Each Little World

Plant sale season: 2013

Every year I write about local garden sales and I pretty much say the same thing: I love them! Rather than give you lots of details here, I'm going to link you to more info. The Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society lists dozens and dozens of sales and garden events in their April newsletter. You can access it online here. Sale info begins on page 5.

My personal favorite sales are:

The West Side Garden Club: Friday, May 10, from 8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. and Saturday, May 11, from 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. The sale is at 3518 Nakoma Road (near Seminole Highway and down the block from Thoreau School).

Olbrich Botanical Gardens: Plant Sale with the Pros on Friday, May 10, from 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. and on Saturday, May 11 from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. Find complete details and why it's a must for gardeners at any stage here. I'll be working the Friday afternoon shift, so be sure to stop by and say hello. (Full disclosure: I'm an Olbrich member). 

The Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society: Saturday, May 18, from 9 a.m. - noon, at the West Madison Agricultural Research Station, 8502 Mineral Point Road, Madison. Plants are from members' gardens and there are always some unusual offerings. Before I sat down at the computer to write this, I walked around my garden to determine what I can dig and pot up for the sale. Another benefit of this sale: lots of free parking! (Full disclosure: I'm a WHPS member and am also on their Board).

One of my favorite purchases from the West Side Garden Club sale. I never had any luck with this primrose until I bought some from this sale. 

CBG Antiques Fair: Inside the tents

The reason we go to events like the Antiques & Garden Fair at the Chicago Botanic Garden is to look rather than buy. This is a rather rarefied level of selling and shopping and for us it's a chance to see unusual things up close and personal. So here are some objects that caught our attention.

This pair of bedsteads were metal so the dealer took advantage of that to have a little fun.

We are always drawn to faces whether in paintings or sculpture and the Fair was filled with wonderful images.

This is the outside of the booth of Thistle, an Illinois dealer who is one of our favorites. We fell in love with this huge piece of African currency with its sculptural appearance. It contrasted nicely with the industrial strainer above it on the wall.

Thistle's space is always filled with lots of objects made of metal and stone and limited in color. They have patina and are never perfect but always catch our attention. Over the years we've bought a few small items from this dealer. 

I was in heaven with the number of dealers who were offering china and silver of all kinds. There were a number of folks who specialized in Majolica (below) and Palissy ware.

Another fascinating face.

This one belonged to a large Santos figure, a religious icon identified with Spain and the regions that country colonized. The cage would have supported a garment. I was taken with the metal bamboo stalk that held little lanterns with votive candles as well as the Chinese pot filled with ceramic flowers. 

There was oodles of glitzy jewelry gleaming on glass shelves behind closed doors. It was too over the top for me and I could not figure out its appeal until I saw the signs indicating the pieces were from big name designers like Chanel and Oscar de la Renta.

Like many shoppers we were dressed for the weather in sturdy boots, jeans, sweaters and rain jackets. But there were plenty of Chicago shoppers who dressed for the event and to be able to match potential purchases to their outfits. 

I was smitten with things like a Gorham silver watering can, a big strand of water buffalo bone beads and these chunky ropes of African amber.

There were lots of antique textiles as well as newer treats like this floral necklet of felt. I almost fell prey to temptation on this one but decided to save my money just in case.

Mark was taken with this giant shop sign of a wooden jackknife.

Partly it was the scale of the item but what really caught his eye was the name — O'Brien — which is a family name.

We ended the afternoon with coffee, a piece of poppyseed cake and a peek at the CBG gift shop. Decorator Michael Smith spoke as part of the special events offered all weekend in conjunction with the Fair. I like a lot of his work but not enough to shell out the money for his lecture or his books. 

I came home with a small religious medal with St. Christopher on one side and Pope John XXIII on the other. I bought it because it was round in shape, appears to be silver and only cost $6, which is the perfect price for something that I plan to add to my charm bracelent. And also because the last time I was a practicing Catholic, John XXIII was on the throne. We thought of him as the "Pope of hope," and indeed the world seemed more hopeful in those youthful days. 

We spent the rest of our time in Chicago with friends old and new, eating and drinking, listening to music and talking art, books, movies, politics and, of course, gardening — the kind of personal interactions that help to keep us hopeful these days. 

NOTE: You can read my other post about the CBG Fair here. Jennifer Boles of Peak of Chic blog spoke at the Fair and posted some terrific pictures of the vendor booths.

September at ACG

Last week I visited Allen Centennial Gardens on the UW-Madison campus with Julie Siegel, a Chicago-area garden designer, blogger and friend. The garden is a teaching garden for the university but it is also free and open to the public. It was a perfect day for a visit with blue skies and few clouds, evidenced by this shot of the decorative details on the house once used by the Deans of the Ag School. 

On the ground, however, it was a bit sunny for capturing the best photos. I took this shot of Geranium dalmaticum to remind me that mine is planted in the wrong spot in my garden judging by how happy it seems to be here.

Every time I visit ACG I discover something that is completely new to me — like this seedpod of Datura. I've seen this plant growing in many gardens but never at this season when it has these huge pods along with its last few flowers.

Ed Lyon, the director of ACG, always creates exciting mixes of edibles and ornamentals.  

And he's an expert when it comes to color in the garden: whether it's flower and foliage combinations or art objects that he adds for emphasis. Every one of the following images offers ideas for home gardeners looking to do something a little different. (These tubes are painted PVC).

I particularly like blues that have a touch of gray or green as accent colors in the garden, and Ed must also judging by all the ways he employs it at ACG.

When I was at ACG at the end of June, I was taken with the clumps of peachy-pink hollyhocks that picked up the trim color of the Dean's house. This visit, it was the seedheads that matched the Cream City bricks.

Seattle visitors

We had a group of out-of-town visitors to our garden Sunday afternoon after a mostly rainy morning. Though only .15" of rain actually fell, it still helped to perk up the garden. Once the rain stopped, we opened up the tea house and hung up our Japanese shop sign.

And I took a quick last-minute run though the garden to see how everything looked just minutes before they arrived — picking up fallen apples and black walnuts. I decided to wear my brightest shirt so folks could easily pick me out of the crowd to answer questions!

Even though the sky was still overcast there were waterlilies blooming which really emphasizes the pond as the focal point of the garden. Since it's been so hot and dry here in southern Wisconsin, a gray day was actually a nice change.

About two dozen members of the Northwest Horticultural Society came to visit our garden as part of their Chicago and southern Wisconsin tour. The event was arranged by Wisconsin native Daniel Mount. Like the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society (of which Mark and I are members), the NHS hosts lectures, garden tours and plant sale fund-raising events; but they have over 1000 members in the Seattle area while we're about half their size. 

They arrived at 3 p.m. — luckily having called to warn us they were an hour ahead of schedule! But it meant that they had extra time to spend with us as we were the last stop of the day after Taliesin and the Cedar Grove cheese factory. We've had lots of local garden groups tour our garden but this was the first time we ever had a bus pull up across the street from our house with visitors. It is definitely a bit disconcerting!

Just about this time last August, Mark and I were taking Daniel Mount around local Madison gardens, helping him to pull together this NHS group tour. Daniel grew up in Milwaukee and actually went to Luther Burbank Grade School, "which may very well have been the beginning of this whole plant thing," he says. Currently he is an estate gardener in the Pacific Northwest, garden writer, blogger and educator. His column for the NHS recently won a silver award from the Garden Writers Association and one of his gardens is on the cover of the current issue of Fine Gardening magazine.

We decided just to let folks wander around at their own pace and then to answer questions after they'd had a chance to see the garden. Though we have lots of paths winding through our garden they are narrow (perfect for the two of us) but cause a bit of a bottleneck when curious gardeners are walking them. Some of the Seattle folks actually were stopped by a plant unfamiliar to them — Carex plantaginea —before they'd taken more than a few steps.

Carex plantaginea (seersucker sedge) is one of many sedges we have in our garden, and one that is usually familiar to local gardeners. Folks wondered if we grew any native plants and that particular sedge is one of them — growing just a few feet from some of our other natives like Bur oak, witch hazels and Pagoda dogwoods. 

Another attention-getter was our large specimen shrub: Viburnum plicatum var. tomentosum 'Mariesii' (doublefile Viburnum) which is spread out behind the two gentlemen from Seattle. Their presence gives you an idea of its size.

Luckily Mark and I both were doing pretty well remembering the names of plants, trees and shrubs in the garden, so we were able to provide information when people liked something. 

See where I'm standing in the photo below? I'm trying to remember the name of the prostrate shrub on the ground below me near the birch trees. I couldn't do it nor could I find it in my file of plant names. That's because it was mistakenly filed under trees instead of shrubs. It is Pinus sylvestris 'Albyn Prostrata,' a prostrate Scots pine. Ours is more open and leggy than it should be as it needs more sun. Alas I did not get the name of the person who was interested in this pine, so I hope you are reading this!

Eventually we all wound up on the deck and then went indoors for Wisconsin cheeses and brews. Mark and I really enjoyed ourselves and it seemed as though our visitors did as well. They commented on a number of features that most folks don't mention and they wanted the names of some trees and shrubs that don't always get singled out for attention.

Who knows if this is the result of some special Northwest sensibility or just a reflection of individual tastes? What I do know is that I wished we could have spent much longer visiting with each other; everyone I talked to was so interesting and engaging. Maybe the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society will have to think about another Northwest tour.

Finally, a big thank you to whoever gathered up all the dirty dishes and nicely piled them on the kitchen counter by the sink. Now that's our kind of garden visitor! 

. . .

Seattle folks: If you are curious about the design and construction process of our garden, you can follow it step-by-step by clicking on "My Garden Odyssey" in the category list. Just be aware that the most recent posts are first. So if you want to start at the beginning, go to the archives for Nov. 2008 when the first Odyssey post appeared: "All in Good Time." 

Repetition

Sometimes you want one gorgeous speciment plant, but oftentimes it's multiples of the same plant that have the biggest impact. Just one of many lessons learned on our last visit to Olbrich Botanical Gardens this summer.

Back yard whimsy

A local gardener who is also a quilter had her textile handiwork imaginatively displayed in her garden on a recent visit.

This totem, however, was my favorite object in her garden and one of the most creative things I've seen in any garden. It was a retirement gift made for her by staff and some of the students at Malcolm Shabazz High School in Madison. They also presented her with an accompanying book. 

Cool clear water

In hot dry weather nothing makes a garden feel cooler than a water feature. I found these two examples in a home garden (top) and at Olbrich Botanical Gardens (the bottom two). They are similar in components: bubbler, container and rocks but quite different in style. A bowl filled with still water is the easist way to add water to the garden, but it's the sound of water that has the cooling effect.

Not on the Olbrich Tour

This garden was the next-door-neighbor of one of the houses on the Olbrich Tour. I was captivated by its matched pair of limbed-up evergreens sheltering twin benches. A cool cavern on a hot day!

Olbrich Home Garden Tour 2012: Color

What is a garden tour without flowers? And no one does it more dramatically than this gardener whose creativity is visible to all who drive by her house on Old Sauk Rd.

This gardener used apple green as an accent color for man-made elements in her garden, ranging from the front door color to fabric awnings to this charming teapot artifact.

The same gardener (the woman with the "gray house on the corner") had a row of spectacular window boxes in a secluded patio area hidden behind a berm planted with shrubs, grasses and flowers. When you were in this hidden garden, it was hard to believe the house was located on a corner lot.

This garden relied on subltety for most of its effects. This was one of the few hot spots easily created by matching potted plants and seating. 

I never would have thought to pair pink with this dusty mauve maple but it's a winning combination. I can imagine it with a small-flowerd pink clematis romping through its branches as well.

A "fairy garden" that defines rustic sophistication instead of sweetness — and the whole concept is emphasized by setting it on a dark table.

Olbrich Home Garden Tour 2012: A few highlights

In a day filled with lots of flowers, these subtle silver elements outshone many of their brighter garden companions.