Each Little World

In a vase on Monday: Teahouse flowers

We've been reminding ourselves to take advantage of the cooler fall weather to sit in the Tea House with our afternoon coffee. We hadn't been inside for a while so Mark vacuumed the interior and replaced the wilted bouquet.  

He opted for a sprig of Kirengeshoma palmata flowers with very wabi-sabi leaves. I think being in charge of the bouquet was his way of using his new hanging vase by potter David Caradori of Eau Claire who we visited on our mini-vacation in July.

To see what kinds of bouquets other gardeners have put together this morning, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts this great meme.

The Moss Garden at this particular moment

2017

Once we made the decision to move the bench to the moss garden with a wide path approaching it, that arrangement clearly divided the space into a couple of large beds that swept around the seat. I decided that I would just fill in the space with plants I already had and that would be that. So I dug up Japanese painted ferns, candelabra primroses and Hostas and began to fill in the space. The white buckets indicate the locations for future Yew balls. We already had one planted under the Carolina Sweetshrub by the fence, so adding four more would make a nice uneven number.

I also added a young Korean maple and two boxwood seedlings, all of which had been growing in pots around the garden. The boxwoods would also eventually be trimmed into balls. Everything's caged to keep the rabbits away now and during the coming winter. 

But hardly had the plants in the first picture begun to settle in when I decided it was too much color and pattern. That probably sounds crazy but the old moss garden was a calm green moment amidst everything else that was happening in the garden nearby. I wanted that green quiet feeling again. So on my recent trip to the Flower Factory I bought 8 solid green Hakonechloa macra plants to use instead of painted ferns and Hostas. This spot is fairly dry and the Hakonechloa will do better here than the painted ferns anyway. 

Mark and I then revisited our early idea of a long "wave' of Yews — rather than a mere four — that would be pruned into balls until they start melding into each other a number of years down the road. That would lower maintenance since they only need clipping once a year. After calling a few local nurseries we discovered Winterland Nursery still had what we wanted despite it being almost Labor Day. 

Luckily we had a planting plan otherwise it would have been easy to be seduced by Winterland's fields of trees and shrubs. 

We bought ten Taxus x media 'Tauntonii' which we've used elsewhere in the garden. Hopefully these will do as well as the others we've planted over the years. Winterland Nursery was bought out by McKay Nursery and they now offer a one year guarantee which is a valuable added protection to pricey plants like these. 

Mark unloaded the heavy pots and brought them to where we wanted to plant them via multiple wheelbarrow trips. We spent a fair amount of time moving them around to determine the best placement. Then it came time to plant them. Out came all the necessary tools. Mark started to dig the first hole to see how bad the roots from nearby trees might be and to see what the soil was like. He gave me some tips and said to call him if I need help.

I didn't really need help. I just had to do it my way with my tools. I knew it would take me twice as long as it would if Mark did it, but I wanted to do it right and also not hurt myself. That meant I did not use Mark's big shovel in the foreground or the heavy duty orange-painted spud. They were so heavy to lift I didn't have enough strength left for leverage!

I used the cardboard template to cut the diameter of the planting hole and the other tools as needed. Luckily I only had to use the saw on a few big roots; my Felcos worked for the rest. I planted two yews last Wednesday, three on Friday, three on Sunday and got the final two in the ground on Labor Day. I've got a pile of empty pots, a bucket of roots and a pile of dirt to use elsewhere in the garden. I'm sore, but not incapacitated, and very proud of myself. 

 Alas, it doesn't look like much given all my hard work. You get a better sense of how this will look from the shaggy Yew ball at the rear which has been in the ground a few years and thus makes a bit more of a statement.

This is the swath of Yew and Box balls that we planted a number of years ago and is what we're aiming for in the former moss garden as well. The individual plants are just beginning to touch each other, so Mark can soon start pruning them into a meandering cloud. These shrubs are almost 4' across and about 3' high.

Along with the Hakonechloa, I'm planting maidenhair ferns and candelabra primroses.  All are pest and maintenance free, other than cutting them down in the spring before they start to regrow. The primroses will provide a burst of red and then everything will revert to green again. Podphyllum 'Spotty Dotty', a Rodgersia and a red-flowered Trillium are planted around the apple tree to add some contrast to the ferns and forest grass that will eventually surround them. 

I'm hoping I can steal enough Hakonechloa and Maidenhair ferns from elsewhere in the garden to get this area off to a good start during this cooler weather we're currently having. Then I have to get back to the Sacred Grove where I've been re-doing a chunk of that area as well.

Moss garden re-do

When we first moved to this house in 1994, I was not really allowed to garden much because we were doing pond construction first. Thus I could only work in areas after the rocks were set and the big equipment was done in that area. That's really how the moss garden was created. It was the only spot that was free for me to play in. When I realized the grass was growing so poorly in that location because there was moss, I started slowly pulling out the grass by hand. Over the years we made this garden more defined by creating and updating the path that circled the ancient apple trees that were planted when the house was built. 

2009

2014

After almost 20 years of the moss garden, I realized it was just too much of a maintenance hog. We decided we would create a "cloud hedge" of yew balls similar to the one we planted by the back fence. It would lower maintenance and relate this area to the larger garden with all its evergreen shrubs. As always, we tried to "visualize" the concept using cardboard circles as stand-ins for the yew balls.

2015

Before we had a chance to implement the above plan, we decided to replace our driveway and build a stone retaining wall and steps, all of which is described under "Driveway Project" in the categories list. That project meant moving a swath of plants 2 feet deep and about 60 feet long that were in the way of the big equipment if I wanted to save them. So we built temporary holding beds in the moss garden.

I became very smitten with Tom Stuart Smith's design for a Norfolk garden (images 7 & 8) that used Staghorn sumac trees, Hakonechloa macra and scattered Yew balls. I decided during the summer that that's what I would do once all the plants went back to the driveway border and new front garden. But instead I used the 15 Hakonechloa macra plants I'd bought to re-do the moss garden out in the new driveway garden where they have filled in fabulously (below).

2016

After using my Hakonechloa plants the previous fall, I went looking for other ideas and Roy Diblik came to the rescue. Mark decided he would build the covered Japanese waiting bench he'd always wanted to do and I would use Roy's "know maintenance" concept to help me come up with a plan. But from the moment I put plants in the ground the rabbits starting eating them down to the nub. And none of them made it through the winter in good enough shape to begin to make a statement. 

In the meantime, I talked Mark out of all the work it would take to make another Japanese-influenced building. Plus I was worried that a second structure would dilute the impact of the Tea House. All we really needed was the ability to sit and look across the pond to the Tea House and stream on the far shore. 

We decided to move the English garden bench that we've had since 1990 off of the deck and into the spot where we had planned to put the building. I suggested Mark use bamboo poles threaded through stakes to mark the path to the bench — a fencing technique we'd seen in 1998 at Wave Hill in the Bronx and photographed to remember. The bench now offers a perfect view of the pond and Tea House. I just have to come up with the perfect planting plan and put it in place and this area will be complete.

Tomorrow: Where I'm currently at with this mossy garden project.

Here comes the sun

Thursday was warm and sunny and a dream day for working in the garden. I was outdoors at 8:30 a.m. and came in at dinner time. I weeded, deadheaded, refreshed the pine needle paths and just enjoyed being in the midst of the garden after so many days spent indoors looking out. It's supposed to rain again today but I'm not going to think about that until it happens.

Here's what the garden is looking like at the almost-end-of-May.

The gardening year: A look back at 2016

2016 was an ambitious gardening year for both Mark and me with a list of projects and tours that got us off to an early start. The weather, the plants and Mark and I all cooperated to make for a growing season that left us with mostly pleasant memories to get us through the winter. Here's my recap.

NOTEWORTHY WEATHER: Unlike much of the country, we had good weather throughout the seasons along with consistent moisture and few serious weather "events." What this winter will bring no one knows, but many times during the last 12 months I've made myself slow down and acknowledge how lucky we were to enjoy so many lovely days. Here you can see what happens when we get heavy rain in a short time period. The pond overflows in this corner and the dry stream directs the water out to the street along the property line between our house and our neighbors. The water in the stream always soaks in and disappears as soon as the rain lets up.

TOUR TIME: 2016 was the year of the tours. I think the final count was 13 tours in 19 weeks. That included everything from friends visiting from out of town to the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society to the garden editors from a couple of national magazines. It was fun and rather heady. But perhaps the best thing about it was that it inspired us to complete projects that had been sitting unfinished for years, like dealing with the water and electric lines by the Tea House. At this point, any new projects that get proposed are just the icing on the cake which is a very satisfying feeling.

MAIL ORDER MADNESS: Winter in Wisconsin tends to send this gardener on-line in search of plants: pictures of them, stories about them and catalogs that sell them. 2016 saw me order more plants from more different nurseries than I've ever done before. I used our upcoming garden tours as my excuse. It was a fun, fascinating experience but not something I will do again. I did take advantage of the situation to write about all the nurseries and to do a post on mail order plants: what I learned.  

PERFECT PLANT PERFORMANCE: All the new plants I put in in the fall of 2015, like Eremurus, bloomed right on cue. My Ladyslipper Orchid and "Molly the Witch" Peony (below) also bloomed for the first time ever. My first attempt at growing a Dahlia was so successful that I am now hooked on trying more of them.

MARVELOUS MEMES: There are just a few memes out there in the blogosphere that are worth joining. I've found three of the best and I know many of you agree because these memes are where I've met you! My favorite memes: In a Vase on Monday, Garden Bloggers Bloom Day and Foliage Follow Up. 

RAMPAGEOUS RABBITS: It wouldn't be gardening without a few problems. This year the rabbits were everywhere eating everything. Important shrubs and new plants spent much of the season caged for protection. I'd pull the cages off every time we had visitors and they'd go back on the minute the guests got in their cars. When I planted a small group of fall blooming crocus, the bunnies ate the first one that bloomed. I was out of cages and energy so I resorted to covering the clump of flowers with a plastic milk carton. Effective if not exactly charming. My task this winter is to put out Have-a-Heart traps to try to reduce the rabbit population. That and pray that a fox moves into my garden!

 

NEW ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS: For the first time in many years we did not buy a couple of truckloads of mulch from Olbrich Botanical Gardens. Last Spring, the Gardens put out a notice that they were temporarily suspending the sale with input from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the City of Madison, and other invasive species experts. They did this because the DNR recommended that leaves not be moved through Dane County due to the possibility of spreading invasive jumping worms.

Unfortunately many of us who garden in Dane County, including me, have already found the dreaded jumping worms in our gardens. Jumping worm cocoons appear to be able to survive Wisconsin's winters and can be spread through soil, compost, and mulch (hardwood and leaf). When we did our driveway project in 2015 we bought soil and mulch from commercial sources and that may be where the worms in my garden came from. Who knows? But this is a huge issue with the potential for serious habitat destruction. It's the one thing that put a damper on all the great aspects of the 2016 garden year. 

The photo above shows Mark in 2010 with a load of Olbrich mulch.

Here at last: Election Day 2016

Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness

Some boundless contiguity of shade,

Where rumor of oppression and deceit,

Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Might never reach me more.

— William Cowper

Then and now: The Pond, Stroll and Tea Gardens

The design of our garden — especially the area behind the house — was heavily influenced by Japanese aesthetics. We loosely incorporated three styles of Japanese gardens into our design: Pond, Stroll and Tea Gardens. If you look at the map you can see the pond is the centerpiece of the garden and is of a size and location that we can see it from inside at all seasons. There are multiple paths that let us stroll around the pond to enjoy different views and Mark designed and build a stucco Tea House at the top of the slope next to the Header Pool.

Other than digging and shaping the pond and setting the largest stones, Mark did all the construction himself. 

The view from the deck not long after we moved into the house in the autumn of 1994. It was the perfect blank canvas.

The same view in the Spring of 2012.

Looking towards the bright yellow house you can see two more of the major selling points: access at ground level and a window wall to let us enjoy the garden from indoors during the winter.

As I mentioned last week, we created many small, distinct gardens that all link together via a series of path into a unified whole; what we refer to as "the big idea." The TSUKUBAI GARDEN is right off the deck and is a Mid-westernized version of a traditional feature seen at the entrance to Tea Gardens. We often made mock-ups of features, including cardboard "rocks," to help us visualize the final product and give us a sense of the proper scale and proportion. 

Here you see the path coming around from the West Gate to the Tsukubai with assorted stepping stones sitting where they will ultimately be set in place. Early plantings are in the ground and the water feature is operative. We replaced a traditional stone bowl with a ceramic pot made by a local artist and a metal pipe replaces the traditional bamboo flue.

A few years later the plants almost hide this feature and the house has been painted. The old pipe has been replaced with antique copper. 

The pond took an entire summer to create. Mark worked on his own or with a young landscape architect who also drove the bobcat and hired the backhoe driver. The top of the stone retaining wall is ground level. The back yard strongly sloped upward which was helpful in creating a natural looking pond. We used some of the dirt that came out of the hole to create small hills. You can see the "shelves" that circle the pond which are used to hold the pots of water lilies under water. 

The hills have sod to prevent erosion as it was an amazingly wet summer. The bottom of the pond is dirt with no rocks or rough spots, topped with sand and a layer of old carpet. The final layer is rubber. Note the sea of mud that goes across the width of the garden and stretches from the pond to the deck. It stayed that way for at least a few years. 

The rubber liner is in place and large stones are being set inside the pond. Mark and our landscaper, Jon Adams-Kollitz, are standing on carpet to protect the liner as they wait for the rock to be swung into position. It is glued to a sheet of styrofoam with a cement collar and has not shifted in 20 years.

The gives you an aerial view from the roof of the house. I suggested we add a grass square to repeat the geometry of the deck but give it a twist as though it was under the deck and sticking out at the edges. We also added bluestone pavers to contrast with all the natural stepping stone. The triangle off the deck eventually was planted with a Ginkgo tree that my co-workers gave me when my Dad died. There are stone steps going up the hill to right where the Tea House will eventually be built.

If you look at the picture above you can see the long stone path and the front edge of the deck to orient yourself to the views below. The Tsukubai is off to the left and mostly hidden by foliage.

We decided we should have another gravel garden to relate to the Yin Yang garden out front and filled in this area. The view below is in the opposite direction from the image above with the Tsukubai on the right. The Spirea hedge never thrived and was replaced with a bamboo fence.

There's a pine needle path along the fence that goes behind the Tea House and meanders through the Sacred Grove at the top of the hill out of view to the left. You can also use the stone steps to get up to the Tea House, then turn left and cross the stream via stepping stones.

To the east of the pond we had a moss garden until we decided it required too much maintenance. We lost one of these apple trees and the remaining one is not in good shape so we are re-thinking this area in case we lose this tree. We started with a casual mulch path, then added a brick edge and then updated it again with gravel and a stone edge.

The front apple tree came down in 2015 but the area looks fairly similar today. The dry steam and bridge are between this mossy area and the deck. Note the path splits: go left around the the Turtle Mound and Katie's Crescent or go right to go behind the low hedge that edges the the Buddha Mound and along the Back Border where the gray gravel path continues over to the Sacred Grove.

When the neighbors whose yard adjoins ours announced they were going to have a baby, we announced that we were going to have a fence. Mark spent three years building this cedar fence. The support posts are pressure treated lumber and are sunk four feet deep to withstand frost heave. He created a design module so he could add more or fewer modules depending where the support posts were placed. He assumed he would hit rocks or tree roots which would force him to move the post and this was how he dealt with that problem while giving the fence a unified look.

The fence has a dramatic gate and the entire creation is topped with a cedar shake roof. The fence was designed to look the same from both sides. We're on our third set of neighbors since Mark built the fence and I think the presence of the gate has always made for good relations with each new family. 

You can see from this image that we spent a lot of time thinking about hardscaping and evergreens, features that would make the garden interesting even in winter.  The fence has turned out to be one of the best winter features of the garden.

If you look at the aerial photo you can see the stone steps that lead to the Hedder Pool and the Tea House. Turn left at the top of the steps as you cross the stream and you will see the Weeping Purple Beech that is the focal point above the yew curve. 

As you cross the stream look right and you see The Sacred Grove. 

I named this area The Sacred Grove right after we moved in. There was a huge old Crabapple tree, three Austrian pines, a big Juniper and some scrubby shrubs. It was woodsy and mysterious, the perfect spot for the Delphic Oracle to appear with a pronouncement. Alas, we've lost most of those trees including a couple of special ones that we planted over the years.

They turned my shady Grove into a much sunnier area and one that does not look that mysterious in early Spring. The Hedder Pool is between the big rocks and the Tea House.

Looking the other direction

The Sacred Grove in 2015.

We decided to create a lower maintenance area along the fence by planting Yew and Boxwood. We used cardboard circles to estimate mature size and how many shrubs we'd need to buy. The hose is marking the future path.

The view today with the Buddha Mound on the left. The arching tree trunks belong to an old Lilac. The tree in the back center is a Carolina Silverbell and marks the beginning of Katie's Crescent.

The Crescent was formed when we piled up all the grass that was removed to build the pond. Eventually it broke down into a beautiful planting bed which is home to Geranium 'Biokovo' and a weeping Katsura that we've trained to create a leafy tunnel.

We're having a computer problem that is keeping me from accessing our photo archive. So I don't have any photos to show the story of the Tea House. This link gives you a timeline and further links to construction details.

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Thanks to all of you who commented on the first post about creating the front and side gardens, and to Loree at Danger Garden for getting me enthused enough to find all these images and put this together. 

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If you are a junkie for design construction details and step-by-step photos, you can follow the entire process under My Garden Odyssey in the categories list. As you know, posts are chronological so the last post is at the top of the list. The very first post on this topic ran on Nov. 26, 2008. Those little "You Might Like . . ." boxes that appear below link to related posts which is another way to follow this story if you start with the first post.

Coffee in the Tea House

Visitors to our garden always ask if we have traditional Japanese tea ceremonies in our Tea House. We still hope to do one some day, but the truth is that the Tea House functions for the most part as an art object; a gorgeous sculpture — albeit one that you can sit inside. 

At this time of  year we particularly try to take advantage of beautiful weather to enjoy sitting out there with afternoon coffee and cookies or cocktails. Tea of any kind is rarely on the menu.

With two doors and multiple windows, there are wonderful views in every direction all framed like camera shots. 

Sometimes we just sit inside and surrender to the beauty of the structure and the fragrance of the cedar construction.

Other times we each bring something to read.

When we have a group of gardeners touring the garden, we always open the Tea House so they can see the interior and go inside if they wish to do so. But no shoes are allowed and we have a sign at each door noting that restriction.

We're finally having a break in our rainy weather and should be able to sit out there enjoying the sun and the changing autumn color for at least another month.

The other Tea House entry

PROJECT NO. 3

When Mark built the Tea House, he made the main entrance in the traditional Japanese style as much as possible. That means a low — very low — door that you have to almost crawl through to enter. Samurai had to leave their swords outside and humble themselves to enter such a space. While I am not averse to humbling myself in the cause of art, I requested a second door that we could walk through upright. 

We could never have a proper step up or any kind of defined path to this door until the electric and water lines (Projects 1 and 2) got buried, since they had to go under this area. Once that was done Mark could finish the entrance on this side of the Tea House. He'd set aside stone to use a long time ago. But there was no actual design even though we'd looked at ideas and talked about it.

Since there were an uneven number of pieces of stone and they were of differing lengths, an asymmetrical path seemed like the obvious answer. Until I looked at it, walked on it and decided I didn't like it now that Mark had set all the stones. I hated to complain at this stage of a job, but I knew it would bother me forever if it was left the way it was.  

So the poor guy redid it. 

Now the stones all go in one direction which makes it a bit more formal. But the edges of the path and the length of each section are not even thus making it more informal and, I suppose you could say, asymmetrical. This is a tight space to fit a defined path since it has to go to the door around the curve of the upper pool. 

But this final iteration is much more comfortable to walk on letting the visitor move as they wish rather than following the zig zag original design. Mark may have other ideas and plans but as far as I'm concerned, the Tea House is now complete.

Our new "water feature"

This is Project No. 2 that Mark finished in June: Moving the water line across the area outside the Tea House and setting up a more accessible and useful hook up. The picture below shows the work on the trench for the electric line. Going off to the left you can see the start of a trench that will go over to the fence and provide multiple faucets.

Between the two projects Mark figures he dug about 25 feet of trench. Again, not a glamorous job but one that I'm very thankful for. The new setup has three faucets. That means I can attach hoses that go off in opposite directions should we have a really droughty period.

I typically only water newly planted things. Once plants, trees and shrubs have settled in they are on their own. Most years we have enough rainfall in southern Wisconsin that additional watering is never needed. These days I'm much more conscious about using drought-tolerant plants as well.

But I must say that I love having a faucet at the right height for watering cans so I can easily take care of the potted plants in this part of the garden. And it finally means that those annoying eyesores of unfinished pipes are no longer on view in one of the main focal points of the garden. 

Only one more job remains before this area can be called finished: Project No. 3.