Each Little World

A bittersweet journey

Mark and I left Madison on June 1st to drive to my sister Meg's Memorial Celebration in Woodstock, Vermont. I set up my blog posts before we left and stayed off digital media while we were away. That's why I haven't replied to your comments or visited your blogs.

The memorial event was held at this beautiful woodsy sculpture garden that was a favorite of my sister's. A large crowd gathered on a beautiful afternoon under a big tent. Friends and family, including her daughter, spoke. There was a bagpiper! Then we adjourned to a beautiful buffet and looked at photos, memorabilia and shared stories for the next couple of hours. I really had not been looking forward to this day, but it turned out to be the perfect way and the perfect place to remember Meg.

The day after the event, family members went off on their own, meeting up by accident and intention all over Woodstock. It's a town that is so lovely it feels like you are walking around a movie set with historic houses, a covered bridge and Paul Revere church bells. I bought a bagful of books at The Yankee Bookshop ("Eat. Sleep. Read.") and a big blue and white china cup and plate at a dreamy antique store.

But the most memorable moment of the day happened when we walked over to look at the town's library where my sister worked as their techie. This sign was on the door. I spoke to the librarians the day before at the event but had no idea they had closed the library on a Saturday afternoon to attend.

Mark and I decided not to push ourselves and spent three days driving from Wisconsin to Vermont. On the way home, we spent time with one of my other sisters near Chautauqua Lake. We made an overnight stop in Cleveland in order to spend time at the always inspiring Cleveland Museum of Art and have dinner at our favorite restaurant, L'Albatross.

To avoid the stress of driving through Chicago, we drove up to Muskegon, Michigan and took the Lake Express Ferry across Lake Michigan to Milwaukee. The ferry was the first high speed auto passenger ferry in the United States when it began operation in 2004. When you get out onto one of the Great Lakes you realize how big they are, as this photo Mark took of the boat approaching Milwaukee illustrates. 

We got in at dinner time and managed to get a seat at a favorite spot, stayed the night and went to the Milwaukee Art Museum where we saw more great art. Mark and I both took tons of photos which I will share later. 

Danger, old gardener at work

Despite temps into the low 90°s last week, I worked in the garden three to five hours every morning because I have so many plants that I need to get into the ground. Saturday the weather changed to a perfect May day for gardening. I was thrilled and got right to it. I had just planted two shrubs and was getting up off my knees when it happened. I put my hand on our Chinese lantern which was next to the spot I was working. Not a smart move.

The lantern is composed of six separate pieces that stack: A decorative base, the column, a platform that supports the open cube for a candle, the roof and a finial that tops it off. I tipped it over with the pressure from me pushing on it as I stood up. The good news is that it fell away from me. If it had fallen on me, I would not be writing this post. In fact, it could have killed or crippled me at the very least. 

Since nothing fatal happened — it even missed hitting my lilies as it fell — it's merely a good story. And a major wake-up call. I am putting it down to a temporary brain block from working too many hours in the heat. Lesson learned. 

I never thought twice about weeding and working next to that lantern since it has stood there without moving for twenty years. I have to admit that I am a little spooked to work near it again. 

April showers

Friday was so pleasant and sunny, that all the snow from Thursday's storm melted. I was excited that maybe my early ephemerals might start to appear. Alas, it started to snow again as we were leaving the house Saturday morning for our weekly coffee meetup with friends. Snowed on and off for much of the day.

But the real kicker was the hail that hit just as I was going to bed Saturday night. Mark and I carefully went out on the deck the next morning to take photos. He was so impressed with my photos, he went out to try again. His image of the top of the table on the deck was the clear winner.

There's only a few days in the next two weeks where rain is not forecast. Happy for the moisture, but I need to get out there to cut back Epimedium and Hellebore foliage before the appearance of the new flowers make it too difficult to do. 

IVOM: Something old

I noticed a group of Sedum flower heads glowing in the late winter sunshine when I was walking in the garden before last week's snow. I clipped a few stems and put them into the vase that had been standing in solitary glory on the dining room table. 

More and more I'm drawn to vases that look as beautiful empty as when filled with flowers. This one by ceramic artist Delores Fortuna is a perfect example. 

Every side is different, giving one a multitude of display options. The color and sparseness of seed heads and dried flower heads that are still standing at the end of winter make then ideal companions for this container. The vase is 11 and 1/2 inches high and the disc-like collar at the top is 7 inches in diameter. 

I'm hoping this week's warm weather will give me some early blooms from my garden for next week's container. I am so ready to be able to play in the garden again.

In a vase on Thanksgiving

A few weeks ago, when we closed up the Tea House for the winter, I decided to re-use the vase and its contents that had been on display there. The ivy had faded and started to dry out, so I added more dried items: A fern and a Hydrangea flower. 

I always get pomegranates as soon as I see them in the grocery store. I love their shininess, as well as the way the red echoes the trim on the gold screen on the wall. They are my not-so-subtle nod to Christmas waiting in the wings. 

Soft faded colors always look good with the big guy. 

Hope you all have a safe and satisfying holiday. 

IVOM: Pumpkin decor

I am not a big fan of Halloween decor, but I decided it was time to change the objects on the Chinese wine tables in the living room. 

My autumnal display includes "Pumpkin Mine" by artist Chuck Bauer. The dried pumpkin is covered in sculpt metal with rifle bullets glued on. I got it at an annual art weekend this summer. Not my usual type of purchase but I was instantly smitten with it; I suppose because I knew I had other not-quite-the-usual-pumpkin objects.

We found this gorgeously illustrated squash at the Farmers Market in Milwaukee a number of years ago. 

A metal container and an incense burner that both seemed to fit in with the others. Alas, that is all I know about them. 

Hanging above this display are three new photos by Mark of autumnal fall color — printed in black and white. 

I think they tell the story in a surprisingly subtle, yet strong, manner. (Ignore the lampshade in the lower left!)

A little Halloween spirit

My youngest sister, who is an artist, gave us this little ceramic "studio god" many years ago. Rather than guarding our creative work areas, we put him in this empty space next to the back door of our house to watch over our entire residence. 

Once upon a time, there was some kind of walkie-talkie by the front and back doors, but only the space remains. Locust leaves, caught in cobwebs, perfectly define this as an end of October moment. 

. . .

My sister, Pat, currently makes beautiful silver jewelry based on medieval chain mail. 

IVOM: Papyrus wand

When our book club meets, those of us with gardens usually bring flowers to the hosts. We were the lucky recipients of a small bouquet with a deep red-violet Dahlia paired with a stem of blooming Lilac. Our weird weather has caused Lilacs all over the area to bloom this fall.

But the treat that's lasted for weeks is this big stem of Papyrus. 

It makes a dramatic exclamation point next to the Lohan.

Pond re-design update: Our new water feature

When you embark on a major garden re-design, you suddenly discover all sorts of areas that need smaller changes to accommodate the big garden changes. For many years, this area on the east side of our property was a moss garden. It was created when we put the pond in in 1997/98 and I wasn't allowed to plant anywhere else in the garden as it was almost entirely a construction site. So here I sat, pulling out grass to reveal the moss hidden underneath it. Fast forward 20 years to the realization that this was a labor intensive little spot, given our whole property was now under cultivation. 

When we had the boulder wall, stone steps and paver driveway done in 2015, I needed to quickly find a big holding area for all the plants that lined the driveway. If I wanted to keep them, everything for two feet deep along the drive had to be dug up and put in temporary homes. Using the moss garden to solve this problem made it easier to say goodbye to that early garden. 

Once all those plants had been put back along our redesigned front drive, we decided to take advantage of this now empty spot. We moved the bench that had been on our deck out under the old apple tree and created a path that directed you to it off the main gravel path.  

For the first time, we had a spot to sit and view the garden down the length of the pond to the Tea House. Until this moment, we'd always sat on the bench on the deck and looked across the width of the pond to the hills behind it. 

Once we decided to leave this new seating area, I began to plant Yew (Taxus) shrubs that I planned to eventually prune into globes. 

I planted Maidenhair ferns and Hakonechloa macra grass, intending to fill the space between the shrubs with those two plants. 

Eventually I gave up on the Japanese forest grass as the rabbits would not leave it alone. I concentrated on the ferns and added two tiny Acer pseudosieboldianum (Korean maple) trees. I didn't get very far with this replanting plan last summer, when all the debris we discovered buried under our old deck was shifted over here.  

All of that broken concrete was put in the bottom of the empty pond this summer as Mark progressed on his big project. This unplanted area turned out to be the perfect location for our new water feature: The metal endcap of a tanker truck that is 39" in diameter. It has a valve on the bottom to release water when we want to clean it out. 

I've planted Carexes, Hellebores and Geranium phaeums around it. After I did that, I discovered why bird baths are raised off the ground: Birds kept trying to land on the ferns and all the plants. I'm waiting to see if the plants can solidly fill in to a degree that will keep the critters off of them. 

We are both thrilled with this new water feature that was found for us by a friend who is a retired metalworker. 

On a recent visit to Olbrich Botanic Gardens, we discovered they are trying to keep all their garden debris on site. They are finding all kinds of visible, often decorative, uses for logs and tree branches. We decided we would do the same with one of the logs we had from last year's tree removals. 

While the birds initially drank from the tank edges, the addition of tree branches extending into the water resulted in an explosion of avian visitors. Sometimes it looked like they were lined up on a runway waiting their turn to taxi down to the water.

We needn't have worried that removing our 7,000-gallon pond would result in a loss of birds and wildlife in the garden. 

IVOM: The end of August

I had my girlfriends over the other day and put together a quick bouquet for the coffee table. It sat on an antique green wooden tray with pink and green leaf motif plates and napkins with hot pink speckles. After they left, I moved it to this location. 

I mixed all the pink blooms I could find: Alluium 'Millennium', Phlox 'Jeana', Sedum 'Autumn Joy', no id Heuchera and Amenopsis macrophylla. The green glass vase, touched with silver, is by Richard Jones of Madison.

Mark and I drove out to Abel Contemporary Gallery on Friday to see new work by an artist who has a show coming next month. While there, I fell for this vase by Juliane Shibata.

I filled it with Calamintha nepeta ssp. nepeta, Kirehgeshoma palmata, Heucher 'Brownies' blooms and August Lilies (Hosta).

I was taken with the way the flowers that decorate the vase were loose and painterly.

No two sides of the vase are quite the same. I have a feeling it is going to get a lot of use.