Each Little World

Garden quirks

Over the years I've planted three different Paeonia japonica; each one from a different nursery. They look identical to each other until you look into the flower. No idea if these variations mean they are indeed different types of Peony plants. Despite growing these three for a number of years, this is the first time my attention was captured by these differences, rather than the beauty of the flowers. 

No bouquets yet

I did make a tiny arrangement of snowdrops for a friend, but the garden is so wet from the snow and rain that I'm just enjoying it from a distance. A few weeks ago I arranged a display on our pair of Chinese wine tables in anticipation of Spring. This is as far as spring has made it inside the house. 

I first saw this plate a number of years ago on the website of a store called Asiatica in Kansas City. It has been out of stock since the first time I saw it — until now. It is one of the few things in this beautiful shop that I could afford, so I snapped it up immediately.

And I got the bowl as well. You can see that I enjoyed my pots of Muscari until the bitter end. I will plant the bulbs out in the garden very soon. 

I have a small number of Japanese indigo fabrics woven on narrow looms. I don't really have a plan for them, but I couldn't resist the different patterns. Rolling them up and displaying them in this tray from Target seemed like an easy way to enjoy them. 

Despite the fact that this is not a large vase, it will be a while before there are any flowers in the garden that are tall enough not to be hidden below the rim. 

The rain should end today and the forecast is mostly sunny with temps in the 70°s by early next week. That's way too warm for early April, but it is what we are seeing more and more as the climate changes.

No place like home

Why not stay here forever and ever

enjoying this immortal rhythm,

in which both eye and soul are at rest?

— Virginia Woolf —

 

A Chinese necklace (probably bone) and a dried Magnolia leaf resting in our Thai Spirit House.

Petite perfection

Last summer we visited a new garden high above the shore of Lake Mendota. It was filled with striking rock work but that's another post. Amidst a lot of drama I was struck by this small contemplative planting.

It's outside the windows of the lower level of the house with the opposite side a step up to ground level. The easy and common solution would have been to just let the lawn slope gently to the windows.

This gives anyone inside an eye level treat while the outside is an unexpected garden in an unexpected location. A tiny feature in a wonderful large garden

The long view

Looking down the length of the roof on Mark's fence across the back of our garden. Now those shingles are moss covered and some have fallen off. The tree in the foreground is the old cherry tree that got taken down last winter. 

A good reminder that short term thinking doesn't work well in a garden. The start of a new year is a good time for me to remember that it also doesn't always work that well in life itself. 

IVOM: Halloween

Whenever I get bored, I change up the items on top of this pair of Chinese wine tables. Or on the glass shelves we added on the bottom to provide more display space. Recently I wanted something to punch up this room and bought this pair of lamps at a new antique mall in town. Mark is less than thrilled with them because they limit the size and number of pieces of art that can be put on the wall behind them — which is why I saved the pair of smaller scale lamps that had been residing here. 

I put this grouping of objects out at the beginning of October. I wanted something that felt like Halloween but didn't include typical items. This group showcases a Japanese incense burner, a squash-shaped box of unknown origin and a Chinese ceramic piece that was likely used as a roof decoration. 

I immediately fell in love with this piece when I saw it at an art show at a friend's farm the summer of 2021. It's an actual dried pumpkin covered with lead bullets and sculpt metal. It's called "Pumpkin Mine" and is a comment on the marine mines used to blow up ships. I'm still not sure why I am so drawn to it. I'm not a violent person and neither is the artist — a friend — who made it. But it certainly has that eerie Halloween feel. 

This big wooden bowl full of Honey Locust pods comes out every autumn. When we first lived here, we rarely got pods from our three trees. In recent years, we are buried in them. We fill a lot of big bags with them and send them off to the county dump. 

As a means of turning these lemons into lemonade, I saved the longest, shiniest, most velvety pods for display. They live in this bowl year-round in the basement except for their month in the sun every October.

Good fences . . .

A number of years ago the young couple who lived behind us announced they were getting a dog — and thus needed to fence their yard. To our surprise they wanted our advice on what kind of fence they might get. They wanted something that would not detract from Mark's beautiful Asian-influenced fence (below) that separated our two properties. We talked about possibilities over a glass of wine and gave them a couple of books that had inspired Mark. 

We were so pleased with the fencing they added that we hired the same company and extended it into our garden on the side that had ancient wire fencing. Last year we added similar fencing in the front garden. Nothing fancy; it will fade and blend into the landscape and give me a nice backdrop for planting. 

Imagine our surprise when we looked out from our usual chairs into the garden late Wednesday afternoon. We could suddenly see a blinding bright light in a back yard a couple of houses east of us on the street behind us. At first we thought it was a huge "pod" structure. But when we looked closer this is what we saw. 

The properties behind us are all higher on the slope that runs down to our property. So this solid white plastic fence is extremely visible from a distance — visible right into our living room. I took this photo through our garden fence across two neighbor's properties. 

Mark is already trying to decide what we can plant to hide that view. I figure the fence should be less visible this winter when it snows and everything is white. At least we don't live directly next door to the fence. I'm afraid I would be hard pressed to be polite about such a visual monstrosity running along my garden. If only they had gone with a picket fence, I'd be a lot less frustrated. 

IVOM: Fall gatherings

These arrangements are from the last couple of weeks when I've been pulling out vases that haven't seen the light of day for a long time. This is a contemporary Chinese ceramic container, but it is not glazed inside. I stuffed a plastic bottle into the opening to hold water without leaking. 

A number of years ago I fell in love with the seedheads of Hosta flowers when I saw them in a bouquet a friend had composed. Now I always let a number of the flowers get to this stage. In fact, these pods were the impetus for the display. 

I like these Sedum flowers best before they open and turn pink. 

I think I should have added a couple more stems of Sedum flowers at differing heights. This feels like a bouquet that is not quite finished. But I didn't want to denude the Sedum plant — which is in a very visible location — by cutting more flowers. 

I moved this large wood fired stoneware pot to use the pedestal as a staging area for photographing the vase. Afterwards the vase went to the dining table where we could enjoy it with every meal. The painting is an old one of Mark's.

This Japanese bronze container is one I often use for bouquets with toad lilies (Tricyrtis). I had a stunning display of Tricyrtis hirta this year, but it was in the wrong location and needed to be divided and moved. So I clipped all the flowering stems to bring indoors. 

I added clippings from an unknown Heuchera with pink flowers and some stems of Anemone hybrida 'Max Vogel.' The Anemone gave up the ghost in 24 hours, so I need to do some research to see if there is a way to make it last as a cut flower. 

I cut a big stem of hardy Begonia, along with some of the beautiful foliage of this plant. This is another case where I needed a couple more large flowering Begonia stems but didn't have any. I added what was available but I was still unhappy with the hole on the left side of the bouquet (first photo).

The toad lilies go on and on and are one of my favorite flowers to bring indoors. Luckily I still have a number of them in bud and bloom to continue to enjoy indoors and out. 

To see what others have put in a vase today, visit Rambling in the Garden who hosts this long-running meme. 

IVOM: Stewartia pseudocamellia

We planted our Stewartia 22 years ago in an area where we kept adding another unusual tree. We assumed some would die but no one did. Last year we had to take out one of them  as they were crowding each other. The Stewartia stayed, even though we can only see it when we go looking for it.

We usually discover it's blooming when we find its flowers on the ground. As I was cleaning them up, I set aside the most recently fallen ones to take indoors.

When I float Hellebores, I always pack the bowl full of blooms. With Stewartia, I think fewer flowers look more elegant. 

The central "poppy seeds" make this flower perfect for my favorite speckled dark brown bowl.

Last winter we took out an old cherry tree that was shading the corner where the Stewartia grows. Hoping that more light will cause a few blooms to form on the lower branches so we can enjoy them before they fall to the ground. 

Vases and vases

This spring seems to be rushing by faster than in recent years. Every time I look around something has burst into bloom and something else has disappeared. I've been cutting flowers and plopping them into vases like mad. The best way for me to enjoy the bounty of my garden at the moment is indoors. I have enough daffodils that I can pick a lot of them without it being obvious. The Tulips grow in the Traffic Island bed in the street. Since it will disappear when the street is redone, it made sense to bring them indoors while I still can. 

No ids on these images. Just pretty flowers to enjoy.

Variation on the above theme.

A small offering in the Tea House.