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Sunday Opinion: Rob Overseas

As I write, Rob is winging his way towards Europe. He sent me this photograph from his seat on the plane as the sun was rising behind the curvature of the earth-breathtaking.  The plan-a two week buying trip that will include antique shows, and visits to dealers in garden ornament with whom we have long standing relationships.  He has not shopped for Detroit Garden Works in Europe for a few years-I have my reasons. The purchase price of any garden ornament in another country is only the beginning of what it costs to have that object in the shop.  Rob has to fly over; he needs food and lodging every day.  Anything he purchases needs to be collected, stored for a time, maybe crated for shipping,  get shipped to New York or Montreal, loaded onto a train for Detroit, cleared through US customs via a custom’s broker, trucked to the shop, and unloaded.  Everything that gets unloaded needs to be uncrated and inspected.  All of the crating and packing material needs disposal.  This is an arduous and expensive process.  Furthermore, the currency exchange rate has not been so friendly the last few years. One year I had a container devanned in Norfolk Va.  US Customs randomly picks containers arriving from Europe to be completely unloaded, and inspected.  The expense incurred by this “devanning”-mine.  In the process of offloading, and reloading, I had many objects damaged by fork lift forks, and careless repacking. Though I insure my European shipments, it took 2 years to negotiate a settlement for a fraction of the worth of the damaged load.  Every time I shop overseas, I hope for smooth sailing over the ocean, and a lucky number in customs. We concentrated on shopping the US the past few years, with good results. But no matter the origin, that unique mix of antique, vintage and one of a kind objects is what makes the shop an experience unlike any other.  Rob goes to a lot of time and trouble to insure that should you walk through the door, the odds you will find something you have not seen before are good. The odds of finding something that will delight or enchant your gardening self are very good. The only routine he observes is the change of the seasons.  To that end,  Rob is on his way back to Europe to shop.

Rob’s first scouting trip to Europe for me was in 1993. I wanted a shop devoted to interesting objects for gardens in the worst way, and for a long time.  What was available to me locally to place in a landscape or garden-not so swell. Rob had a winter ski trip he had planned to Austria; to this I added a two week trip through France and Italy.  Just to look around, and see what was available.  To meet whomever he could who shared that interest in garden ornament.  How excited we were about the arrival of 2 pallets of French pottery from the Poterie de Biot, and two pallets of Italian terra cotta from Mital- hilarious. I sold every one of those pots to landscape and garden clients.  Three years later, when I bought the building that would become Detroit Garden Works, he had a plan in place for shopping and shipping from overseas. 

That plan has changed dramatically in the past 18 years.  No longer does he haul around articles from European design publications and travel guides in a briefcase. Monica and Jenny joined forces to produce a map detailing his intended stops- courtesy of Google Earth.  A GPS gizmo called a Garmin into which he downloaded country maps and travel guides will get him where he wants to go efficiently and predictably.  Gone are the days of winging his way through the Alps trying to find France.      

Many of the relationships he made years ago are still in place.  Though he will be seeing friends he has not seen in a long time, I am quite sure there will be new people, new places-the unexpected. The Monday morning update-he’s busy shopping some place he has never been before.

Posted on: October 4, 2010 2 Comments
Filed Under: Strictly Opinion Tagged With: , , , ,

At A Glance: Early October

Posted on: October 3, 2010 Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Picture This, Good Design, Garden Design Tagged With: , , ,

Unfinished Sculptures

My last Sunday opinion post I entirely owe to Nanne-she made me think long and hard about the relationship of imagination to precision.  Unbeknownst to her, she waded headlong into one of my stuck spots.  I had this idea to make models of gardens I doubted anyone would ask me to build.  Who knows where that idea came from, but when I have an idea, I try to play along. Fine so far.  After clumsily trying to build them out of foam core, Buck waved my story off, and  asked for drawings.  Pretty soon, basswood in thicknesses between 1/16th and 1/32nd of an inch and in varying widths, began arriving via UPS. 

He wanted to build the models on a birch plywood base, finished on its four edges with molding.  They could be set flat on a table, or floor-or hung on a wall.  This construction reminded him of the slide wire potentiometers he collects.  As you are probably a gardener, and not a collector of old scientific instruments, I will elaborate.  Buck collects vintage instruments which were used to measure voltage; he thinks they are beautiful objects.  Many of them were finely finished and presented in mohogany cabinets or cases; his office wall is covered with them. Some instruments were part of university laboratories.  Some were commissioned for industry.  To the last, they are very finely calibrated scientific instruments which were extremely expensive to purchase in their day.  He buys those the looks of which interest him, takes them apart, cleans and restores them.    

These instruments interested me when I saw them, but they did not enchant.  Years later, I understand and appreciate his enchantment.  There was some astonishingly imaginative person who designed and made a beautiful object which would in addition precisely measure volts.  Very precisely.  My garden models, and his love for old scientific instruments-an interesting mix.  My drawings were about to be transformed from lines into shapes.   Each model he painstakingly reproduced in basswood, from my drawings. His bench-littered with pieces of wood light enough and thin enough to float.  They are clearly not landscapes-they are sculptures.   There are four unfinished sculptures to date, each 24″ by 36″. 

He fussed and fretted about the construction-much like I do, when I have a landscape project underway.  When I am at home gardening, and have a problem or a full blown impasse, I back up, and fix myself a lemonade.  When I am working, I fuss and fret, and fret a little more.  It does not help to fix a lemonade, or go home. I have to stick with it. It could be a video about how Buck constructed these models is of vastly more interest than the sculptures themselves.  Why? I am having trouble trying to figure out where to take his work next.  

I imagine a landscape as a three dimensional sculpture.  Everything about that sculpture occupies me like an army.  Buck’s questions about the models-the eventual heights, distances and spaces-much like what I think about every day. But his precise questions regarding the length, width, depth, and height of elements in these sculptures forced me to think less about landscape and more about my intentions.      

A property needing landscape can be forgiving of what you have not accounted for in a drawing. A big idea may leave out that space or this corner.  This might make a landscape renovation more difficult than a landscape starting from scratch.  Buck’s wood sculptures I would not need to keep alive. They need to be brought to a visual life.  

While Buck is absorbed constructing these sculptures, I have time to panic.  What will I do to finish them, once he is done? What will go in all those spaces?   

Two of the four sculptures have been done for 5 months.  I have been scheming to provide an imaginative  finish worthy of his precise effort.  As much as I would like to have an answer, nothing is coming-yet. I had originally planned to fill my hedges with reindeer moss in different colors.  Now I am not so sure.  I could fill them with various sized wood spheres, stained the same mahogany color as the geometric shapes.  I could stain the interiors of the spaces, and do nothing more.  I could fill the shapes with seeds or dyed wool roving .     


 If you have ever made a change in a garden only to see that choice go on to change how you see everything around it, you will see my dilemma.  Gardeners have to go on, and live with their choices. This tree over that tree.  This perennial over a world of other perennials.  This groundcover instead of that. There are so many plants from which to choose-all of them different, many with merit.  All of this leads me to think about those treasured moments in my own garden which were much more about accident than by design.  That chance nicotiana seeding and growing up in the gravel walk.   

I got involved with these models by design. It is looking like I may finish them by accident.

Posted on: October 2, 2010 5 Comments
Filed Under: Landscape Design, Good Design

Good Days

There are those times when the garden has a good day.  Good all over. The late day sun slanting across the lawn, and the hydrangeas going pink-just good.  I poked my camera lens through the gate for this picture.  One of my favorite parts of my garden-I see nothing of the neighbors, and very little of the street.  The hydrangeas spilling over the lawn makes it all the more like a garden hideaway.

The fountain garden is back to being its serene self-post new drainage work, giant fountain repairs, all new herniaria-and a new bench.  I cannot tell this part of my garden was under siege until mid July. Buck is testing the waters already about shutting the fountain down for the winter-I am waving him off.

A client that needed a 9 foot long scroll steel bench right away for an event got mine.  Though I wasn’t so happy at the prospect of being without a bench until a new one could be made, no doubt I had a chance to tinker with the design.  I had the new bench made four inches taller than the original.  This is much more comfortable for me, and considerably easier to get in and out of.  I had originally planted herniaria under the bench; it was not happy with the shade.  A new planting of European ginger seems to be working out fine. This is a better place now.

This bed of beech ferns once had Helleborus Angustifolius as a companion.  Try as I might, they suffered terribly in the winter.  As this species blooms on old stalks, even the bloom period was unsightly.  After 5 years I gave them up for European ginger.  The planting is lush and thick.  I am so glad those gawky hellebores are gone.

The rose garden is much brighter in the evening than the fountain garden; I like walking up into that light.  The stone stairs have been in long enough to have acquired a little moss. 

The rose garden is a destination in the evening; a pair of chairs and small table make it a perfect spot to sit and rehash the day.  The grass got cut yesterday; the corgis appreciate this.  When the grass gets long, they look like they are swimming through it, rather than running over it.  I still have intermittent roses; the boltonia and Japanese anemone are in full bloom.     

Japanese anemone is one of my favorite perennials; I like single flowers. I especially like late blooming single flowers.  I also like that I do next to nothing to it except look at it. It thrives in this garden for going on ten years now. 

I pollarded my overgrown Palabin lilacs on standard; it scared me , how hard I cut them back.  For weeks, not a peep out of either one of them.  They are starting to look good to me.

I am not sure why this sunken garden has a feeling unique to my garden. It might be the quietest spot in the yard.  I am only one block from a 5 lane street.  The fountain and the sunken garden minimize that urban noise.   

On the driveway, the nicotiana mutabilis is still going strong.  It will send up giant new shoots all fall long; I keep adding stakes.   

The mum-ball is turning pink-can you hear me sigh?  It actually does not look all that bad with the purple kale.  The bloom period is actually not that long here-I already have plans to trim it back to a green ball once the flowers fade.   


This coleus is done growing; the nights are getting quite cool.  Hopefully it will last a while longer.  The shape is good.  Some days in the garden are just good.

Posted on: September 30, 2010 3 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Ornament, Garden Design, Upon Reflection Tagged With: ,