Happy Halloween

 

Statuary can give a garden a sense of whimsey. This rat is in the garden at the Birmingham Museaum of Art, stands about 3 feet tall, and is realistically carved with fur, whiskers, and twitchy nose.

 

 

 

 

This blog is about gardens: gardens I tour and the garden I create. Earlier this month I toured the garden at the Birmingham Museaum of Art. I am sure it is a much admired garden, there may even be people who bring their lunch and sit in this garden to relax, but all I kept seeing was this giant rat.

The garden did have unity, a sense of belonging to itself (or to a big rat) and seemed to be laid out on a grid that reminded me of a rat's maze. There was an extremely large woman opposite the rat who matched it in proportion and scale.

Large potted plants provided repetition and sequence, and the pottery gave a bit of color to an otherwise all green garden. Variety was also provided by tree fern's soft frilly fronds in contrast to the stark white walls and huge dark rat.

Unfortunately, the only thing I took a picture of was this rat.

But really, he is all you see.

SWOT Analysis for my Landscape

According to our landscaping class, a gardener should perform a SWOT Analysis on their garden to assess their Strengths, Weaknesses (or limitations), Opportunities, and Threats

We have dealt with what was the main threat in our garden. Our home is on a third of an acre lot located on a busy main road. That means it isn't far for my dogs to run before they are in the road. When someone came to our door I couldn't get them to hurry inside so I could close the door and keep the dogs inside (this is the South; guests must first use a high pitched voice to greet their host, hug everybody's neck, compliment the garden WHILE the front door is open, and make a big show of wiping their feet before entering).

Our threat was the busy road so close to our front door.

We dealt with the threat of the busy road by putting a picket fence around a small area, creating a courtyard. Mission accomplished; threat killed, quaint courtyard born.

Actually, I may be stretching it a little. The courtyard is a work in process. But the threat of my dogs being run over has been handled.

 

Couryard (or dog-catcher), photo taken standing next to the cement girl

Since I accidentally started at the back of SWOT, I will continue in that direction and look at Opportunities next. That's right; I am doing a TOWS Analysis.

Our garden is part of a wooded area, our home is (maybe) a morph between a Tudor home and an English cottage. I love J.R.R. Tolkien. I can give my garden hints of hte 'Shire. That is what I call an Opportunity with a capital O!

The Hobbit

Actually, I do still love the enclosed gardens of Charleston and Savannah; and am not deserting that plan for my courtyard. I am just firming up the over-all plan for our front garden. Most people, when entering my home, comment on the wall to wall, floor to ceiling bookshelves. I think what I mean is that I have the opportunity to create a garden of whimsy, a garden for dreaming, a storybook garden.

Different Ways to Enjoy Flowers

In the last seven days I have done no gardening.

I have driven hundreds of miles to look at gardens, touring everything from the stunningly impressive Birmingham Botanical Gardens...

 

This picture was taken at Birmingham Botanical Gardens, from the belvedere looking into the Hill Garden

 

 

To a tiny jewel of a city garden in downtown Tuscaloosa...

 

 

This garden should be named "Little Alters Everywhere." It was an artistic blending of plants, hardscapes, and knick-knacks...a labour of love.



 

 

Then drove from Tuscaloosa to Atlanta to work a convention of a respectable and awe inspiring organization, where I spent the next three days in the basement of a high rise hotel, looking at floral carpet...

 

When there are no windows, floral carpet can be the next best thing to a garden.

 

I worked 45 hours in three days and was absolutely exhausted when I came home to the best kind of flowers...

 

 

Flowers on my library table!

 

I crashed for 10 hours and awoke fevered and dizzy. Apparently bacteria is flowering inside of me. The doc prescribed Biaxin and rest.

 

Look for a real post addressing view, axis, scope, and other important elements of garden design. Seriously, I took plenty of notes on the tour.

 

Ciao!



 

 

 

 

 



 





A Patch of Green

We have gone back and forth on whether to put on what to put down for a patch of green in front of our home. We discussed the no-mow alternative of Dwarf Mondo Grass; the traditional grass lawn; and one night at the Donkey, fueled by tequila, we tossed around the pros and cons of artificial turf (or indoor-outdoor carpet as we were referring to it that evening).

 

 

The Lazy Donkey in Carrollton. No swag involved, just admiring their grass...

 

About the Lazy Donkey; everyone from toddlers held up on his back by their mothers to margarita drinking mid-lifers jumping on his back as they leave the establishment, the donkey and his artificial turf see a lot of action. The owners tried to grow grass out front, it would look great for a few weeks but nothing they tried could stand up to the heavy traffic. Then they put in artificial turf and it looks great. Really great. People keep squatting down to touch the turf to see if it is real. But we decided we just aren’t that type of gardener.

Mister didn’t love the idea of Dwarf Mondo grass but said that if I loved it we would plant it. I don’t love it as much as I love the idea of not mowing, but he pointed out to me that I would have to pull weeds and rake. On thinking it over I decided I might as well mow.

So that brings us to our current plan for a patch of green. No surprise, no wow factor, just regular old grass.

Found this pic on the web

I reached out to our local Master Gardener’s organization for advice on what grass to grow. They gave me a bit of a quiz about the sun exposure and they tested the soil. Our future patch of green gets 4 hours of direct sun a day (more in winter) and is enclosed by pine trees on the north, walkway on the east, house on the south, and trees/neighbor’s house on the west. Our soil tested acidic at 5.4pH.

The Master Gardener recommended a tall fescue blend for our patch of green. Fescue prefers soil to be 5.5 to 6.5pH, will grow with our amount of sun, and is (I am told) easy to seed.

Instructions for establishment:

Incorporate 15 pounds of 10-10-10 per 1000 square feet into the top 4-6 inches of soil prior to seeding. In November and February, apply 3 pounds of 34-0-0 per 1000 square feet. Follow this program for the first year, and then use the maintenance recommendations.

Instructions for maintenance:

Apply 8 pounds of 10-10-10 per 1000 square feet in September. In November and February apply 9 pounds of 16-4-8 per 1000 square feet. In May, apply 1.5 pounds of 34-0-0 per 1000 square feet.

You remember that cranky old lady from your childhood, the one that watched from her front window and stomped out the front door if you got too close to her lawn? Yea, that will be me soon...

 

Picture from webiste "I Can Has Cheezburger?"

Creating a View

I have been reading P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home. Allen recommends taking a picture of your garden area because when a person is used to looking at an area their eye (or brain) will ignore what it doesn’t want to see and focus on what it does want to see.

When I read that I had an “oh yea, you’re talking to me” moment. You see, when I took the picture of my cement girl for this project I had to creatively edit the pic so that I didn’t post a picture of my neighbor’s garbage cans to the web.

That’s right, when you stroll down my walkway toward my courtyard, you can judge the neighbor’s beer and soda consumption and ponder the toxicity of aluminum cans. 

Disclaimer: This is a not my neighbor’s garbage can, they are lovely people and I wouldn’t embarrass them that way. Also, they picked everything up when I told them about this posting. And in the spirit of truth; we have a huge pile of aluminum cans, a large trash can, a canoe, a wood pile, and a garden wagon on the “service” side of our house.

Not my yard! I found this picture on the web and thought it made a point of what I don't want to see.

So back to my point, P. Allen Smith says you should create a view, a pleasing reason for the eye to rest; just because I am blind the neighbor’s service yard doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

That was the problem that P. Allen Smith made me aware of. My solution: A swing near the edge of our yard and a hedge behind it will continue the look of our courtyard and help to create the feeling of an enclosed garden.

This view is from our walkway. The cement girl is to the right of the picture, our house is to the left of the picture, and the maple bed is immediately behind me. The pinestraw in the center of the photo will be lawn one day. 

This is the view of our swing from the courtyard. Until there is a tall hedge behind the swing the eye doesn't really stop but continues on to the neighbor's side yard (he usually has trash cans, aluminum cans, and sometimes a bass boat there).

The swing was white so I spray painted it oil rubbed bronze to go continue the courtyard theme of my garden. Not having a lawn is awesome while spray painting-notice the paint in the lower section of the photo.

The garden center had many shrubs to choose from, but I haven’t yet made a decision on the type of hedge. I want something evergreen, and Mister wants something that blooms occasionally.

We are considering a burgundy leaved Fringe Flower (lorapetalum).

This was at the garden center, the photo-bomber is the nursery dog.

I feel that the Fringe Flower would play well behind the black swing and the burgundy of the leaves would connect to the blue/red bricks of our house. Also, we could use a large variety behind the swing and then use a small variety on either side of the driveway by the road, thereby tying the entrance to the drive to the side of the garden and the brick of the home. To paraphrase P. Allen Smith, it will complete the flow of the garden home.

Here is a final photo of the swing with our dog Boo waiting for someone to come sit with him.