Posts | Deborah Silver & Co.

An Approach To The The Work

Every holiday expression asks first and foremost for all of the senses in concert with an active imagination. Once the design presents itself, the next move is to design the construction. A project in its imagined state can be described with a pencil and a piece of paper. A gesture. A project under construction has a whole other set of issues. Every project requires fabrication. A strong fabrication plan brings an idea to life. A great idea lacking a solid construction plan may fizzle. From Buck I have learned that once a project is approved, an approach to the work is the next step. Position the work where the task can comfortably be accomplished. In simple terms, any fabrication requires a fabrication set up. A good setup puts the materials where you need them. Working in poor light may result in work that does not stand up to the light of day. A good set up facilitates a great quality product.

The only time I put work on the floor is when I am finished making it. I can sit at a desk if I am writing, but if I am making anything-whether it be a topiary, a container arrangement, or a garland, standing up is a comfortable place to be. This means a layout table that is of a comfortable height-counter height or even higher. We have lots of garlands under construction for a project. We set up a long series of cardboard boxes at waist height to handle the 50 foot lengths. The approach to the work doesn’t need to be fancy, it just needs to work. The finished garlands were taken off our cardboard tables once they were constructed, and moved to the floor.

Any work I do, I want to be right side up. I want the materials close to my eye. I have no interest in working on the floor, in the dark, or in an environment that is just too cold. A project that is set up properly makes for accurate and efficient work. The best fun and the hardest work of the holiday season is how every step requires great attention to detail and hand work.

This means that the work done in the shop goes faster, and makes the installation so much easier. A holiday garland is about great fresh greens, but it is also about what gets added to those greens. Dressing a garland asks for a sense of rhythm. Sometimes, boom-boom-boom. Other times boom-boom-boom-ah. An evergreen garland is a big thick and unwieldy object. With the garland set at waist height for me to decorate, I can concentrate on on the finer points of the construction. This garland was all set to represent the moment it was installed.

What Angie added to this garland in the shop she was able to do with dispatch. She had figured out an approach to the work. I would go so far as to say her construction was elegant. A shop setup enabled her to do what she knows how to do. My advice is to do as much of any holiday construction-whether it be a wreath or a garland or a pot-inside. A garage is a much more comfortable place to work than on the sidewalk. A garage floor is easy to sweep-outdoors in winter weather, the cleanup is tough.

We do not approach the work in the field. This takes too much time. It is very hard and extra time consuming to put something together with gloves on. We approach the work in our garage. The morning we travel to install for the winter or the holidays, we have already sorted out how the installation will proceed.

These garlands were constructed in our shop. Once they were outside, the job at hand was to was to attach, and fluff. All that was left to clean up were the cutoffs from the zip ties, and some stray needles. Our garage is a big hot mess this time of year, and I like to keep it there. The time will eventually come when I decorate at home. Taking the time for those little personal touches at home is part of the pleasure of the season.

If you are a gardener in sole charge of your winter garden, I would suggest that you sort out an approach to the work first. Gardening is real work, no matter the season. A friendly set up with the proper tools is a great headache preventative.

Those cardboard boxes came in very handy.

Posted on: November 19, 2013 11 Comments

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

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.