Each Little World

March in black and white

Late last week the weather was so beautiful I began a little light cleanup in the garden. Hellebores, like H. 'New York Night, were sending up big fat buds, snowdrops were blooming in white clumps and it seemed like spring might really have arrived.

But it is March in the Midwest, so snow immediately followed the first flowers on Monday.

It came down wet and heavy, but there's not enough of it to last. The roads were clear by mid-morning Tuesday, so we drove out to our favorite gallery to look at a group of new tea bowls by one of our favorite potters, Bill Farrell. 

We have serving dishes, large containers and many tea bowls by Bill. We have enough of his work that we really didn't need any more. But these are raku, unlike all of our other pieces by him which are wood-fired stoneware. They were too lovely to resist; a fact we were fairly sure of before we even left the house. 

By the time we got home from the gallery in mid-afternoon the view out the window showed the snow was melting on all the stonework in the garden, nicely re-iterating the tones and marks of Bill's bowls inside the house. 

Rain is predicted for much of next week, which will get rid of the snow and send the spring bloomers above ground for sure.

Covidian decor

At the beginning of May I decided if we were going to be spending more time at home I wanted to make the space look and feel fresh. So one day while Mark was in the country shooting photos, I rearranged the living room furniture. I put the couch perpendicular to the big window wall so I could enjoy views of the garden all summer. It had been parallel to that wall and facing the fireplace. I rolled up the rug that is usually under our glass topped coffee table to make the space feel even airier.

When Mark came home, he approved of the changes but said it was his turn now. He would replace the art on the wall that his reading chair faces and redo the tabletop display in front of that same wall. He printed three of the scenes from his day in the country, popped them into frames and put them on the wall. 

Then he set up a display of our collection of tea pots, most of which are rarely all out at the same time.

Though teapots are one of the most inventive forms potters create, we've limited ourselves to this small grouping.

An antique Japanese version in iron with a bronze lid, that caught Mark's eye, is last addition to our little group.

The first teapot I ever bought, back in the 1980s, at the Potter's Wheel gallery in Door County. The artist is Polly Whitcomb.

This one is by Bill Farrell of Galena, Illinois. Bill is one of our favorite artists; we have quite a number of his works from tea bowls to sculptural containers.

This beautiful example is by Tony Gebauer of TR Pottery in Fish Creek, Door County, Wisconsin. 

A raku pot, also from a gallery in Door Country, by Lou Ann Lewis.

A pot that pours perfectly by Mark Skudlarek of Cambridge Woodfired Pottery outside of Madison. We own untold numbers of useful and beautiful items made by Mark. All but one or two of the big pots in our garden are also his work. 

This porcelain charmer is by Dolores Fortuna of Galena, who currently shows her work at Abel Contemporary Gallery in Stoughton. We bought this one on a visit to Dolores' studio. It did not yet have a handle and she offered us a number of options. We could not resist the idea of a teapot with a barbed wire grip. 

This weekend we are going to repaint our bedroom from deep yellow ochre to a shade of gray. All the art will be replaced. Mark's large, gilt framed abstract painting from his college days will move from the bedroom to the wall behind the teapots. So this space is due to change again as well. 

Daylily season

If my Martagon lilies were a disappointment this year, the daylilies are not. Then again, in the Upper Midwest daylilies are stalwarts that never disappoint the gardener. 

Hemerocallis 'Little Rainbow'

I bought H. 'Petite Sioux' in 1990 at the local Daylily Society's annual sale when I was a member. I've never seen it offered anywhere else in all these years. My first garden was small, so I became enamored of these more petite varies. Still love them.

H. 'Red Magic' 

This pairing enhances the tones of the Tea House and, since they are smaller flowers and plants overall, they don't overwhelm Mark Skudlarek's big pot. 

A vase on Monday — and its neighbors

I have not posted any flower-filled vases for a long time and I expect it will be almost a month before I hope to see anything growing in my garden. That doesn't mean the house is devoid of growing plants. I have a pair of pale pink Orchids on the bathroom vanity, a holiday Cyclamen by my reading chair and a Boston fern with fronds that are almost touching the floor near Mark's nook. 

But I have always been a fan of vases that make a statement even when they are not holding a bouquet. This is a ceramic piece, about 10 inches tall, that I bought when my favorite consignment shop was closing last autumn. That green glaze with a hint of slate blue has long been a favorite of mine. Plus I liked the way the unglazed area swooped around the sides like long wings.

When I bought this vase I knew right where I was going to put it — and it wasn't in storage. Its color beautifully echoes the glaze on my antique Chinese headrest. 

The headrest itself has been the perfect spot to display this bejeweled evening bag — a bouquet that never needs watering. 

Just before the tour: The water gardens

The Tea House sits above the west end of the big pond.

The loss of the big Japanese maple that was at the back edge of the pond has allowed more sun to reach the water — and thus we have more lilies. 

All of our water lilies are hardy and either white or yellow flowered. 

The upper pool nestles next to the Tea House. 

By this point in the summer it is filled with the flowers and foliage of Sagitaria latifolia. 

A stepping stone path crosses between the upper pool and the beginning of the stream and waterfalls. 

The path across the water links the Sacred Grove and the Tea House gardens. 

The stones are wet because birds stand between them and drink, wash and generally splash about. 

Mark and Jon Adams-Kollitz, the young man who helped him build the ponds and stream, worked hard to achieve the perfect sound of rushing, bubbling water. 

This area has always been a planting problem since you need to walk here as you step off the path across the stream. I planted this combo of ground covers last summer and it is the first grouping that has not only survived but thrived. 

This area still has some of its earliest plantings I made in the garden, though many others have come and gone over the years. 

 

IVOM: In with the old

This feels like a rather restrained display to me, though perhaps not to you. It had a number of other items when I started, but Mark suggested editing both the table tops and the shelves below and so I did. We've owned almost all the objects for quite some time, except for the vase on the wooden tray which we got last spring. 

The "old" in the title refers to the orange Chinese lantern flowers (Physalis alkekengi) in the vase on the right side of the table. They've spent the last year in a different vase in the basement. I was curious about how long the color would last and they would manage to hang on to the stems. Longer than I expected in both cases. This is an invasive plant so I always try to find a few stems at the fall Farmers Market rather than growing it myself. And at this point, there's nothing left in my garden after a number of frosty nights. 

The gorgeous pot was made by our friend Tony Gebauer of TR Pottery in Fish Creek (Door County, WI) while the small Eskimo bone figure came from the estate of our friend, artist and musician Elsworth Snyder. 

We bought this vase, along with a few other pieces, by Shumpei Tamaki who had a booth set up at Mark Skudlarek's studio and shop during Mark's spring kiln opening event.

It's joined by a rock decorated with drawings by an unknown artist, another piece from Elsworth Snyder's collection

And two pairs of lovely Japanese clippers, unearthed while planting in the garden. They were accidentally buried different years and discovered years apart as well. I'm on my 3rd or 4th pair and none of them have worked as well or as smoothly as my original pair. I put hot pink ties on my hand tools so I would not lose them in the garden but it has not been entirely successful. 

This display — which has been in place since mid-October — will remain through November as it has a nice fall/Thanksgiving vibe. But these photos were taken a month ago when we were having more daylight hours. Now part of its charm is the strong shadow patterns as the light goes down early.

To see what others have put together from their gardens this week, visit Cathy from Rambling in the Garden  who hosts this long-running Monday meme.

Potted up

A while ago Mark gathered all the smaller ceramic pots that we display throughout the garden. He left them by the deck waiting for them to drain and dry out before storing them for the winer. 

A week ago today we worked together to get them all stowed away until next spring. We used to bring our big pots indoors for the winter but these days we have too many to display inside anymore. The majority of these are all by local artist, Mark Skudlarek, of Cambridge Woodfired Pottery.

The big pair on the right have layers of bubble wrap between them for extra protection. These are the pair that I use with giant Hostas in them on either side of our new stone steps that lead up into the front garden.

Until we went to stack these pots I did not realize that I had three matching ones. One pot was on the stone wall out front in the Moon Garden holding my new fastigate Ginkgo tree. The other two sat on either side of Buddha on the back deck holding 'Golden Tiara' Hostas. I plan on keeping the Ginkgo in a pot for a few years but next spring I think I will put Japanese ferns in these pots rather than the small Hostas. 

This is one of the first few pots we got from Mark Skudlarek. We use this as the Tsukubai water feature with a copper pipe that drips into it so that the water overflows.

This pot is cracked so we handle it very carefully. It should last a long time if we don't heave it around casually and if we don't let any water freeze in it. We lost a large pot a few years ago when it fell over in a storm and hit a rock. Now we are more careful about where we put the pots so that can't happen again. 

This storage unit that Mark built is on the east side of the garden right up against the garage wall. There's also a big maple tree and the roof overhang giving the area added protection from the elements. And there's Mr. Metalhead watching over everything day and night, whatever the season or the weather. 

IVOM: Home and away

I see so many floral arrangements in print and online where the designer notes that many of the flowers or pods or branches used in the bouquet were "foraged." Living in a state with a lot of agriculture, "forage" is most commonly used here as a noun meaning food for livestock. If someone is "foraging" then they are typically looking for food. But all these hip young bloggers and floristas mean they found the material for their creations in the wild. I am always curious about where they actually go looking since it is illegal to remove natural material from public parks or gardens and the same goes for private property.

On the other hand, I did a little urban foraging over the weekend when I was at a bookstore in a mini-mall that's lost its main tenant. As a result the parking lot is almost entirely empty and the plantings are a mass of weeds and wildlings. Things were suffering from reflected heat and lack of attention. Since it was a public parking lot but unattended and barely used, I decided it was ripe for the kind of foraging I keep reading about. So I cut a bunch of goldenrod and asters, brought them home and put them in my largest wood fired stoneware pitcher. 

From my garden I cut flowering stems of an assertive pond plant — Penthorum seloides aka star fruit — that currently needs some stern attention before it takes over. Though commonly known as "star fruit," I've seen its branches described as "upside down turkey's feet" which seems pretty accurate to me. 

The third member of this trio has foliage from Aralia cordata 'Sun King' which is begin to turn yellow with a stem of pods from the same plant, along with a stem of Goldenrod that is past its prime.

All three pitchers are by local potter Mark Skudlarek of Cambridge Woodfired Pottery. The two smaller ones were bought as a pair that we thought would complement the big pitcher. The next three images are closeups of the patterns on each pitcher. 

When I pulled out these three pitchers from our basement pottery stash, I decided to change the entire table top. The fabric is African mud cloth, if I remember correctly. And the lamp is Japanese. American art and craft paired with African and Asian items is pretty much the design motif everywhere in our house. 

To see what other gardeners have put in a vase this Monday, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden. She is the host of the long-running meme that has become the favorite way to start the week for many of us gardeners around the world. 

Waiting

When I buy small trees or shrubs I often put them in pots and let them grow that way until early fall. I watch them develop more closely this way and I have time to be sure the spot I have in mind for them will be the best one possible. This is really just a variation on Monday's vase theme: simplicity with bigger pots. Mark is not a big fan of flowery containers so this give me a chance to have some containers that he approves of.

In a vase on Monday and everyday

Spring is the season when there are more flowers than I can enjoy if I don't bring them inside. Especially this year with the crazy hot weather we had in May, blooms were opening and dying in a matter of a few days. So the house has seen vases coming and going as quickly as something new came into bloom. Here's a sampling of what I've brought indoors from mid-to-late May. 

These little jester's caps are the first stage of the seedheads from Paeonia japonica. 

Love this image where you can see all the details on the ceramics as well as the polychromed Thai "cave monk" figure in the corner and the dark silhouette of the metal advertising figure leaning against the fireplace.

I almost always let my bouquets keep going well after they've lost their good looks. It's Mark's favorite stage!

Now that it's June, one of these days there should be lilies to put in a vase. To see what other gardeners have created in a vase today, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts this magical Monday meme.