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Lolo’s Garden

 

I do not grow vegetables at home.  In my opinion, a vegetable patch looks messy and disorganized, even when it is anything but. Working gardens show evidence of that work.  I am not interested looking at work when I go home-I have already done that all day long.  Afficianados of growing food at home like Lolo are a hard working lot that have an astonishing range of knowledge.  Growing from seed, pairing plants, crop rotation-the depth of her knowledge is impressive.  Often there is a family history that includes growing food, cooking, family meals that is a way of life. I would want a working garden to be beautiful in a way it cannot be.  Sooner or later, every vegetable garden tends towards dissolution.

The vegetable garden can be designed in a very orderly way.  Raised beds permit making choices about soil composition.  There can be the designated asparagus, strawberry or raspberry patch.  Espaliered fruit trees, grapes, and a fig tree can be worked into the design.  A spot to grow cutting flowers-what a great idea.  But once I get to this point, I am not only over my head, but I have lost interest as I have lost control.  Fortunately most people who would devote part of their landscape to seriously growing food know what they need from a space.  Cultivating a vegetable garden is not for a weekend gardener-it is an every day committment. 

When the soil-making and daily tending and growing has been good, it seems like there is that moment when the the entire garden seems poised to overrun the space.  The paths get narrower; the squash has grown out of the box and heads for the road.  Is there a vegetable plant that does not not fall over in a heap? I have yet to see a vegetable garden not overrun with withies, stakes, towers, arbors and cages.

The potting bench surface is usually covered with tools, packets of seeds, a collection basket, the soil sifter, and the like. Vegetable people leave their hoses, stakes, Japanese beetle collecting cans and gloves out in plain sight-why wouldn’t they?     

Every plant is at a different stage.  The pea patch runs out and has to be replanted-as do the lettuces, spinach and radishes.  There are those bare dirt spaces hosting the seeds of the next crop.  The galvanized wire hats goes over what ever is being eaten by the birds, rabbits, deer, raccoons and woodchucks at that moment. 

All in all, a vegetable garden at harvest time is a gloriously messy affair. Never mind the work that is involved enlisting the help of others when the garden bears vastly more than what you can eat.  Is there any more ungainly looking plant on the planet than the brussel sprout plant?  I do understand that home grown food is the best food there is-I have been the lucky recipient of various harvest overruns.  I love OPVG’s-other people’s vegetable gardens. 

This tomato in articular whose name I do not know is incredibly great looking, and great tasting.  The bush on which it grows-not so pretty.  It seems as though tomatoes and tomato plants are as irresistable to bugs, fungus and disease as they are to me.  Who wants to look at hornworms, flea beetles, and cut worms?  Who wants to deal with early blight, gray wall, catfacing or blossom end rot?  Who wants to read the Texas A and M tomato disorder page?

Who really wants to look at this at the end of a season?  My theory is that vegetable plants give so much for so long, they finally succumb to every fungus and illness swirling around in the air and soil.  I am grateful to have both friends and clients who deal with all of this and more-otherwise I would never eat any home grown food. 

Anyone who grows vegetables, fruits and herbs at home has the idea in their mind that fresh and pure is delicious and good for them, and their family.  What other reason could there be that would motivate them to work so hard, day after day?  They, like Lolo, are gardeners of the most serious sort.

Posted on: August 25, 2010 7 Comments
Filed Under: Uncategorized

At A Glance: The Shop Floor

In 2005, I painted one of the concrete floors in the shop to look like a lawn panel surrounded by gravel.  A painting of a tapis vert-a lawn panel of a definite shape.  A landscape painting. Howard in the grass

paint drips and swirls

Milo in the grass 

2010


It might be time for a new idea.

Posted on: September 5, 2010 5 Comments
Filed Under: Picture This Tagged With: ,

A Michigan Gardener, Part 2

 


You may remember this photograph from a post I did a few weeks ago called ” A Michigan Gardener”.  If you knew my client, you would understand how until he could have the entire landscape, he would have nothing.  The design had been drawn and presented for quite some time; out of the blue, they were ready.  

They have a unique situation; their property backs up to a golf course. They are able to take their golf cart out of their garage, and drive to the first tee.  Their love of golf is another story all together; preserving their view of that course was my main concern. I wanted a very strong foreground element that would hold its own against all that golf course acreage,  and a landscape that would frame, and not obstruct those beautiful views out to the course.  Central to the design, 4 Bowhall columnar maples, which would be inset in a picture frame of decomposed granite.  In the center, a fountain.

A fountain-this sounds so simple.  It is, once every dimension is carefully thought through.  Once all the proportions and construction are sorted out. Even the smallest most simple self contained fountain is a great addition to a garden.  A fountain of this size would be a place to congregate, and entertain.  My clients are young, and appreciate modern design.  But they did not want to be limited by a “modern” definition-they wanted a landscape which would please and suit them.  This means a landscape that allows them to easily entertain outdoors.      

The fountain footprint is 10′ by 10′.  My clients have 2 young children and very busy lives-I insisted that this fountain be constructed and cleaned as if it were a swimming pool or spa.  When I make much of a central landscape feature, it only makes sense to cover the maintenance. My client contracted Gillette pools to construct this reflecting pool; Buck built the acid washed steel surround.  Transporting that welded box to and from the galvanizer, and to the site-at which point 8 men carried that 900 pounds of steel box and dropped it over the concrete shell-a big deal.  Once the surround was in place, the frame of decomposed granite was installed. 

I played with no end of possible dimensions for the fountain, as did my clients.  I envisioned the limestone cap at seat height.  The kids in the fountain on a hot day.  A coping wide enough to accomodate a plate and a glass of wine.  The limestone cap-two inches larger than the walls, inside and out.  A low profile.  The golf course, and everything that park- like view represents to my clients-keep that intact. There would still be a wide expanse of lawn.  That large lawn space visually melds their property to the golf course property.  Most of the formal landscape is close to the house, and off to to the sides.       

The attendant landscape is clean and crisp.  It provides privacy from the adjacent homes.  Perennial gardens with a limited plant palette will provide interest throughout the summer.  White Knockout roses, dwarf Russian sage and shasta daisy “Becky” will be easy to maintain; this is my client’s first foray into perennial gardening, and I want him to be successful.  My client tells me he did not exactly know there would be perennials.  I did label certain areas on the plan as “garden”.  I will admit I did not discuss that much with him.  I am not only sure he will be able to handle it, I am even more sure he will really enjoy it.  His interest in landscape and garden is genuine-that is always easy to spot in someone.  The maples, the granite picture frame, and the lawn celebrate the fountain still under construction.  The work should be complete by week’s end. 

In my opinion, a big measure of the success of this landscape has to do with the views from the golf course.  I had an interest in my clients sustaining privacy from the course.  Sometimes privacy has less to do with walls, and much to do with invisible.  Every element and plant hugs the ground, but for the maples. Ros of yews on either side are punctuated with Venus dogwoods; someday those trees will be spectacular for 6 weeks in the spring.  Fot the rest of the year, they will gracefully provide screening from the neighboring homes.  

We brought in soil, and graded away from the house. The lawn always comes at the end of the landscape project, but it is very important. Lawn describes the shape, drop and drift of the land. The lawn plane is to my mind, beautiful.  Those trunks of the Bowhall maples bring the golf course landscape up close.  The fountain vase-coming up.     


Venus dogwoods, yews, boxwoods, and sparsely furnished perennial gardens round out the landscape around this fountain.  A formal landscape concept has a decidedly modern execution. Always on my mind is how I can apply and go on from the history of design to projects from real people who engage me. The fountain will have its vase and jet installed this week.  More to follow.

Posted on: September 20, 2010 2 Comments
Filed Under: Landscape Design, Garden Ornament

Kousa Dogwoods


Cornus kousa, or kousa dogwood, has an impressive list of outstanding characteristics.  Since few properties are large enough for an arboretum, choices have to be made. Trees with year round interest draw my attention.  The kousa dogwood has outstanding exfoliating bark when it is of sufficient age.  Like the sycamore or London plane, a old kousa dogwood will randomly shed bark, revealing new bark of a paler color, from underneath.  As a result, an old trunk is multi-colored, and highly textural.  As much as I like bark, I like the kousa dogwood.  This tree furthermore sets brilliant red fruit in September.  That shiny fire engine red is my idea of fall fireworks.  


Notice I have made no mention of the beautiful white flowers that mature in my yard in June.  In a good year, those flowers may last 3 weeks; my gardening season lasts 7-8 months. I need more interest than what great flowers provide before I am moved to dig the the hole required to plant a tree.  Even my beloved magnolias whose bloom is so fleeting have great bark and branching, and large luscious leaves all season.  A long season of interest-I look for this. My Kousa dogwoods are next to invisible after they bloom.  You can only spot it in this picture, as the leaves are beginning to turn. 

Their green leaves fire up slowly, come the beginning of fall.  The contrast of that red, and that green is riveting.  The shape of the leaves and the pattern of the veins are never more showy than they are in September.  The changing of the guard from the summer foliage to the fall display is an event I follow closely.   

The late September Kousa color is peach; that peach will deepen and mature.  I do not know the science well enough to state the evolution of the color depends on night temperatures that are steadily dropping.  So many times I research my instincts about nature to find out my notions have no basis in fact.  Suffice it to say, the fall color on the kousa changes dramatically over the course of the fall.

I have four kousa dogwoods on the north side of my house.  All four have grown steadily over the past 15 years.  This kousa planted at the front corner of my Romeo and Juliet balcony has grown such that the branches have come up and over the deck; they are at my eye level now.  One branch of that dogwood grows over the driveway far below.  I never notice that branch until the fall colors up the leaves. The garage lights make those leaves glow an orangy red. 

The vibrant red kousa leaves, underpainted and glowing from inside with that early orangy peach color, are the star of my north side garden show for weeks. The fall is all about the evolution of the leaves.  How they grow and photosynthesize over the summer, then turn, how they fade-how they drop-a gorgeous visual lesson in the process that is nature.  The process I am writing about takes the better part of 3 months.  That three month spectacular leaf turn and drop makes a kousa dogwood a tree I would not do without.
There comes that brief time when the red leaves of my dogwoods are just about as intense as the red fruit. That spectacular fall color is one of many reasons why a Kousa dogwood is worth any gardener’s consideration.  I have considered no end of plants for my own garden, and for the gardens of clients.  Decisions get made; trees get planted and take hold.  A good choice matters much. 

A tree is one of nature’s biggest plants.  I think about every tree I plant, and its location, long and hard-given the space it will occupy, and what conditions on the ground it will influence.  I additionally hope any tree I plant will outlive me. That given, I choose which tree for where with great care.  Today I am delighted to have a foursome of Kousa dogwoods thriving in my garden.  Their fall leaves in color delights me.  The summer season has no end of visual delight.  I have three other seasons besides the summer; I have interest in some off-season delight. 


That congested thicket of red-orange kousa leaves peak, thin, and fall.  Those last few dogwood leaves holding on today speak eloquently to the end of the season.  Consider cornus kousa for your garden.  Should you already have one, consider more.  The fall color-enjoy every bit of it.

Posted on: October 18, 2010 2 Comments
Filed Under: The Natural World, Garden Design, Good Design, Woody Plants Tagged With: ,