in the garage.  I bring them out in March-the first hint of spring.  They bloom at the same time that they would bloom, if they were planted in ground.  They bloom on time, and in season-without all of the headache of digging in an in ground planting.

Potting up bulbs in containers is so easy.  I use a good compost loaded soil mix.  I plant the bulbs shoulder to shoulder.  Planting them in fiber pots means they can be dropped into a treasured container come spring without much fuss.  Clay pots, concrete pots, fiber pots-I plant loads of bulbs in containers.   Tulips on my front porch in spring-love this. Little pots of crocus or muscari dress up a spring table.

Best of all, the fall planting/spring blooming bulbs speak strongly to the hope for the future garden.  Every serious gardener makes something grow. 

 

Making something grow is a very good idea.

 

Posted on: October 9, 2012 11 Comments
Filed Under: Fall, container planting, Plants, Spring Tagged With: , ,

Classic

Classic-this word suggests those design details that withstand the passage of time.  A classic suit, a classic black dress, a classic room- each is timeless.  Satisfying and visually meaningful , no matter the era.  A landscape design that is classic gives no hint of its age or period.  These extraordinary designs in no way reflects a trend, or popular opinion.  They just are, on their own, in spite of the passage of years or the whim of popular opinion, extraordinary.   

The gardening trends that turned my head over the past 35  years are many-that story if of not so much interest to you, or to me.  But some gestures are classic.  Worth going back to again and again.  Green and white-this color scheme is a garden classic. 

Green and white has a history of expression in the landscape that knows no bounds.  White flowers nestled into a green landscape-Sissinghurst, in a word.  A white garden-timeless.  Green and white awnings-a classic expression that can be interpreted in an entirely contemporary way.  Green and white is a simple, maybe obvious decision for a landscape or a garden room, but it is a classic one. 

I am attracted to color.  Bright color.  Saturated color.  Like a moth to the brightly colored light-that would be me.  But I am appreciative of those classic garden gestures that rely solely on green and white.  There are lots of shades of green.  White in the garden has a wide range-from cream to bright white.  Green describes no end of colors-from lime to blue-green.  A good garden pays much attention to the greens of the foliage, as the flowers are so ephemeral and short lived.  I admire any designer who works with an eye for color.

The fall season features the colors traditionally associated with the harvest.  Orange, yellow and cream.  The drying leaves are taupe, and brown.  The kales and cabbages are dark purple, and turquoise.  The pansies are cream yellow, and strikingly intense yellow.  Pansies are available in blue, lavender, and rose.  Fiber optic grass is lime green, as is angelina.  

That said, there are bright whites, creamy whites, dark greens available in the fall. Green and white is a classic-in the garden, in the conservatory, in the landscape.  Local growers are happy to oblige those gardeners who have a mind to represent a classic look.  Or a traditional look.  Or a funky look.  The availability of lots of different choices means that every gardener can have a look that expresses their own distinctive point of view.

This client subscribes to a classic look.  No matter the season, she likes green and white.  Should you not be interested in the yellows and oranges that characterize a Michigan fall, you have other choices.  She was hesitant to fill these steel boxes with gourds and pumpkins, until I told her she could have green and white. 


The cultivation of a garden is the product of a very indivual expression.  The head gardener-that would be you.  Each Michigan fall harvest season is big and wide enough to provide materials that enable every gardener to speak their piece. In their own way. The oranges and brown traditionally associated with our fall are not a given.  You have the freedom to express the fall in whatever way you want.  Nature provides for a lot of choices.  You need only choose.  These boxes loaded with green and white pumpkins and gourds would not be  to my client’s taste.  She was not aware that she had choices other than orange.  She was relieved not to have any orange, yellow, brown, or cream.   This does not surprise me-she has taste that runs to the classic.

Posted on: October 2, 2012 4 Comments
Filed Under: Fall, container planting Tagged With: , , , , ,

Shop Your Own

Once the summer garden wanes, every devoted gardener is looking to extend their expression on into the fall.  Why wouldn’t they?  The alternatives are not pretty- sulking is not a good look.  I understand that the love for the garden is not something that be turned on and off, like water from a spigot.  Fall containers and plantings enable gardeners to take advantage of the fruits of the harvest, the late blooming perennials, and the cold tolerant annuals.  Just today I spoke with a client who told me he hated this time of year-the coming of the end of the garden.  Michigan is a great place to garden, as we do have four seasons-each distinctly different than the others.  Why not take advantage of that?

Farmer’s markets and garden centers feature loads of fall plants, pumpkins, and gourds this time of year. There are mums and asters to be had, and pots of grasses, seeding.  Petunias and salvias are all good with the cold. I will confess I buy lots of them-for my own garden, and my shop.  But as blog reader Alan Fox put so clearly, I am driving with one eye to the road, and my gardener’s eye to what lies on the side of the road, or in my own garden, that might help make my fall containers more interesting.

Anyone who grows a perennial garden has fall material available to them.  The thick stalks of perennial hibiscus, laden with seeds, dries beautifully.  Bunches of ornamental grass, or dry hydrangeas are good looking.   My own Acanthus mollis, or bear’s britches, has stems and seeds that are uncommonly beautiful.  Any perennial or grass whose stems dry can enrich your description of the fall season. 

Bear’s britches from my garden, and butterfly seed pods from the field next door make a great fall centerpiece.  I did spray the acanthus with a clear sealer-this helps to glue the seeds in place.  The brown dyed eucalyptus adds a little warm company.  This pansy mix would be a little lonely all on its own, but it as a member of this group, it shines.


Statice longifolia is easy to grow, provided you have a loty of sun, and soil that drains in an instant.  A mature plant in full bloom is like a cloud of lavender blue.  Though that color is fairly short lived once it is cut, it lasts long enough to enrich a fall pot.  The stems themselves are easy to dry. 

The field next door has plenty of plants which have gone dormant. No end of wild plants have sturdy stems that can grace a fall container or display.  Many are even strong enough to survive the winter intact. The field next door has grasses seeding, weeds going to their skeletal stage. The remains of the summer Queen Anne’s Lace, in a substantial mass-quite beautiful.  The creams and browns may not be as showy as a delphinium in full bloom, but they have their own charm.

The fuzzy bits of these spotted knapweed stems are surprisingly sturdy.  Centaurea stoebe is a short lived but very vigorous perennial one would not invite into a cultivated garden.  But their remains are lovely. 

Rumex crispus, or curly dock, has strikingly robust seed heads.  It is just one of many materials that are readily available.  Foraging the roadsides can be a treasure trove of natural materials for fall.  The only time I would ever welcome a Canada thistle into my life would be the dead and dried version.  In this form, I like it. 

    

All those roadside weeds freshly matured into their fall forms, and arranged as a centerpeice can be quite handsome in a pot.  This time of year, more than any other, I envy those gardeners with wild places on their property full of popple branches, rosa multiflora, chicory, butterfly weed, centaura, sumac and so on that look so graceful in a fall arrangement.

Posted on: September 30, 2012 2 Comments
Filed Under: Fall, container planting Tagged With: , ,