Fall Fun
The better part of fall is the harvest from the garden. The pumpkins, the brussel sprouts and cabbage, the Romanesco broccoli, and the squashes are as delightful to look at as eat. The gourds in irresistible shapes and intense colors make you want to decorate something. I am glad to have something celebratory for the season. As I mentioned before, the cabbages and kales top my list of great fall plants. The centerpiece in the above pictured pot is unabashedly fake-just a little fall fun. This client owns a business set back quite some distance from the road. These tall and brightly colored picks, wired into a post of natural cedar whips, get some attention. The store looks dressed for fall.
Window boxes of size permit expression of size. These boxes are viewed primarily from a garden room indoors, so big and striking, and not too tall, is the order of the day. As they face the south, and are somewhat protected from freezing winds and cold temperatures, these boxes prosper late into the fall season and through Thanksgiving.
Whomever it was who invented stick stacks, I thank them. These 6 foot stacks comprised of wood cut into quarter inch by quarter inch squares are uniformly vertical when they go in a pot. A piece of steel rebar is driven deep into the pots, and the stack wired to it. This keeps the centerpiece from tilting. Funny how an element askew has that air of neglect about it. I like to see people keeping up the appearance of their homes from the street. Stick stacks change in appearance with exposure to weather. As the wood absorbs moisture from the air, they curve away from the center in a very graceful way. The preserved green eucalyptus weathers just about anything.
Tender is a fabulous dress shop that is known for its cutting edge fashion. Their fall pots are dressy. Maple leaves coated in copper shine, as do the pumpkins with a dusting of gold. Integrifolia dyed an intense shade of fall orange compliment the dyed pencil thin willow sticks. Orange and white pansies complete the ensemble.
This narrow courtyard, part of a condominium, is organized around four very large white concrete pots inlaid with bands of curved stainless steel wire. Fiber pots painted white in galvanized steel stands are home to my client’s tomato plants in the summer; the tall kale, pansies, and creeping jenny compliment the cabbages and ivy in the concrete pots in both form and feeling.
Lime integrifolia and diamond shaped moss pillows help create a clean and more modern look; not every client is enamoured of pumpkins and the like. Bleached sticks and pods complete the look.
Seed pods from tropical countries have an exotic look that adds a lot of interest to a planting of pansies. These stems are ruggedly weather resistant. I am not really sure from what plant they come, but the stringy leaf stalks cannot be torn-they must be cut.
There are lots of materials available to spice up a fall planting. Any farmer’s market is a great place to find something that might suit you. Bittersweet, rose hips, dried hydrangea, money plants, thistles and cattails from the roadside-nature provides plenty of bounty at harvest time.
Posted on: October 9, 2009 2 Comments
A Park For The Sculpture
For years my client and I had been looking at a certain giant blob of a thicket on her property. Lanky buckthorn, lilac and other unkempt and untended shrubs had made the space impenetrable. The fact that the area was on a steep slope made investigating what was there all the more difficult.Not knowing what was in there made it easy to just mow around it, and act like it was part of a landscape. Every so often she would talk about what might be in there; this went on for some years.
One day she called to say she had clear cut the entire spot, and discovered an old rock waterfall and pool. No doubt it dated back to the 1920’s. The precipitous drop, lined with giant rocks, was entirely stable. There was a lot of discussion about restoring the watefall and pool, which led to some discussion of a new fountain; more years went by. One day she called to say she wanted me to look at the space again-I thought as the thicket was threatening to grow back-we were being chased for a plan. How like her to install an enormous concrete and wood sculpture in the center of the old pool. This is so distinctively her way of working things out. Making a move like that was forcing everyone’s hand. I told her I thought a sculpture of this size and proportion needed its own park.
The sculptor had sunk concrete pilings in giant sonatubes. Still visible in the above picture, it was apparent no small amount of grading was needed. My client was concerned that the pool would hold water. The rim of outside soil needed to be taken down. A giant pile of rocks collected from the first clear cutting went into the hole first. Trapping water near the sculpture would not be a good idea.
A skid steer made quick work of removing the weedy growth that had begun to take hold. I have watched the history channel television series called “Life After People” with great interest. It is astonishing how little time it takes for untended ground to go to rack and ruin. Nature abhors a vacuum; any bare dirt will have something going on in short order. Ignore a space, and nature will take over in your absence. 
The front edge of the old pool was lowered to permit water to escape. I so love this point in a landscape project; bare sculpted dirt is incredibly beautiful. A landscape of evergreens planted in sculpted, cultivated soil-a landscape of my dreams. Barked areas in a garden leave me cold-I like to cover the ground with plants, or see dirt. I mulch strictly to conserve moisture in the soil. The pattern of light and dark on the ground here is telling. The old waterfall and pool were situated in a patch of sun. The sculpture benefits from this.
New lawn softens all the hard edges. The rolling, swelling and dipping of the ground makes for a big fluid situation for the starkly vertical sculpture on its big legs. They look good together.
The fountain rockwork we left exposed. It is a part of the history of the property. Practically speaking, I would never have removed those giant stones; they have stabilized soil existing at a very steep angle. In the spring, my client will be able to pick and choose what she mows, and what she chooses to let be. There is a sculptural element yet to come-the decision about how and where to cut the lawn.
The old stones and the new concrete seem entirely compatible in their contrast. They wrangle with each other. The park is big enough to invite serious viewing. I am seeing that vaulted roof this morning as if for the first time. I need to write my client a thank you note for making a mark, and setting that sculpture amidst the weeds and the history, so as to say what now? Am I not lucky to have her?
Posted on: October 8, 2009 1 Comment
The Brassicas
Our weather has taken a turn towards fall; today’s 47 degree temperature is all the more chilly for the 35 mile an hour winds. I was so sure I would have my summer flowers into next week. My clients are much more graceful about moving on to the next season than I am-especially those clients with children. The Halloween holiday-what child isn’t entranced by it? A request for fall pots came from a client with children ready to devote the entire month of October to some ghoulishness.
My favorite part of October is that group of leafy plants known as the Brassicas. They come into their own late in the gardening year. Though there is some disagreement about which plants belong to that group, cabbages, kales, cauliflower, and broccoli are prominent members. These cool season annuals are great to eat-but I love how they look. There are many hybrid cabbages and kale that are grown for the beauty of their leaves. As the weather cools, the color intensifies.
I am indebted to the Brassicas for their scale, mass and texture. Though many plants are tolerant of cold weather – the pansies, certain grasses and so forth-the cabbages and kales can be had of a good size. Our fall season is short, and not so much actual growing goes on. I like planting big right off the bat; some years the fall constitutes but a few weeks. They are not in the least bit fussy about planting depth. If I need to sink them in a pot for a better look, I do so.
Some care has to be taken backfilling soil. Those big leaves so beautiful over the edge of a pot make it necessary to get up under there and pack the soil around the rootballs. The same applies to watering. Their massive leaves will shed water from the hose. I water the ground, not the plants. I do like a mix of varieties. The tall spiky redbor kale is a great contrast to the Peacock series cabbage. As these plants are almost full-grown, I will add another element, should I need more height.
A hazelwood stick covered with grapevine is sunk deep in the soil of the pot. Since wind and rain are more than likely, anchoring any dry materials in a sturdy way is essential. The pod sticks resembling a tritoma have been constructed from overscaled seeds. The entire assemby is glued up on the stick, and sealed. I do make a special effort to find materials like this that can withstand blustery weather.
The finished planting is a great scale with a pot this size. The hazelwood stick repeats the basketweave pattern of the pot, and the light colored seed pod stems make reference to the garden gone to seed. The curvy pods echo the curve of the tall kale leaves. I like fall pots with all manner of things in them that refer to the natural world.
The happy accident of this planting-how great those pale pods repeat the color and texture of the skeleton.
The hair on these skulls-you have to believe that people who dream up Halloween ornaments must have fun. The New Guinea impatiens look like they’ve had a fright, do they not? This landscape is all decked out for a celebration of an October in Michigan.
Posted on: October 7, 2009 2 Comments