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More On The Fruits

You may be bored witless with what I have had to say lately about delle robbia wreaths and faux fruits-but it appears I am still talking about them.  Humor me, please.  The fresh fruits-I love all of them.  I relish the apples, the peaches and plums-the cherries.  Watermelon-what could be better?  Musk melon-delicious. The grapes-so many different kinds of grapes-from champagne grapes to green grapes-all of them taste great.  Plums, apples of every different sort, an embarrassment of riches in varieties of pears-fruits taste great. But like most natural things, they also have great shapes, textures and colors.  A bowl piled with fruit on the kitchen counter delights the eye, as much as the taste buds.            

The faux fruits enable a visual discussion about color, shape, and texture. How each fruit is placed in relation to the others, and in relation to the whole makes a composition.  To compose sounds like a fairly serious activity, but it seems like what it takes to compose a letter is much like what it takes to compose a painting or a symphony.  This is big talk coming from someone that has never composed so much as a melody, but there are times when the way certain things go together makes music to my eye.  The pleasure I take in this is why I keep composing in one form or another, over and over. The geometry of this staircase is compellingly strong.  One could decorate it for the holidays by simply repeating these rectilinear shapes.  The garland could have run below and parallel to the railing.  Swagging the garland introduces curvy shapes that contrast with that severe geometry.  So how do I choose this composition over any other?  A client who says she likes natural things for the holidays.  I interpret that as not only natural materials, but a more natural way of displaying them.  The mixed cedar garland is doubled up.  A single strand of wired garland can have an awkwardly wired appearance.  Adding the weight of a second strand permits gravity to make graceful and continuous swoops.     


I did use some of the faux fruits in the wreath over the fireplace, but they are mixed with dry fan willow, fresh red bud pussy willow, pine cones, acorns and reindeer moss.  The mixed concolor and douglas fir wreath has a strong and lively texture and color that pairs well with the stone surface.  The gold bow?  I usually ask a client should they see some metallic element, what would that be?  This particular ribbon is a dream come true for anyone like me who has trouble composing a decent bow.  A translucent and thin green organza has a feathery god stripe down the middle.  The edges and center of this ribbon are all wired.  Even I can poof this.  

The garland is attached to the stair rail with zip ties. We tied garland whever there was a break in the glass sides of the staircase.  A branch of noble fir, wired with fruits, pine cones and cinnamon sticks covers the zip ties, and provides a little punctuation and a sense of rhythm to the change of direction.   

A family room fireplace is faced in a very beautiful stone.  A pair of simple fiber pots stuffed with red twig dogwood and greens sit on either side of the hearth.  The greens are done in a half round, so the pots do not intrude on the living space.  Beaded coppery bronze acorns are a nod to the holiday-and to the bronzy color in the stone floor. 

The natural garland over the windows is complimented by a garland of gold and bronze oak leaves.  Bronze brown glass pine cones and pine cone ornaments are an element in the composition that speaks to festive.      


Pam fussed at me for taking this picture before she had trimmed the bow streamers into swallow tails.  The finishing touches that come after the big gestures are important.  I check to be sure there is no evidence of the construction.  Every element of the composition needs to be securely, but not visibly attached.  The ribbon tails need to be recut.  There should be no evidence I was ever there-beyond the decoration.  That is a major reason why I do as much of the contruction in my studio as possible.  The 14 faux fruit medallions for the staircase garlands were made at my work bench, and taken to the job, ready to be attached. Even so, there is vacuuming to be done at the end.  Even when I design and install a landscape, one of my favorite moments is when the sidewalks and driveway gets washed off.  Once everything is cleaned up, there is time to look over what has taken so much work to compose.  By no means am I suggesting that things will not need adjusting or reworking-that is more the norm than the exception.  I am suggesting that making things is satisfying and fun.

Posted on: December 12, 2010 4 Comments
Filed Under: Holiday Tagged With: , ,

Day And Night

Though I designed and planted this landscape, and did the outdoor holiday display some years ago, it still is one of my favorites. I like how it works in the winter. The shortest day of our year is looming; soon it will be dark before 5pm, and not light again until 7:30 the following morning.  14 hours of dark in a 24 hour period is the second most daunting aspect of a Michigan winter.  The most difficult-the endless number of grey days, one after another.     

It does not necessarily follow that what looks great during the day looks just as great at night.  I have had occasion to work with some really talented landscape lighting professionals.  They manage to design lighting for the evening hours which is soft, engaging and believable.  I have no gift for this whatsoever-I cannot stop longing for the dawn, daylight and dusk long enough to put my best foot forward in the dark. A great lighting designer can make a huge impact on a Michigan landscape.  I do love holiday gardening, and I have the sense to incorporate the materials Rob buys.  I can be assured of a good look at night.   

This year he bought birch stems that were wrapped vertically with lights, and then flocked with some concoction that was barely a reasonable approximation of moss. The winter was looming-I bought in.  During the day, those mossed branches looked fine-provided you were better than 5 feet away.  Some very very tall faux red berry stems added considerable interest. But my favorite-the light covers.  Some company manufactured frosted plastic spheres in green and red. Slipped over a mini light, they glowed.  Weatherproof holiday ornaments of foil spheres wrapped with grape vine wired to the evergreens in this arrangement-a Christmas tree of a different sort.  Though these Belgian wood planters were a long ways from the road, they read.   

The night time version of these holiday was just as strong.  The lit mossy branches glowed-every one of these mini lights had moss flocking.  The light covers diffused and spread the light.  These small lit spheres cast a glow in strong contrast to the dark, the dormancy, and the snow.

Glowing spheres, ornament, and cut evergreen branches dusted with an early snowfall-I’ll take this. The coming of the cold, the garden going down-what gardener adjusts to this very easily?  But the holidays have some very good things built in-friends, family, celebration, tradition, innovation-did I say celebration?  The seasons changing-I would not trade this for anything.  The process of change does not appeal to me much.  But once I am forced to move on, I like that I have options for the garden.  

This landscape dusted with snow-this is what I like about it.  The frosty stone on the house never looked better, than right now.  That texture in the vertical plane, and the texture of the boxwood in the horizontal plane-a good relationship.  Those lit moss-flocked branches, the light covers,  and the lights in the garland-substantial.  A landscape endowed with lots of visual interest-these landscapes I fall for.  


Every gardener across this country is thinking about how to express the holiday day and night.  I like being just one of many.

Posted on: December 11, 2010 2 Comments
Filed Under: Holiday Tagged With: ,

The Holiday Mantel

 

I have no idea where the tradition of decorating a mantel for the holidays came from.  Perhaps people gathering at a cold time around a roaring fireplace made the fireplace mantle visually important.  Everyone knows the chimney is Santa’s portal-why not make it festive?  I do know that the fireplace mantel is an ideal place for collections of all kinds.  Small objects that need an elevated shelf to be seen, objects of personal or family importance-a mantel can be home to all manner of objects that please, or represent a point of view.  My mantel at home changes whenever the mood strikes me.  There are times when it is empty, and times when it is piled high.  But however you treat your mantel at the holidays-formally or traditionally, as in this mantel-there are construction issues.  

A mantel is a very long, and very shallow space.  It is but one shelf-there are no changes of level built in.  A holiday garland whether fresh or faux weighs plenty.  How to keep it on the mantle and off the floor comes first.  In this case, four very heavy bronze candlesticks provide an anchor for the garland.  Not interested in candlesticks on your mantle?  Drive a series of small brads into the wood mantle surface near the wall, or in the wall.  Appalled at the idea of driving nails?  Lead weights, or bricks can anchor your display, and be invisible.    

Sometimes a holiday mantel calls for a holiday expression on the wall above it.  I find I focus much more on the white rectangular space above a mantel, than the mantel surface itself.  If there is a print, painting or mirror above that mantel, perhaps it could be included in the mantel treatment.  These clients have a considerable collection of native American art-the magnolia and pussy willow holiday medallion was designed and fabricated in that vein.   


The designer Ann Heath, whom I greatly admire, told me just a few weeks ago that she likes holiday decor on the mantel that does not trail to the floor. A horizontal expression-only. I have this idea under consideration.  This holiday mantel treatment is very formal and low key-much like the room. I did the mantel surface only-no trailers.  The picks and pieces are secured to the mantel via 3 coulter pine cones.  Coulter pine cones, the largest, and most certainly the heaviest of any pine cone on this planet, are the ballast for this display.  Faux white pine picks take easily to cut stems of German boxwood.  Bark ornaments and pearl ball clusters weigh next to nothing-the stiff bristles of the white pine help hold some elements aloft.  My recommendation for mantel decor-build up to some height.  Come out away from the wall.  A mantel decoration may be long and thin, but it should be as three dimensional as you can manage.  

Pine cones look like they belong on the mantel.  They are just one of many of nature’s beautiful objects, but they shine in the winter months.   I collect them from the park next door; I buy them from Oregon, California, and North Carolina.  Their shapes are beautiful-no matter the evergreen from whence they came.  The story and the science of the production of cones-astonishing.  The science aside,what gardener does not recognize them as naturally beautiful objects asking for a holiday home.  The more, the better.   

I have in my mind’s eye a mantel overflowing with cones, seed pods, fresh greens, grapevine, bird’s nests just collected once the leaves fell, rose hips, grasses, twigs, bracket fungus-the mantel that is the forest floor.  But there are those who have a different point of view.  Lime green glitter net, lime moss, purple anodized wire-stars from gold wire wesh-this mantel is a smart and sassy holiday dress all my client’s own.  She chose the materials.  From what I know of her, she has a holiday mantel distinctively all her own. I admire the effort anyone takes to express themselves.

Not everyone has a limestone mantel and fireplace surround.  But everyone has a home and hearth worth celebrating.  Get dressed-it’s the holidays.   


No matter how or how much or why you garden, you have something to say all your own.  The holidays are inviting you to speak your peace.  I will be lucky to get the house decorated before Buck and I celebrate our Christmas on Christmas Eve.  But I will give what I have to see that we are ready.  The mantle-what I will do do this year, I have no idea.  No matter-I am looking forward to it.

Posted on: December 6, 2010 4 Comments
Filed Under: Holiday Tagged With: , , ,

Luca Della Robbia

Luca Della Robbia, an Italian sculptor from the 15th century, is somewhat responsible for my passion for decorating with fruit at the holidays.  Known for his glazed terra cotta rondels, he and his family sculpted voluptuous swags of fruit-the interpretations of which are still treasured by gardeners everywhere.  Hand made Italian terra cotta pots ornamented with lemon swoops and mixed fruit swags in his style- sign me up.      

Perhaps more responsible for my love for the holiday fruits is Louise Fisher.  Put in charge of flowers and decor at Williamsburg in the mid 1930’s, she had a considerable hand in creating what I call the Williamsburg holiday look.  Colonial Williamsburg was decorated for the holidays for the first time in 1936.  Within a few few years, her research at the Library of Congress regarding American colonial holiday expression prompted her to sponsor a holiday decorating contest-the rest is history.     

I grew up on those pictures of Williamsburg homes so beautifully decorated for the holidays.  Each display was hand made-each incredibly thoughtful and beautiful.  I was enchanted by the fresh garlands with tie backs of fresh fruit.  The evergreen wreaths with an in-circle of apples-gorgeous.  There is a long history of fruit ornament in this country.  Vintage beaded fruit, glittered or sugared fruit-a sure sweet sign of the holidays-American style.

OK-I did make an evergreen wreath with fresh fruit for my front door.  The second I finished piercing and wiring on all of my fruits, I was pleased.  What came later was the dripping juice that froze on the porch-and the inevitable rot.  Fruit can last a very long time.  Once pierced, decay is initiated.  I do not have the time to replace the fruit in my della robbia wreath 4 times over the holidays.  I am thrilled that the faux fruit available to me now is incredibly beautifully done-convincing.  These fruits have a plaster core-for weight.  Who knows what material is used to create the surface.  Who knows how the color is done.  These faux fruits are astonishingly real in color and texture. 

The fruits on this mantle will last the entire holiday season.  They can be boxed and stored-and used for any number of holidays to come. When I use the fruits on a mantle, I pierce the skin with a long pick-that pick provides ballast.  Each fruit is true to color and texture to a specific variety.  Granny Smith apples, and pomegranites, lemons, limes and plums-they look delicious.

An evergreen garland attached to a stair rail-a beautiful and fragrant nod to the season. My fruits, acorns, pine cones and ribbon wired in now and then, and at the newel posts-a traditonal American holiday expression.    

The back door wreath features mixed greens, a hemp rope bow, pine cones, red eucalyptus, reindeer moss, and bark wire garland.  My faux fruits-the cherries.  That red is intense.  That each cherry needs to be glued on individually speaks to hand made.  
A red and white wreath for the front door-this my client requested.  The red comes from the Michigan holly stems, the cherries, a few red roses constructed from wood shavings, red twig dogwood, and some faux Washington apples.  A red double faced satin bow-beautiful.  The white-dried cirrus dusty miller and white glass ornaments.  The intermediary-white variegated oregonia, green reindeer moss, and green/brown acorns.


The faux apples and pears in this wreath-they do fine.  This holiday wreath has a broad mix of real, right from the garden, and faux. The double faced red satin ribbon has no problem handling the weather.  The magnolia wreath came from a long ways away, but seems perfectly at home here.  Faux fruits-they have come a long way too.  They are really convincing.  They do their part to help me express my admiration for Luca Della Robbia.

Posted on: December 3, 2010 4 Comments
Filed Under: Detroit Garden Works, Holiday Tagged With: , , ,