On The 4th Floor


Detroit Garden Works has a milestone of note in its immediate future. It was the evening of the 28th of March in 1996 that we announced the opening of the shop via an evening reception to loyal friends, family, and clients of Deborah Silver and Company. That following morning, we welcomed anyone and everyone with a big love for the garden to visit and see what we were all about. It is hard to believe that this was 25 years ago, but there you have it. A vintage machine shop provided a home for the dream. In the months leading up to the opening, we decided to paint the concrete floor in the entrance room. That concrete was from an addition made in the 1940’s, and did not match the exposed aggregate character of the original floors dating back to the 1920’s. That floor would be a way of saying welcome. I am happy to say that the floor would need repainting every six years or so, necessitated by ever increasing foot traffic. The third floor painting was quite worn, and we had an anniversary coming up. It was time to get going on the fourth floor.

Dan’s crew cleared the decks. Drew scraped off what was left of the loose paint. Dan laid out the space for the base coats from a sketch. Drew painstakingly painted most of the base coat shapes, and I rolled the rest. We were underway. How I decided on the design has lots to do with making a simple reference to being in a garden. Equally important is a realistic assessment of what would be possible to paint –  given my age, and the fact that we would need to have access to that floor as soon as possible. 6 containers from Europe were due in at any moment. What was in those containers would need homes. But I did want to celebrate what the Works had done such a great job of over the past 25 years –  offering passionate gardeners a way to express themselves through meaningful objects for their landscapes. Gardeners of all descriptions, I might add. Lookers and doers. Those that swoon over any object imbued with history. Cottage gardeners as well as those seeking a clean contemporary look. It took years of plowing the proceeds from every sale into amassing an inventory with both diversity and depth. The Works is packed.

This picture clearly shows the largest area of wear sustained by the previous floor. Part of our concrete block wall sprung a leak, and water had been sitting in this spot on and off for several years. The rest of that floor was in remarkably good condition. I ascribe that in total to the quality of the paint. Porter Paint, routinely used by sign painters, comes in a 100% acrylic formula which hardens much more than latex paint. Owned by PPG, Porter’s exterior Acri-Shield paint is exceptionally durable and comes in a vast number of colors. It is eminently strong enough to use as a floor paint. Happily, one of a few paint stores in Michigan that carries this paint is near us. See more about this great paint store here:  https://www.pontiacpaint.com/

The floor would have but a few elements.  A grassy plane, admirably described by the French as a “tapis vert”, is as elemental a garden as any. And it is the starting point for any number of more elaborate expressions. That green square is a prominent part of the logo for the Works. In additional to the green plane, there would be a surrounding gravel path, and a planted area marked by large leaves to enclose that gravel. Painting the gravel was the first order of business, as plants from both sides would likely overlap onto it.

This would be the easiest part of the painting. A series of colors would be dripped on to the floor surface from a wood plant marker. The only finesse to this part would be slowly thinning the paint so it would drip at a reasonable rate-not too slow, and not too fast. Of course there was plenty of wrist and shoulder action, so the drips would be spaced out.

There were 4 colors to start with, and more colors created by mixing those initial colors. I did remember to use a pinkish taupe color reminiscent of the decomposed granite we use in our garden installations. It’s a subtle color variation, but it is there. As for the random drips over the edge, has not every gardener dealt with gravel moving around? It goes with the territory that there are limits to what a gardener can impose on nature.

Some effort was made to keep the gravel darker and less detailed on the edges.  Once the leaves to come were painted over the edges, that would help create a little sense of depth. This is decorative painting-not fine art. But a nod to composition and technique gives the mural a little more polished look.

I have never painted large scale leaves on the floor before, and it took some experimenting to find the right tool. I finally settled on a 1″ sash brush. The bristles are arranged on a steep angle.  With the longest bristles closest to me, I would set the brush on the floor, deposit some paint, and push the brush away from me. 1 stroke, 1 leaf. No going over or redoing. A stroke laid was a stroke played.  Once I got that action down, The large leaves went fast.  Of critical importance was a finely engineered three legged saddle topped stool with an adjustable seat height. I was able to paint and push along to the next location.

Positioning the work is an essential element for any successful project. Trying to work in an awkward position adds so much time to a project. Painting gracefully is dependent on establishing a rhythm. Sunne made sure I had music playing all day long.

Some of the two weeks it took to paint the floor was absorbed by watching paint dry. Our concrete floor in winter never warms up much, so the drying time was considerable.

At some point it seemed like there were enough colors of those big leaves. The gravel and lawn areas would be so finely textured that a contrast would be welcome. I did want to establish the mass and size of that border before tackling the interior. By no means was any of the application of paint established in advance. Just an outline of the shapes.

What now?

I thought I might get away with just a suggestion of grass here and there, with some accompanying drips, but that looked like I was loosing interest, or energy, or both. I resigned myself to making thousands of grassy marks with that sash brush held backwards, and settled in to the job. It took more time to do this one step than any of the other elements, but it was well worth it.

Those marks were very lively. They brought the dark center up to the same visual plane as the gravel. Eventually I settled in to the job, and two days later that portion was finished.

Drew was in charge of the aerial snapshots, which helped to give an overview of how the floor looked in its entirety.

The brush strokes were deliberately styled on an angle. Grass does not grow in horizontal rows. It grows every which way. Painting the blades on varying angles helped to create an overall look, as opposed to a linear look.

It is easier to see the grass marks undulating in this picture. I like the action of the pattern.

The English daisies on the previous floor was a favorite finishing touch, so I wanted to repeat that. A generous blob of white paint had its edges feathered with a wood garden stake. This gave the flowers a much more windblown and casual look, in contrast to the grass blades and stylized leaves.

The centers of the flowers were done in our signature lime green color.

Due to the transparency of yellow pigment, it took 3 or four coats to get the color to represent clearly.

The largest daisy medallion is a nod to our anniversary. You have to look very close to see the the 25 in the very center, as it is painted in the same lime color as the disk.  That was deliberate. There will be many years to come for the Works after this one.

It was a good day, the day the room started to come back together.That floor grounded the space, and would compliment whatever went in there.

One of the fabricators at Branch said it the best.  He called Detroit Garden Works a passion project. Yes, it is.

At A Glance: In The Same Genre

Rob has planted so many herb/flower and vegetable pots-to follow is a big selection that compliments my last post.

Rob’s genre-I like the sound of that.

A Reindeer On The Roof

Deer in the garden is a sore subject for those gardeners who are plagued by the destruction they wreak on every plant shrub and tree in the landscape. What they don’t eat, they trample. They even rub the bark off of trees when they are rutting, for Pete’s sake. Preventing deer from demolishing the garden is the subject of page after page of essays on Google, and countless books and videos. But the grapevine deer sculptures that Detroit Garden Works has stocked for a number of years have their fans. The life size bucks and does come in standing, grazing, and seated poses, just like the fawns. They look terrific in any spot in the garden asking for a representational sculpture fashioned from a natural material. The grapevine is wound around a substantial steel armature, and should survive outdoors for many years, providing they get a yearly application of a penetrating oil based sealer.

Who knows what possessed me to put a deer on the roof, but there is a certain Buck that has been near and dear to me for many years. That personal association aside, Christmas folklore is full of references to a certain St Nicholas circumnavigating the globe in a reindeer drawn sleigh, bringing gifts to children world wide on Christmas Eve. It is a story that delighted me as a child. Apparently I can still be enchanted by it. Winter and holiday containers and displays bring an element of delight to the landscape that has gone dormant, and quiet. It was not so far fetched to cast the grapevine deer as a grapevine reindeer.  A holiday diorama in the making, if you will.

The roof at Detroit Garden Works is home to eight planter boxes, each of which are five feet long. They were fabricated from heavy duty sheet metal – there is not one thing fancy about them. These painted metal hold soil, plants, and an irrigation system. The magic is what gets grown in them over the summer. We intended to bring a little magic to the winter season that is at hand.  Our reindeer was secured in the center via steel rebar pounded in at an angle. On an angle? A gusty wind could pull steel rods set vertically out of the soil in a matter of moments.  The steel set on a steep angle is weighted down with a thick layer of saturated and frozen soil. A wind strong enough to uproot that buck would be a rare wind indeed, and most likely would take the box as well. We took every precaution to keep that reindeer in place. Of course we needed lots of lights. And a thicket of twigs. As the soil was frozen solid, we made foam forms, buttered them with lights, and stuck them with medium height pussy willow. Each one of these forms was additionally secured with angled steel rebar and concrete wire. Suffice it to say there is a lot of rebar on the roof right now.

All of the irrigation tubes and emitters were pitched over the sides of the boxes. There was plenty of additional work involved in making it possible to flip the switch on the lights.

A simple evergreen garland, wound round with garland light studded grapevine was attached to the leading edge of the boxes, and down the sides of the building.

My crew was keen for a group portrait. Why not? These pictures do not really reveal all of the work that went in to moving this project along to this point. They were caught up in the fun of it, and committed to seeing it through.

The view at dusk made it clear we needed to do more. The thicket of twigs needed to describe the entire width of the building. We had run out of pussy willow, so what now?

The light burst collar on the deer did not illuminate the sculpture. It spot-lit the neck. The twigs were in silhouette at dusk, and invisible come dark. We regrouped.

Phase two of the fabrication and installation asked for a burlap ribbon collar. The light collar did not read during the day, and was a too strong blob of light at night. Karen obliged with the fabrication, and Joe got the collar attached in just the right spot, and at the right angle. We had to rethink the lighting.

Attaching multiple light bursts to the front edge of the twigs might do a better job of illuminating the thicket at night. It was certainly worth a try.

Lengthening the twig thicket proved to be easy. The last few bunches of black dogwood, mixed with lots of alder branches made a believable transition from the more formal and vertical pussy willow stems to a more wild and natural look. A thicket spanning the entire width of the roof seemed more deliberate and finished.

The multiple light bursts did a great job of illuminated the face of the branches at dusk.

The burlap ribbon collar on our reindeer read plainly and properly, both day and night.

much better, this.I know if Rob is photographing something, he likes it.

Who knows if St Nicholas will require the last minute services of our reindeer buck tonight, but I am sure he will have no problem spotting him from space. The Works is ready.

Hoop It Up: Lighting The Winter Landscape

The benchmark of our winter and holiday season is the seasonal lighting made available at Detroit Garden Works. Any current year’s collection becomes available towards the end of October. We measure all else we offer for winter gardens to clients by the effort we make to have something of value available to light the landscape. Providing for some light is never more urgent than it is in the winter months. The daylight hours are few, and mostly gray. That night that starts in the afternoon, and persists late into the following morning asks for intervention.

Rob Yedinak is entirely responsible for anything lighted we have to offer the winter landscape. He not only buys a variety of lighting materials, but he imagines and fabricates light sculptures from those materials. What he manages, to the delight of any gardener facing the dark days to come, is an engaging answer. His best known effort is a collection of steel circles wound round with LED string lighting. These light rings come in two versions. One style of hoop can be hung from a stout tree branch or pergola. It can be laid flat in a birdbath or pot. It could be hung against a wall or a garden gate. The hanging hoops come with multi strand jute rope. That jute helps to disguise the wire at the end of the light strand. It is a very simple and beautifully made lighted sculpture.

A later incarnation provided a four pronged steel base which enabled the ring to be securely installed in a pot, or in the ground. A free standing lighted sculpture, if you will. The above picture illustrates a 3 foot diameter ring installed as an integral part of a winter window box at the shop. Every element of that arrangement is stuffed into a dry floral foam base. I was interested that the lighted hoop be an integral part of the arrangement. A hoop on four legs made it easy to evenly sink those legs into to the foam base, and stuff branches, magnolia and evergreen boughs all around it. The very best part of this process is the ability to construct the arrangement in a warm and dry space.

Though we glue several layers of foam sheets together, that foam has no strength. It can hold hundreds of stems, and the spiked legs of the light ring securely. But unsupported, that foam will break. During the construction phase, it sits on top of a piece of plywood. We slide the arrangement off the plywood into the container just like a cookie coming off a baking sheet. This process does require very careful measuring to insure a good fit.

But the big story here is how Rob’s spiked and lighted hoops look at night. They appear to float over the arrangement. Thought we covered the foam with light strings before we stuck the branches into the foam, those circles of light are as distinctive as they are satisfying. They stand out from the glow.

This picture clearly illustrates the standing mechanism. The base is securely welded to the ring. This is a very large ring, so the spikes that go into the soil are wired to 4 pieces of rebar that go deep in to the container.

This lighted hoop is 5 feet in diameter. It does a terrific job of highlighting the centerpiece During the day, that steel hoop is very sculptural. The light rings add a whole other dimension to a winter container arrangement. The LED lights draw very little in the way of electricity. We have clients who run them in their garden all year round. To follow are as collection of pictures of winter arrangements featuring the hoops. If I had a mind to make just one winter gesture in the garden, I would hang or spike one in a spot where I could see all winter. It is a lot of look in a small and durable package.

Why am I writing about lighted hoops for winter containers in October? Jackie has been steadily shipping them out all over the country for the past 3 weeks. Whether you are local or far away from the Works, if you have a mind to hoop it up this winter, you may want to contact her now.  Jackie@detroitgardenworks.com.  Further interested in sizing and pricing?  Lighted hoops from Detroit Garden Works