Good Bones

The picture above was taken in the early morning of Jan 3, 2021. I remember waking up well before dawn to a landscape whose every surface was transformed by mounds of snow. Giant snowflakes floated downward on the still air like feathers, and stuck to whatever surface they touched first. The quiet was disconcerting. My yard was truly a fairyland – the first time ever quite like this. Every shape in the landscape was faithfully described and added to by this extraordinary snow.  Within minutes of opening my eyes, I was dressed, out the door, and marveling.  I took photographs for several hours, and several hours after that the snow had completely melted and was gone. This was an incredible weather event of  breathtakingly striking and shocking beauty, the likes of which I had never seen before.

That snow dispassionately described the landscape design. I was happy about what that revealed. A good landscape composition celebrates the depth of a space by beautifully revealing its background, mid ground and foreground. Of course a landscape is a sculpture –  a three-dimensional object, if you will. Great landscape design explores that uniquely spatial quality created by land and sky-and edges. I can’t really explain what I mean by edges, except to say that everything and everyone has them. Expressing depth in a composition fuels the means by which a landscape space can be wrought and experienced. A design. Depth in a landscape composition creates mystery, and reveals surprising outcomes at unexpected or opportune moments. Some designers describe this as flow. Others describe this as rooms with transitions in between. The background space above is a thicket of tree branches indicating trees that are a ways away. The focal point of that background space is a a centrally located container with a cut evergreen tree inside. That planter box is in the front of the back – ha. The mid ground space is defined by the hedge of arborvitae that is open in the center to permit travel and views through. The gate marking that entrance and exit is overseen by a steel arbor wreathed in a pair of John Davis roses. That gate explains how the end of the mid ground space becomes the beginning of the foreground space. That arbor is centered in the transition between the front and the back. It also separates the public space from the private. The structure of those climbing roses in the snow is every bit as beautiful here as they are in bloom in June.  I mean this. The foreground space features Limelight hydrangeas, faced down by hedges of clipped boxwood, and opens up to a widening path of snow covered grass.  This composition features layer after layer of plants from front to back. What is it that makes the relationships established by this design so dramatic and clear?  The weather.


The landscape here is very simple. Lots of boxwood clipped in various shapes, heights and volumes, and symmetrically placed containers framing the walk to the front door. The containers feature fan willow faced down by cut fir boughs. This view is unexpectedly dramatic, given this rare type of snow. The snow reviewed the design, as it reduced all of the major shapes to their simplest forms. What is usually experienced in varying and often romantically subtle shades of green is presented without ceremony in black and white. A significant snowfall can reveal the bones of the design. Are they good sturdy bones?

Our most recent snow was not nearly as spectacular as the 2021 storm, but it was good nonetheless. The skirt of this container is set with cut evergreen boughs that radiate out from the center. A second set of evergreen boughs are set on end against the centerpiece. Separating the vertical fir from the horizontal is a loosely defined ring of green and white pine cones in a nest of lights. A single evergreen material has special visual interest given its multi-dimensional placement. This simple arrangement with only a few elements is all the more striking given the landscape around it.  The snow tells that story.

A different year in this location, the container sparkled with an abundance of lights. An unusually textural snow cover produced yet another visual version of this landscape. Over the course of a year or a gardening season, the weather should play a major role in the landscape design. I am an advocate of landscape design which takes a sweeping bow to that element we call nature.

Rob took this photograph of my driveway near the garage a few nights ago. I have not parked here for better than 15 years, so the landscape has grown in and over the edges of the space. I like that. I have a piazza now, rather than a driveway. There is no real need to shovel the space, as it is for viewing, and not foot or car traffic. It is amazing what an enormous difference it makes visually to make such a simple change in the treatment of a landscape space.  The snow revealed this.

That same night, the snow illustrated the transition between the driveway and the fountain garden. The pots, arbor and fence occupy that mid ground. That middle ground space can be the most difficult to define and develop in a landscape.  It sometimes involves putting an idea or an object or a plant out there in the middle and building from there. Starting a design at the front or the leading edge or the beginning is not necessarily the best or only way forward. A landscape will speak back, if you give it sufficient time. This mid ground space took many years to establish. There is no substitute for age on a landscape.

This is as close as I have been to that extraordinary snow in 2021. I am happy for it. Beautiful snow is a hallmark of our winter. Having a well designed landscape on which beautiful snow can act makes the winter season welcome, yes. The fence pictured above, punctuated by a gated arbor and flanking pots, is not that unusual a treatment of an outdoor space –  but the considerable change of level does give pause. But the simple arrangement of bold and thoughtful forms emphasizes the main idea. The legibility of intent is key to good landscape design.

Most of my landscape is going on 28 years old. That age has enriched design decisions made decades ago.  Sometimes it is good to stay the course, and see what grows.

 

Making It Personal

custom (1) This January, I am spending some time making wreaths. I did not have the time for it in November or December, but late is better than next year. I enjoy all manner of making, whether it be a garden, a garland, a flower arrangement, a container planting,  a drawing of a landscape design, or the building a moss topiary sculpture. There is a lot of personal satisfaction in what I can make with my hands. Two hands driven by what I call reverie are hands at work-this I like.  A call for all hands on deck is routine for me, in the spring, summer, fall, and early winter. During the gardening season I need help. Hands on can be an adjective, but for me it is a way of professional life. Making wreaths in January does not involve gear, dirt, shovels, weather or others. I can be on my own. I can make them wearing my slippers. I can walk away when I want, and resume when I feel like it. I asked Sunne when the shop was due to close January 9 if she would please leave all of the grapevine, magnolia, and honeysuckle wreath forms, and all of our natural materials on the ground floor. All of what we had left from the fall and winter season is packed away on the tool room roof, but I have 25 square feet of materials not far from my layout table. I am delighted with this arrangement.

custom (2)A wreath requires an armature.  I do not make these grapevine wreaths, I buy them.  Though they are handmade, they are remarkably similar, one wreath to the next. There are those places where this plain hand made grapevine wreath would be perfectly stunning. But they could be just as beautiful as the beginning of something else.  Tinkering involves a span of time, and a pair of hands in concert with a point of view.

custom (3)Why be personal? I doubt I truly need to address this in any detail. Any personal expression is genuine. Any genuine expression is to be at least respected, if not admired.

DSC_3871I have always strongly subscribed to the notion that one can find interesting and noteworthy examples of personal expression anywhere and everywhere. But that aside, the best part of making something is the making.  It is absorbing and satisfying. That someone else might like or appreciate it is not the cake part of this. That would be the icing part. Cake with no icing tastes just as good as cake with icing.

DSC_3869
January is the perfect time to make something that takes a long time to fuss over. As a gardener, it always seems like the winter stretches out in front of with, with no end in sight.  It’s good to have a project that benefits from having a lot of time for the making.
wreath making (2)A landscape design that looks rushed on paper will look even more rushed once it is implemented. A request for design during the garden season doesn’t always come with the luxury of a lot of time. A shorter amount of time means a need for a greater amount amount of focus and discipline. January offers the opportunity to be less focused on the end result, and more focused on the pleasure of the process. I welcome the reverie time.

wreath making (3)whitewashed acorn caps

wreatha layer of preserved gypsophila

wreath making (5)I am not sure if either of these are finished, as I don’t have to be sure. I have them hanging where I can continue to look at them. Maybe something else will occur to me.

wreath making (1)This is the wreath I am working on now. A few days ago, I removed the pair of split pinecones in the top center.  That took a fair amount of time, and they were both wired and glued in. But I had the time. It occurred to me that the cut surface of the pine cones would be more interesting than the intact surface. So I took that time.

wreath making (6)putting up the split sides

wreath making (7)My winter holiday comes after the holiday.

 

A Collection Of Cones

bleached pine coneThese bleached pine cones that so enchanted me this season sparked an interest in the cone world. Although pine cones are as familiar to me as the back of my hand, I realized that I did not know so much about them.  These woody structures house the reproductive mechanism of a conifer. The female pine cones are large, and produce seeds.  The male cones are small, produce lots of pollen, and eventually disappear once the pollen is dispersed. Of great interest to me is the fact that the identification of many pines revolves around the particulars of the cones they produce. The conifers existed on earth long before any flowering plant.  These cones are considered the precursors of flowers.  No wonder gardeners prize them.

cedar conesThese cedar pine cones may have lived on a cedar through more than one season.  It takes time for a cone to mature, and drop its seed.  Once the cone has done has produced and dropped its seed, its biological directive has been fulfilled.  The cones then drop to the ground. I spent some time today looking at these cones. I had never really taken the time to study on them them before. How incredibly beautiful they are.

acorn conesThe oak acorn caps are not truly cones, but they share the woody and highly textured appearance of a pine cone. It was easy to like these acorn caps. Once the pine cones mature and drop, they are very persistent. A coulter pine produces the largest pine cones in the world.  I have one that is over 20 years old.  It has not deteriorated in the least bit. It is as heavy as a rock, and as architectural as the most beautiful building in the world.

December22, 2015 033How pine cones came to be associated with the holiday and the garden season’s end, I have no idea.  But they have adorned many a wreath and garland. A bowl full of these ponderosa pine cones would be simply beautiful.  We are able to purchase pine cones which have picks attached.  This makes them easy to use in decorations. We also attach them via wire that is wrapped around the scales.  Pine cones with tight scales-such as these cones-may need to be drilled.  Having done this, I am amazed at how hard and dense their wood it. Plan for some drilling time.

pinus nigra conesThese cones are produced by pinus nigra.  From the front, the scales are a rich cinnamon brown.  From the side or back, the cones are black.

dried pine cone baseThese dried “flowers” were made from the base of a pine cone.

split pinus maritima pine conesThese half pine cones come from pinus maritima. Pine cones split in half are great for places where a full cone would be too wide. This picture of the split side illustrates the density and strength of the cone.

gray washed pine conesWe carry many species of pine cones for the winter season. Some are native to our zone.  Others come from places far away, and have that exotic look. These pine cones have had a gray wash applied to them. They can take paint as well as any piece of wood furniture.

December22, 2015 035 Sugar pine cones rank among the longest cones in the world.  They regularly grow to 24″ long. Thy are sold by their length.  The long cones are especially prized. The scales are tight, when they are fresh harvested.  With age, those scales expand and flair out. A pine cone is a very familiar object indeed. But it is an enduring object whose appeal never fades.

December22, 2015 025flocked cones

pinus sylvestris conesa bowl of cones from pinus sylvestris

unknown pine conea cone whose species is unknown to me

December22, 2015 032These natural cones have been attached to an artificial garland, and sprayed with sparkle. I feel sure that they will endure as long as the garland. As in just about forever. Just about forever-that surely describes every gardeners relationship with the natural world.

Last But Not Least

winter-lighting.jpgWe did finish the majority of our winter and holiday work 2 days before Christmas. That meant we had a little time to lend a hand to Rob.  Like anyone in a holiday design related business, putting together a holiday home comes last. It was looking like he might run out of time. That would not do; he is someone who gives his utmost to gardening people getting ready for the holidays and winter season. My group was happy to take it on.  A multi colored light garland he had looped over the door was brought back to the shop to be attached to a grapevine garland.  Harvested and rolled grapevine is springy and airy, and holds its shape in the fiercest of winter weather. We added several more all white light garlands, and ran the entire affair up the shag bark hickory in the front yard.

winter-lighting.jpgIf you think it looks as if we ran it way up this tree, you are right. Above the second story. A huge capacity, state of the art extension ladder and four people made it happen.  One climber, 2 people at the base of the ladder, and one runner on the ground walking in circles.  The light garland does a good job keeping the house company.  There is also something about the sheer effort of it that was cheery and grand. With holiday decor, I care about the effort someone has made as much as the result.   I knew Rob would think it looked swell. It is asymmetrical, surprisingly light and airy, and unexpected-all good as far as he is concerned.

light-garlands.jpgAll the different colors, shapes, and sizes of bulbs made quite the light statement. The front of the house-glowing.

light-rings.jpgHis light rings are well known to anyone who frequents Detroit Garden Works.  We took a 3′ and a 5′ ring, and added a string of multicolored garland lights to the interior steel wall of the hoop.  This form may be very very familiar to him, but this treatment is a one of a kind.

light-rings.jpgWhat’s to like about them?  The lighted sculpture is striking.  They are simple to install. Pick a spot, push the prongs into the ground, and plug it in. We have plenty of clients who run them all winter.  Why not?  This picture was taken at 5:15 in the afternoon-which at this time of year is better described as 5:15 in the evening.

poplar-branches.jpg2 pots had the remains of a summer planting in them.  That couldn’t stand. Mixed greens and an a bunch of fresh cut poplar branches makes the pots look appropriately dressed for winter.

HW 2014Another client made a last minute decision to order up a few winter pots. Might he have a little color? A mass of yellow twig dogwood appears all the more substantial by varying the heights of the twigs. The color of the plum eucalyptus is brilliant and saturated against that yellow.

winter-container.jpgWe have had a very fortunate late fall and early winter, as in moderate temperatures, and no snow. Once the snow comes, it is difficult to work outdoors.  Even if your effort is late, it will last a winter’s worth.