Each Little World

Looking for inspiration

Visiting other gardens is considered one of the best ways to be inspired with ideas for our own gardens. I find I get as many great ideas and bits of information trolling the web as I do visiting a garden in person. Here are a few online images that have recently sparked my imagination. 

I love Carexes and discovered this photo on the website of Plant Delights Nursery. I think this is a brilliant combination of color, form and texture. The grass is Carex retroflexa 'Bonnie and Clyde' but the Heuchera is not identified since the point of the picture is to sell the Carex. This image proves that two plants — the right two plants — can create a show-stopping moment. 

I have been growing bronze fennel in my garden but it doesn't do much visually for me. Nothing like this giant fennel in the garden of Dan Pearson in the UK. It went on my wish list the moment I saw this photo in the British House and Garden magazine. I am in love with plants that will tower above me. 

This is Rodgersia podophylla in the gardens at Cady's Falls Nursery in Vt. But it's surrounded by Barberries and Peonies, plants that like the sun. Rodgersias like the shade. But this image suggests they may be able to take more sun than I've been giving mine. This one looks so happy and healthy that I am probably going to move my slowpoke plant this spring. 

Author Matt Mattus has plants and ideas and information galore on his blog, Growing With Plants. In this photo of his early spring garden, he's done something it never occurred to me to do. He's put at least three different varieties of Fritillaries in three different colors around this urn filled with pansies. I've always put my Frits in different areas of the garden far away from each other. No more.

I saw this garden image on the blog of The Frustrated Gardener in the UK. Like Matt Mattus, he's another obsessive gardener sharing tons of advice, ideas and information. I grow a lot of Toadlilies (Tricyrtis sp.) and Heuchera but I've never seen them used as ground covers like this. The angle of the photo is a bit confusing because my Tricyrtis like this variety are at least two feet tall. What a thrill it would be to turn a corner and discover swaths of these plants that you could walk between.

I've planted the most floriferous area in my garden with a lot of pink, lavender and purple flowers. I wold love to add this plant, Lysimachia purpurea. It could be tucked in anywhere and would give a wonderful burst of color without overwhelming its neighbors. I've yet to find it for sale anywhere but I hopeful.

Have you got a blog, magazine or Youtube video channel that is your go-to source for ideas?

What does lower maintenance mean?

Now that Mark and I are in our mid-70s, it seems obvious that we need to seriously "reduce maintenance" on our garden. It's a concept that's widely touted, but harder to define. I've had a garden consult with Madison's Jeff Epping, Director of  Horticulture at Olbrich Botanical Gardens. I've Googled the subject and read endless articles on it.

The articles tell you that if you think of all the chores that your garden requires, those are generally what you need to reduce; jobs like watering, weeding, pruning, deadheading, and dividing plants and cutting grass.

Ann Lovejoy, whose garden books were among my first purchases, suggests installing gravel paths instead of grass. That's because gravel paths let water drain and they don’t need the maintenance that grass paths do. But we did that a dozen years ago. We also replaced our concrete driveway with pavers set in sand.

Surrounding trees with plants instead of lawn is another idea. Done.

Grass is one of the highest maintenance plants one can grow; getting rid of it reduces maintenance and helps the environment — which is probably not news to most of you. We've been in the process of saying goodbye to the last grass on our property for a number of years. There's one little bit left that should be gone by the end of next summer. We're mainly replacing it with native sedges.

Jeff suggested adding more ground covers and shrubs in mass plantings the way we've already done in our driveway. Since I have a lot of shade, I have been adding more ferns (native and other), Carexes, Epimediums and Hellebores. I have a list of shrubs I'm hoping to add this year.

Jeff also said that I should only have a couple of special areas for plants that require work. I have been trying to reduce the number of perennial beds, but it's hard to do. I am trying to think in terms of big sweeps of one or two easy plants with a few drama queens mixed in. I'm currently inspired by this area of the Hermannshof Gardens in Germany. (Photo by James Golden)

Perhaps the most helpful concept about lower maintenance I found was this question: 

"Where do you spend the most chore time in the garden, and which part of the garden is the most enjoyable?"

The article pointed out that it is unlikely that these places are the same. It suggested that identifying high maintenance areas should then help us to make good choices about which garden features to alter or eliminate.

They suggested replacing a fast-growing hedge with a fence. We pulled out our dying hedge and put in a fence last year. Another hedge, generally low maintenance, will have dying shrubs pulled out and replaced with new ones this spring. 

If each of these changes is the right one, then it should mean less work and energy will be needed to still have a satisfying garden. Whether I am really moving far enough and fast enough in the right direction remains to be seen. 

Pond re-design: Why we did it

We moved to this property in 1994 specifically to create an ornamental garden. We spent the first two and a half years planning and designing the pond, which was going to be the centerpiece of the space. We belonged to a local pond group so we got to see a lot of water features in home gardens. That helped us decide what we did and did not want in ours.

Specifically we wanted a stream with multiple waterfalls to act as a natural filtration system. 

Eventually the pond was well-covered with waterlilies whose leaves kept the water cool; another method of keeping algae at bay. 

Though the pond was in the sunniest spot in the garden — to make sure the lilies got enough sun to bloom — it was surrounded by trees which created a maintenance nightmare.

With three large Locust trees, it was impossible to keep the leaves from falling into the pond each fall. That meant that ideally we needed to empty the pond and clean it out each spring. (Look for the rocks marking the edge of the pond; the leaves make it blend into the grass and the deck.)

Mark, with very little help from me, did that messy job for years. It was easy in the early days when he was younger and when there were multiple unplanted areas where we could spread out the muck and let it compost. Along with cleaning out the rotting debris, he divided the water lilies, repotted and repositioned them back in the pond.

The last bare spot was the former moss garden where Mark dumped the slimy debris a few month before I began to redesign and plant this area in 2017. 

That was the last time he seriously cleaned out the pond. He never was able to do this job without help and we found it almost impossible to hire a company to do the kind of job we needed done — with the care we always use when working in the garden. 

During our COVID summer at home, the pond started having more problems than not being cleaned out. It sprang three leaks. Mark managed to find and repair two of them. But the third one was the problem. It was likely located in the rubber liner somewhere under the rocks in the stream; a location which meant it would never be able to be found and fixed. We had to turn off the pond pump because of the leak, which made the water eutrophy. 

We knew it was time for a change; a big change. All winter long we talked about what we might do; we looked at most of the garden books we own for inspiration and information. It didn't take long before we agreed to turn our wet pond into a symbolic water feature; something Mark had been interested in from the day we moved here. 

In those early day of creating our garden, I was less enthused about having a traditional raked gravel garden like Ryoanji (below). Over the years, I have come to appreciate this classic style of Japanese garden and was excited to make the change.  

Our new gravel garden has one major difference from the traditional Japanese style garden. We followed Olbrich Botanical Gardens' directions on creating sustainable gravel gardens like they've done with the one illustrated below. Thus, someday we can plant directly into our gravel garden should we, or the next owners of our house, decide to do so. (More on that in the upcoming posts about making the change-over.)

OLBRICH BOTANICAL GARDENS PHOTO

Another time

“The gardener digs in another time, without past or future, beginning or end. A time that does not cleave the day with rush hours, lunch breaks, the last bus home. As you walk in the garden you pass into this time — the moment of entering can never be remembered. Around you the landscape lies transfigured. Here is the Amen beyond the prayer”

— Derek Jarman, Modern Nature

More from MOWA

We arrived at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend when it opened so we could enjoy the Tom Uttech retrospective, "Into the Woods," almost by ourselves. We spent a couple of hours engrossed in his work and then walked over the river to a local pub for a delicious lunch. The museum has a handout with a list of nearby restaurants which is a very nice gesture for patrons like us who are unfamiliar with the area. 

We came back for a last look at Uttech's exhibit after lunch and discovered four different groups of students with docents and museum staff talking to them about their surroundings. The work on the left (just out of the photo frame) is by John Steuart Curry, the nation’s first university artist-in-residence. A Kansas farm boy who studied abroad, Curry was hired by the UW-Madison College of Agricultural — not the Art Department — as someone who could forge a bond between the University and Wisconsin's farmers. Alas, I am unsure if the painting the kids are looking at is by Curry as well. 

This group was enthralled by the huge glass creation, "InEarth" by Beth Lipman. We first saw her work a number of years ago in Milwaukee and were just as taken with it as the kids. 

According to the museum's web site, this is Tom Uttech's "first full-career retrospective that will include never before seen early paintings and drawings as well as a number of his large-scale migration series paintings from the last decade." We spent most of our return trip to MOWA looking at Uttech's photographs.

The  images we saw are part of a gift of two hundred photos that Uttech gave to the museum. They show the Canadian wilderness area known as the Quetico Provincial Park, part of the Superior National Forest. Mark had me stand in front of the photos (below) to give a sense of how large some were. 

The group of images I am looking at was titled "Erratic Faces," which I consider a play on words as the boulders are glacial erratics. In terms of geology, "erratic" means that they were moved via the glacier from their original location and are not native to the area where they are found — which also explains why they are just sitting on top of the ground. 

Every photo was mesmerizing, filled with massive lichen-covered rocks, moss, trees of all types and conditions. This is titled "Nawakwa Ajibik", 1981.

"Rock," 1983, oil on canvas, 50 x 54 inches. 

You can see more of Tom Uttech's paintings at the Alexandre Gallery.

Inspiration: Nori Pope

Just read that the great garden designer Nori Pope has died. Fergus Garrett showed some stunning color combinations in his talk in Madison last week but they were tame compared to the stunning color-themed garden the Popes created at Hadspen House. Luckily they wrote a book on the subject of color in the garden as their work at Hadspen no longer exists. Here's an article from Gardens Illustrated on Nori.

Nori and Sandra Pope

Following Fergus Garrett's advice

When Fergus Garrett, the man in charge of the famed gardens at Great Dixter in the UK, was in town last week he talked about "the tactile experience of brushing through plants" as they escaped their borders into the adjacent paths. As I walked through my garden the day after his talk, I realized that my Sambucus 'Black Lace' on the right was not misbehaving; it was taking Garrett's directive to heart. 

Fergus Garrett in town

Fergus Garrett, the head gardener and current inspiration behind the famed Great Dixter in the UK, was in town Wednesday night for a lecture at Olbrich Botanical Gardens. Mark and I and three other gardening friends were all in attendance. I grabbed a cocktail and Mark grabbed his camera and we dashed into the gardens for a brief visit before the lecture began. 

Amazingly our gardening gang all pulled into the parking lot almost next to each other and thus were able to grab seats together. Since the Olbrich Atrium was packed with chairs for this sold-out event, that was quite a feat. 

The Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society sponsors a trip to UK gardens every other year, so many members — including John and John (below) — have visited. These two gentlemen have a noteworthy garden of their own and also do a beautiful presentation about the UK trips to the membership. 

Nancy and David Nedveck own and operate The Flower Factory, the local nursery that is my go-to source for most of the plants in my garden. 

When you are gardening around a house as impressive as Dixter it does add a high level of beauty and drama to everything Fergus Garrett and his staff do. But we can follow his advice in our own gardens no matter their size or location: "Play where you can. Experiment where you can."

Monte and me once upon a time

Happy 40th Anniversary

Monte and Alan

❤️

Every May 1st for forty years, I think of my long-time friend, former roomie and fellow college art student, Ann Marie aka Monte. Here she is on her wedding day, May 1, 1979 with her Maid of Honor: me (on the left). This photo is proof that I once had a different hair style and color! And just one of many small Brownie snapshots of a most memorable day.

I remember someone hung a May basket on her garden gate, the only time I've ever seen that happen in real life. No doubt a common occurrence in Bekeley!

When friends talk about wonderful weddings — though my own was lovely — I always describe Monte's. The bride, an award-winning jeweler, made the wedding rings. Her mother, a skilled and creative seamstress, made her daughter's wedding dress. This photo doesn't begin to do justice to the beauty of the fabric or the design. The wedding cake was the contribution of the bride's brother, a rising chef. The ceremony was in the garden of the happy couple's Berkeley bungalow.

Looking through my pictures of this wedding was like looking through my own wedding photos: More bittersweet with every passing year as I remember all those who are no longer with us.

Dear Monte: Though it has been a long time since we've been together in person, you and Alan and your families are always in my thoughts and heart — especially on this day.

Hot off the press!

Early this year our friend Bobbie Malone decided to write a magazine article about the Original Pancake House that we all frequent. That idea snowballed into a wonderful little book that is now on sale at the restaurant for $10.00. The restaurant itself has just re-opened after a beautiful re-design. 

Bobbie said she wrote this photo essay "to celebrate the diverse community of staff and diners who frequent The Original Pancake House on University Avenue, a location that mindfully contradicts everything that the current national political climate attempts to deny." It's one of the few places where diners chat with neighboring tables and everyone talks to the staff. It is a perfect place to start your day on a positive note.

My husband, Mark Golbach, took all the photos for the book which was masterfully designed by Nancy Zucker. 

This is the second book that Bobbie has written since she retired from the Wisconsin Historical Society. She's currently at work on book with her husband, Bill Malone — the first they've ever co-authored.