Each Little World

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. 

Wordless Wednesday

In a Vase on Monday: Tulips and tea bowls

We've had such a rainy weekend that I dashed out beforehand and cut a few flowers to make bouquets for this meme and to take to a couple of social gatherings on Saturday. These 'Schoonoord' Tulips had been in a vase a good 4 or 5 days by the time I photographed them. I initially put them on a tall Chinese display stand in front of a painting by local artist Tom Sargeant because I thought the colors in the vase were similar to some of the tones in the painting.

We found the vase at the recent Clay Collective weekend where the artist — Shumpei Tamaki — had a booth set up at Mark Skudlarek's studio and shop. The vase was fired upside down in the kiln and so the drips and lines of glaze run upward when the vase is set upright. 

It didn't take long before I decided to put the vase on the fireplace since I walk by it dozens of times each day and it is directly opposite the spot where I sit to read. 

'Schoonoord' is a double Tulip and I wanted to be able to easily watch it continue to unfold and reveal touches of gold and green in its interior. The vase also has a sprig of ivy, a stem of Euonymous and a leaf from Lily of the Valley 'Hardwick Hall' (Convallaria majalis).

The vase with the Tulips is at the other end of the mantle from these two tea bowls that were also made by Shumpei Tamaki.

I walked into his booth and went directly to the large dark tea bowl on the right. I picked it up and thought "this is the one." Then I waited for Mark to arrive and I watched to see what would catch his eye. He did the exact same thing I did, so I knew that bowl was coming home with us!

He was also smitten with this one with its glassy blue/gray/green glaze. It's quite different from most of our other tea bowls because it is porcelain and has a crackle glaze which pooled "like a rim of jewels," as Mark put it. I think it will also make an attractive little flower container at some future time as well. 

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

Wordless Wednesday

More foraged greens

I often cut a few branches of Arborvitae for holiday arrangements but I don't take winter prunings from any of my other trees or shrubs. So it was especially nice to be able to forage an assortment of greenery from the pile at the curb in my neighborhood. I curved the longer branches around this ceramic plate next to the front door. It is under the roof overhang and needed a little sparkle to make it more visible, so I added a beaded ornament.  

Then I clipped more branches to various lengths in order to make a display for the front hall in my one gallon red Haws watering. 

 The berried and variegated stems were additions from the grocery store. It looked a little too somber with just greens.

Winter storage

The spurt of dry and warmer days that we've recently experienced made it possible to get most of the garden cleanup done. There are still lots of locust pods hanging on but most of the leaves are down. If we have time and energy we'll do a little more raking, but all the critical jobs have been done.

None is more important than protecting all of our outdoor garden pots. Some of these are used for focal points in the garden and are displayed without being planted up. Others hold water or mostly foliage plants. But none of them can be left with soil in them or sitting out where they could fill up with snow and ice which would make them freeze and crack.

Once upon a time we used to bring all of our pots into the house for the winter. We'd put a few in corners in the living room and library and bedroom. Now and then we even put one up on a pedestal for added drama. The rest found a winter home in the garage.

But over time we've accumulated too many large pots. So we've started to leave the biggest ones in the area where they will be displayed in the summer. They get emptied out, turned over and usually raised slightly above ground level. They've come through the last few winters that we've done this with no problems. 

All of the "smaller" pots are sheltered out of doors on this shelving unit on the east side of the house. Nice to know the garden is ready for winter and we don't have to work outdoors in miserable weather trying to finish up fall projects.

IVOM: Chinese lanterns

As I recently said, who can resist when the vendors at the local Farmers Market are selling the plants you wish you were growing. So here is my arrangement of Chinese lanterns that I purchased at the market.

I removed that lone pod sitting on the table in order to get the stems into the vase the way I wanted. This is a delicate plant and the dried stems were not easy to arrange. Then again, not many plants offer so much drama in color and form. The vase is by our friend Delores Fortuna and offers its own drama.

I had been on the verge of dismantling this summery display for something more autumnal than hand-held fans. But all those orange objects wanted to be together. 

The arrival of a Blue Hydrangea sent the lanterns to the opposite end of the room where they nicely catch morning light.

To see how other gardeners put together a vase this morning, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts this most satisfying meme.