Each Little World

IVOM: A book for bouquets

I recently discovered a wonderful little book for those of us who post every Monday about the bouquets we make each week. It was a serendipitous find on the "new books" shelf at my local library as I had not heard or read anything about it. Authors Amanda Luu and Ivanka Matsuba, of Studio Mondine, describe their book, "Ikebana Unbound," as "a modern approach to the ancient Japanese art of flower arranging." I was hooked from the moment I looked at the image on the cover.

The book opens with a brief introduction to the history of Ikebana and a helpful section on basic techniques of flower arranging. There was not a lot of information that was entirely new to me, but it was a good reminder that I could be doing a lot more to create the kind of floral displays that I am drawn to — and don't quite manage to create. The book ends with a nice list of resources I perused online for a quite a long time, making notes and contemplating tools and containers. 

"Ikebana Unbound" is divided into four sections: Naturalness, Movement, Balance and Simplicity. Each one begins with a brief introduction to a specific concept of Japanese philosophy as it relates to the flower projects and techniques. Each arrangement has a title that illustrates the theme and a paragraph that explains the ideas behind the arrangement. Each one lists the flowers used (not always with botanical names) and shows in a series of photos and descriptions how to recreate that display. 

The names the pair have given to each arrangement perfectly encapsulates the concept of that display. A few of my favorites: Into Spring, Cresting Wave, In the City, Alone Together, Haystacks and Oudolf's Meadow. What really excited me about the arrangements in this book is the fact that many of them use flowers and plants I am actually growing in my garden or have something similar to use for the desired effect. They use spring blooms like Tulips, Daffodils. Fritillary, Muscari and Hellebores as well as a lot of grasses and dried material. I even saw 'Diablo' Ninebark and 'Black Barlow' columbine — two stars in my garden — in various displays. 

I have a number of books on Ikebana and even took a workshop on the subject. But reading "Ikebana Unbound" is the first time I've felt like the concepts and themes made sense to me. I look forward to trying my hand at any number of the ideas within its pages. Definitely a book to own ($24.95, Artisan/Workman publisher).

Pond re-design: The final frontier

Before adding the next layer of fill to the pond, Mark put down permeable weed barrier.

The weed barrier is intended to keep the layer of screened top soil from filtering below. 

We took advantage of a big hole partly full of dirt to replicate our portrait taken on the day we started to build the pond in 1997.

Once the soil brought the pond level up high, Mark attacked the stream bed and waterfalls. He took out all the rocks from that area, piling them temporarily on the soil in the big pond. Then he removed as much rubber liner and carpet from the stream as possible. A number of the rocks in this area were set with a bobcat and two people. 

We were lucky to be able to borrow a couple of contractor's wheelbarrows. These are built to carry loads of concrete. Even empty, I could barely lift and move them. 

Mark's assistant, Angelo, had no trouble moving them full of dirt or gravel. Everything had to go from the driveway up an incline into the back. Angelo was amazing in how quickly he could move those barrows. 

The soil layer also got rained on which helped to settle it and let Mark determine if his calculations were correct. 

At this point, Mark began preparing for the final layer: Quartzite chips. He put wooden stakes in the ground, linked with string, to indicate the depth the chips needed to be, tiny surveyor's stakes. 

The quartzite chips needed to be put down without mixing any dirt up into this final layer. We were following the system that Olbrich Botanical Gardens uses in their sustainable gravel gardens. 

Once all the quartzite chips were settled on top of the soil. Mark began to level the pond surface. (It may not hold water but Mark and I still call it the big pond, stream and upper pool.) This was amazing to me to watch as he went the length of the pond on his hands and knees with a long, even board, a level and smaller pieces of wood to smooth the surface. 

He took design breaks to work on placement of the stones around the pond edges. The round stone was moved a number of times, getting it just the right distance from the pebble beach. 

You can see he changed his mind on how this area should be edged compared to the big stone blocks he experimented with above.

This view from the Upper Pool shows the stepping stones that cross it and the top of the stream on the other side of them. 

Even the stream bed has raked patterns. 

The sharply curving rock in the bottom pool of the stream symbolizes a jumping fish. 

Once Mark removed that wide swath of Carexes to make his working "bridge," we decided not to replace any of them. Instead he created a beautiful little path down to the east end of the big pond.

He set a grindstone into the quartzite chips so you could step out into the pond for a different experience than just viewing from a distance. 

Mark's first raking design was a very traditional linear pattern, the length of the pond. 

The big stones in the pond and the curving edges mean there will always be curvilinear patterns. 

This is where the stream meets the pond. 

I love this view from the path between the two hills in the garden. It is a view I rarely noticed when the pond had water. 

This was his first raindrop pattern, which was quickly followed by more elaborate version. 

This was his most recent pattern: diagonal lines across the width of the pond. Though it is a very simple design, it has proven one of the most effective because we can "read" it from inside the house. It also gets lit by east and west raking sun which makes the pattern pop.

Mark began this project on April 4th and finished on Aug. 17 — four and a half months later. It was an almost daily effort; whether with a wheelbarrow or a pen and paper. We couldn't be happier with the result. We celebrated the "unveiling" with an open garden event in early September. It was also Mark's 75th birthday. 

Pond re-design: The Upper Pool

The first step that Mark undertook in his big pond re-design project was the Upper Pool. This is where the recirculated water whooshed out between the rocks, overflowing between the stepping stones to travel down the stream into the big pond. (Double click the pictures to see the images larger).

. . .

2010: I was not allowed to plant in this area until Mark built the Tea House which is adjacent to it; a 10-year project in itself. Clearly this photo is from the earliest planting scheme which involved a lovely Amelanchier tree that died. 

2015: Five years later and things are coming along. The weeping Serbian spruce tree blocks your view down the stream into the big pond. 

2018: By this time the Upper Pool is almost completely hidden by the native water plant, Sagitaria latifolia. This view clearly shows the stepping stone path between the Upper Pool on the right and the stream on the left. 

APRIL 2021: Mark began actual work on the Upper Pool as soon as it was possible in the spring. He thought of the Upper Pool as his test project to see how this whole concept of a dry gravel garden would work. It meant taking the pond plumbing apart up here and pulling out the rubber liner. Doing that, however, also meant that we had made the pond system inoperable. There was no going back from this step.

Mark's using a sump pump and a commercial strainer to get all the  water out of the pool and the wet organic debris that was at its bottom. He piled the debris in the strainer to let as much water drain off as possible. 

I then emptied them into a wheelbarrow and he dumped the goop in any available bare spot in the garden to dry it out more. Eventually we took it to the Badger Road drop-off for garden waste. 

Once the pool was empty and dry, he pulled out any rocks he wanted to rearrange.

Next the hole was filled with soil. Notice how he was moving a wheelbarrow across piece of plywood on top of the steeping stones in order to dump the dirt where he wanted it. A more treacherous system than I was comfortable with, but he didn't have any accidents. 

We had initially thought we could hire a landscape firm to do this project, but the ones we called weren't interested. It didn't take Mark long to realize he was constantly making decisions that only he could make. It was not easy, but it made sense to do everything by himself that he was able to do. Here he's reshaping the edge and rearranging the rock placements. 

MAY: Mark drove up to Michel's Waterloo Quarry and brought back a pickup truck load of quartzite chips for the top layer of the Upper Pool. 

JUNE: We continued to play around with rock placement up here as work on the big pond began. You can see that the gravel does not go beyond the edge of the pool at this point in the process. 

August: As work on the big pond drew to its conclusion, Mark topped up the Upper Pool with more quartzite chips. Here you can also see that the gravel is now in the stream bed on the other side of the stepping stones as well. 

SEPTEMBER: The view in the other direction, standing on the stepping stones. 

I know a lot of gardening friends were shocked when we told them what we were planning to do. We were both thrilled with the result of this first big step. The garden feels new and different, which is not easy to accomplish when you have been in the same place for almost 30 years.

The gravel lightens the look and physically opens this area compared to when it was full of water plants. It is the perfect contrast to the highly planted area that surrounds it. 

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

Rake No. 2

When I posted about Mark's new rake to make patterns in the gravel garden last week, Loree Bohl of Danger Garden commented: "I saw Mark's rake and thought 'how ingenious!' followed by 'but I bet he's working to design something more artistic...'." She was right.

I had barely posted the images of what he was up to, when he showed me his new rake (on the right). This one makes deeper marks which are more visible at the new, larger scale needed in this bigger gravel garden. 

Having made a new rake, he completely re-worked the gravel garden in a new pattern. It looked absolutely stunning. Sunday he created yet another entirely new motif of interlocking circles like raindrops.

There's only one problem with him playing in the gravel. I am not allowed to walk on it which means I can't work around the edges, planting where he's left room for shrubs and perennials. Neither one of us wants to reveal the finished symbolic pond until it is complete. So you will have to wait a little longer to see it in its full beauty. 

Practice makes perfect

Last Friday, Mark went to the quarry in Waterloo to get a pickup-load of quartzite chips to finish the pond project. Though we'd had 14 cu. yards of the chips delivered, he wanted a tad more to get it all even and to the height he wanted.

He spent Saturday unloading them and getting the surface completely even. On Sunday he got out all the big garden forks and rakes and tried them out to see what kind of patterns he could make in this gravel. 

None of them were quite the right size to make marks of a scale that works with an area this large.

So he went to the hardware store yesterday and came back and made his own temporary wooden "rake." We both agreed that he's moving in the right direction. 

Here's his temporary rake: The handle and screw plate from a sponge-style floor mop fitted with a board into which he inserted dowels. Once he decides exactly the size and spacing of the dowel markers, he plans to make a more artistic version in keeping with the artfulness of the garden as a whole. 

Mark dug out a huge swath of Carex siderosticha variegata to make a working route from our gravel garden path down to the pond. Along the way he decided to leave the path as a way to get closer to the gravel garden. You now walk down a gray gravel path with these limestone bars (filled with Mexican river rocks) across it. You can then step out onto the grindstone and flat rock in the third photo above.  

This whole project is coming together nicely. He now needs to work on the rock placement around the edges of the "pond;" then I follow with the plants. 

Wordless Wednesday

Entering the home stretch

Yesterday morning 5 cubic yards of quartzite chips were delivered from the quarry in Waterloo. Despite the presence of Mark's pickup truck, it took a bigger and stronger vehicle to carry this load. This is the final layer of the redesigned pond. I had to have Mark pull me up as the chips started to move all over as I attempted to stand up.  

The quartzite chips will cover up the dirt in the upper pool, the stream, waterfall and big pond. Those little wooden stakes all over the soil mark the depth of the gravel layer. Once this load has been spread around, we will get a second load. After that's in place, Mark can start using all the rocks he's set aside to redo the edges of the big pond (pictured below). 

Hot, tiring, slow work — even with help. But we're both brimming with excitement at this point. 

Buddha released

Buddha had to leave his home on our deck last year when we had the old deck ripped out and replaced. While he was resting quietly under the Arborvitae tree, he got barricaded in with all the construction debris Mark wanted to keep on hand for this summer's pond project. 

Sunday two huge piles of concrete blobs and blocks all went into the bottom of the now empty pond. Buddha can come out now, but I am not sure if it's really safe for him to venture into this ongoing construction zone.

Good news for gardeners from Great Dixter

Readers of this blog likely know that many of the elements of our garden design were influenced by Japanese gardens. Thus, for the last twenty years, I've planted many treasures from Asia. But climate change and habitat loss have all gardeners looking at their garden with new eyes.

I'm happy to be able to say that I've composted kitchen and garden debris, mulched with chopped leaves and haven't sprayed or used many chemicals over the years. I have an old Bur Oak tree and a crop of seedlings that I'm nurturing (below), along with every fern native to Wisconsin happily romping around my garden.

But I am not a native plant aficionado nor do I want to give up all the lovely non-natives I've planted over the years. That's why I was thrilled with the information that Fergus Garrett, head gardener at the famed Great Dixter estate in the UK, shared with those of us who signed up for his webinar as part of Olbrich Botanical Gardens spring lecture series, "A Gardener's Call."

The "call" refers to the idea that gardeners need to "recognize and respect all beings’ contributions to healthy garden ecosystems." If we do that, then we will be able to support all life in the garden. I totally agree with that concept which is why I sat up and took notice when Garrett showed us that ornamental horticulture does that very well. 

Photo by Andrew Montgomery/Gardens Illustrated magazine

Garrett decided that Great Dixter needed a comprehensive biodiversity audit that would then provide the knowledge that he felt was critical to managing Dixter in the best way. It wasn't really news, he noted, when the survey showed the meadows, ponds, pastures and woodlands on this old estate were extremely rich. 

Photo by Andrew Montgomery/Gardens Illustrated magazine

The big surprise — and what excited me — was the fact that the survey found the richest part of all was the ornamental garden (above). The survey clearly showed the garden, even with its fancy floral displays, supported an extraordinary amount of wildlife. Though Garrett hadn't specifically gardened with biodiversity at the forefront, it was there as a by-product.

That means I don't have to tear up my garden and start over. I can leave my non-natives in place and add more if I want. The big lesson is having as much diversity as possible. The things I've ordered online, or plan to buy locally, range from grasses to shrubs to bulbs and perennial plants; all of which means I am moving in the right direction for diversity. Add in the fact that almost half of them are native and I no longer have to feel guilty for wanting a garden that showcases non-native plants.