Each Little World

New Year's greetings

    

Linda and Mark

wish you a safe

and saner 2021.

We're looking forward

to less social distancing,

more hugs,

and life with Joe and Kamala

The "Backscratchers Chair" by Rumi O'Brien

with Linda's childhood teddy bear and Mark's donkey.

IVOM: The un-Christmas display

A number of pre-COVID months ago, one of my favorite local artists, Richard Jones of Studio Paran, closed up his glass studio to my great disappointment. Thus I was thrilled when he sent out an email saying that his website was still up and was featuring all of the treasures he'd found as he cleaned out his studio. I treated myself to this unmatched grouping of a pair of candlesticks and a vase. It graced the table for all of our meals — regardless of the changes in table settings — all last week. 

Richard's containers are beautiful with nothing in them. I thought that this one could easily be overwhelmed by its contents, so I opted for just two flowers; different species — Hydrangea and Chrysanthemum — but the same color.

Our Christmas Day dinner featured blue and white dishes and accoutrements. I added this pair of intensely colored Foo dogs to the mix to make it less traditional.

This turned out to be Mark's favorite combination; a total surprise to me. We continue to enjoy it on a clean table ready for a new week of holiday dinners.

Christmas pleasures

Bursts of sunshine

A new painting: "Arkansas Blacks" by Jonathan Wilde. I bought that apple variety at the farmers market this summer. 

I baked two kinds of cookies, candied orange peel with an 1801 recipe and dipped them, apricots and walnut-stuffed dates in chocolate. It was deliciously enjoyable with no deadlines for parties or shipping or anything but our enjoyment. 

Best wishes for a pleasant and safe holiday for all of you and your families.

December companions

My angelic ceramic chorister always comes out to celebrate Christmas. She's a tiny little creature and likes to be near the comforting presence of the big gilded Buddha. 

If you look closely you will see my name painted on the angel's sheet music. My mother's best friend from college made this angel to celebrate my birth.  Though we're both the same age, unlike me, her hair hasn't lost its color!

Snowy vignettes

Though these photos of the garden were taken a week ago, right after the storm, so much snow remained on the evergreens that Mark and I finally went out at the end of last week to clear some of it off. With shrubs, wire cages and rocks all disguised by snow cover it was not easy to navigate the garden. But we did unearth most of the evergreens and never fell down!

Every year Mark puts pairs of bamboo stakes along the both sides of the driveway as a visual aid to mark the edge. That way he won't accidentally maneuver the snowblower into the border plantings. 

My tall Berberis 'Orange Rocket' all splayed out from snow.

Acer triflorum is so open in form that it holds little snow; just enough to look lovely.

An industrial saw blade (one of a trio with text painted on them) hangs on the fence next to my work area. 

This guy is displayed on the side of the house above the storage area for our ceramic pots. 

Bamboo hoops marking the edge of a flower bed along the back of the house. 

The Arcosanti bell is outside the back door and notifies me when the wind is rising. 

The view from the other side of the weeping White Pine adjacent to the bell.

The weather continues to be cold with high temperatures for Christmas Eve and Day barely making it out of the teens. Without snow cover, those temps can be fatal to a number of my plants. Here's hoping enough snow stays on the ground to protect everything.

Holiday decor: On the wall

For the past ten years we've hosted friends for brunch at our house on New Year's Day when the coffee shop that is our weekly meeting place is closed. We use that event, and the winter holidays in general, as the impetus to rearrange our art. Though we will be the only ones at our house this year, we decided our spirits needed the boost that new art and arrangements provide. 

Mark replaced his three photographs above the Chinese wine tables in the living room with new landscapes. I got to pick a trio my favorites. 

This was a fairly quick and easy project as he just used the mats and frames from the previous photos and rehung them in the same location. 

I set up a display on the table surface below the photos with lots of sliver and gray to complement the photos. 

Mark's preference was to leave it just as it is here; very industrial and sparse. 

No way! I intentionally opted for pairs of pots to hold plants. That's heather in the smaller galvanized pots.

The slightly larger pair of pots got red Cyclamen. I intended to get white-flowered varieties but could not get a pair in the size to fit the pots, so I went with red. 

It occurred to me later, that white flowers would not have shown up against the white wall very well. So red flowers made more sense; though I could not find a pair with matching foliage. Normally I put together much more asymmetrical combinations, but I went with pairs since we had so many.

We've been lighting all the candles in the living room (eight of them!) most nights. It has been such a boost to our spirits, that I just ordered more candles so we can enjoy the light all winter.

Holiday decor: Down and dirty

At Thanksgiving Mark and I decided it was not enough to make a nice meal to acknowledge the occasion and mark the day as different from every other day we've all been struggling through. We set the table with my grandmother's china and glassware; all of it more than 100 years old. We even got dressed up. 

All that is another way of saying that it seems equally important to celebrate Christmas, even if it's just the two of us home alone. I am being very restrained compared to years when the house was full of holiday guests. There's greens from the garden by the front door (above), shoved into a rolled up tube of chicken wire. A selection of evergreens is one of the big benefits of the winter garden come December. This is my version of quick and easy / down and dirty decorating.

Decorations on the fireplace mantle, of course; what else is it for? Two tiny houses in red and gold by local artist Chuck Bauer were already in place and seemed perfect for the holidays with the addition of a pomegranate.

It was a no-brainer to leave a red painting by Mark along with a 19th century miniature portrait both of which have been hanging on the fireplace wall for months. That way, all it required to look like Christmas was a tree and a pair of votive candle holders. 

The 2' tall tree — with a sturdy metal framework, base and star topper — is covered with deep red beads. They are shiny but not glittery. This is one of a pair purchased many years ago from the Wisteria catalog in its first year. Notice how the base sticks out a bit over the edge of the mantle. Turns out the mantle is only 6" deep, which is surprisingly narrow for many of the objects I want to display there. That's a measurement worth remembering when I am trolling the local antique mall. An activity that I really miss and can't wait to do again. 

Remembering my dad

Happy 100th birthday!

Jack Brazill

Dec. 24, 1919 — Jan. 24, 1998

Holiday greenery

We have a number of oversize plates — platters, really — displayed on the exterior walls of our house. Rather than removing this plate by our front door in order to put a wreath there, I decided to decorate around it. First I rolled a length of chicken wire into a tube and draped it around the top of the plate. Then I went around the garden, cutting greenery.

I mainly used Hemlock and Arborvita with a bit of variegated Euonymous and a Hellebore leaf. It looked a little blah so I added a few springs of Eucalyptus from the grocery store, two bunches of artificial sparkly red berries and foliage and a string of "rice" lights. 

The Japanese vase on the dining room wall got a leaf of Arum italicum and two fern fronds. The Autumn fern (on the left, Dryopteris erythrosora 'Brilliance') is holding up well indoors, though the Tassel fern (Polystichum polyblepharum) only made it through the first day. It still looks great out in the garden, however. This is its first year and it is so attractive that I am really hoping it makes it through the winter. 

I have the little vase of Thanksgiving Hellebore flowers on the vanity in my bathroom. I added more Arborvitae greens on top of the artwork on the walls, along with a bit of satiny ribbon whose ends I "pinked." 

As with the other rooms in our house, the art in our bathrooms get changed out periodically.  

These antique floral prints hadn't seen the light of day for a number of years, so I am enjoying seeing them on a daily basis. 

The wall color and materials in Mark's bathroom are more restrained than in mine and so is his bouquet. This little foliage collection has been in a vase on his sink for weeks and still looks good. I moved it to another room to photograph it. 

IVOM: Christmas roses

Most of the Hellebores in my garden are what are commonly called Lenten Roses  (H. orientalis) because they bloom in the spring near that religious occasion. Most of mine typically start to flower in late March or early April.

But I have two clumps of what are known as the Christmas Rose (H. niger) in places like Britain where it blooms at this time of year in their warmer climate. In Wisconsin where I live, it is usually too cold for anything to be actually flowering.

My H. niger were purchased as Zone 5 plants from the late Seneca Hill Perennials in New York State. They referred to them as "Thanksgiving Hellebores" because that is when they bloomed for them. Mine are usually up and budded at turkey time, but it is usually already too cold for them to open.

This year's on again/off again winter had me outdoors on the afternoon of the Winter Solstice with my garden clippers. I created the arrangement in these photos then and it is still looking good almost two weeks later.  Until I had these H. niger flowers in front of me every day, I never realized the buds are washed in pale pink. 

I put this vase in my bathroom hoping the higher humidity would help it survive. The flowers have continued to open but it is a much more restrained display than these plants offer in the garden. The bouquet includes leaves from two different Hellebores, Heuchera foliage and one of the beautifully patterned leaves from Arum italicum 'Ghost'. 

To add a holiday glow to my bathroom, I suspended a pair of large glass ornaments from the wall scones. 

Since these are made of clear glass they get lost when hung on a Christmas tree. This let them shine center stage for a brief time. 

I put out my grandmother's silver dresser set as well to really up the shine factor.

To see what other gardeners have found in their gardens to use in a vase today, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden, who hosts this lively and long-running meme.