Each Little World

Rumi O'Brien in Spring Green

Textile artist Rumi O'Brien is exhibiting (and selling) some of her exquisite quilts as well as a large selection of framed and unframed watercolors at the Jura Silverman Gallery in Spring Green. There is an opening reception for Rumi this afternoon (Sunday May 6) from 2 to 5 p.m. The quilts include both abstract geometric designs and Rumi's signature personal story quilts, like the one illustrated below, called "Digging." (This quilt is darker and much more subtle in color than this image suggests). 

The watercolors — which I had never seen before — cover a wide range of subjects treated with both humor and sensitivity. Rumi suffered a stroke in 2010 and this is her first show in many years. While the quilts are older work, the watercolors include recent paintings. For anyone who loves her work and has missed seeing it, it is well worth the drive. My sister-in-law and I went out yesterday to be able to enjoy Rumi's without a crowd getting in the way. And we'll be going back to pick up our own personal Rumi splurges after the reception.

The Journal of Japanese Gardening

When we moved to this house more than 17 years ago, we turned mainly to books for ideas and information about designing the garden we envisioned. We quickly came to the realization that most garden magazines focused on traditional European style ornamental gardens, with a nod to American prairies and vegetable gardens. But we were interested in Asian, especially Japanese, gardens. Until we discovered The Journal of Japanese Gardening — now known as  Sukiya Living — we just assumed there was no publication directed entirely at folks who want a garden based on a different cultural model than the typical British or American landscape. 

We've been getting Sukiya Living since late 2005 (Issue No. 47), and we find it fascinating and frustrating in equal measure. Because it is the creation of a small staff with a highly opinionated publisher, the magazine can be didactic, dismissive or delightful from issue to issue and page to page. We're never sure what to expect when it arrives in the mail. It comes out 6 times a year and costs $35.00 in the U.S. We subscribe since it is not a publication you'll find on the newsstand.

 Sukiya Living publisher Douglas M. Roth has very specific ideas about the magazine and the subject of Japanese gardens. He's not one to mince words if readers' attitudes or preferences don't fit his definition of Sukiya Living. One time the magazine published a long letter (Issue No. 72) from a reader critical of a story and the attitudes it expressed. The letter writer wrote, "I really don't like your attitude of intolerance and your snotty lambasting of those that don't meet your ridiculous and self codified standards of authenticity." The Editor's comment was "It's nice to hear that you enjoy your garden so much."

While that letter writer was an unknown garden designer from Louisianna, I had previously noted an even more critical letter from Douglas Dawson of Chicago (Issue No. 54). Dawson owns a prestigious art gallery specializing in "ancient and historic art from Africa, Asia and the Americas." So he knows what he is talking about when he criticizes Sukiya LIving, saying that like Mark and I, he is "often both humored and entertained by the vituperative opinions expressed . . ." But he went on to censor the writer of the particular article for "her narrow and borderline racist attitude" directed at all of us gaijin gardeners.

The attitudes and writing style by the staff of the magazine seem to be less strident in tone these days. But I would like to have a better sense that they recognize that the mere fact that we're trying to learn about this subject — and paying for this education with a subscription to the magazine — is a praiseworthy endeavor in and of itself. Not everyone has access to the same materials, skilled craftsmen and budget to create the kind of garden we might admire and aspire to.

Despite my criticism and that of other readers, I must admit that Sukiya Living is filled with informative articles, tips and directions for everything from pruning to concrete work, book reviews and assorted commercial and public resources. If Japanese gardens are your passion, definitely subscribe to Sukiya Living. Just remember to keep some grains of salt at the ready while you're reading.

Recycling paper bags and newspapers

I recently bought a beautiful Japanese ikebana basket from SRI, which is located in the NYC area. My bamboo basket arrived in a big but lightweight cardboard box. When I opened the box I discovered my basket lovingly secured in the midst of packing material created by loosely hand-rolling newspapers up into fat sausages. A piece of tape held the edge in place. The same technique was used on brown grocery bags that had the bottoms cut off and a cut made down one side to flatten them out prior to rolling. Small bags were stuffed with newspaper and even all the bottoms from the grocery bags were combined into their own plump roll. I had to take a couple of pictures and share this wonderful idea from Stephen at SRI to create a soft and environmentally friendly packaging material with the things that all of us have on hand. 

Basho's radish

When the winter chrysanthemums go,

there's nothing to write about 

    but radishes.

— Matsuo Basho, translated by Robert Haas

 

SHE SAID: Yes, this is a radish! According to "Wikipedia: Black Spanish or Black Spanish Round occur in both round and elongated forms, and are sometimes simply called the black radish or known by the French name Gros Noir d'Hiver. It dates in Europe to 1548, and was a common garden variety in England and France during the early 19th century." This one's about the size of a clementine. Mark bought it specifically to photograph it rather than eat it. 

My Garden Odyssey: Tea house stucco, Pt. 3

PART 3: ADDING COLOR AND CLEAN-UP

HE SAID: At the end of the last post I was applying the brown coat and doing test colors for the final coat on the outside.

In the picture above you can see that I've added another color over the first on my test panel. There are additional colors on the other side. The Quickcrete product I was using suggested adding one 10-oz bottle of pigment to one 80-lb bag of mix. To do my tests I would add 1/2-oz of color to 4-lbs of concrete mix if I wanted to test a straight color. My choices were buff, red, grey, terra cotta and brown. If I wanted to mix two colors I'd divide the 1/2-oz of color proportionally. I borrowed the kitchen scale and a set of measuring spoons to keep the proportions accurate.

However, despite all my charts and careful calculations I still managed to screw up the first panel I did. In this picture you can clearly see the difference between the far right panel and the others. I had measured out tablespoons instead of ounces and ended up with a surface that showed more of the grey stucco mix. Fortunately Linda had reminded me to start at the back of the tea house where mistakes would show the least.

On the plus side, I decided that the "mistake" would make a good color choice for the interior of the tea house. It would be a softer, less intense color in the enclosed space.

The exterior finished at last! We were very please with the way it looked. The color was very much like a number of Japanese tea houses we had seen in our books. The texture of the surface had a pleasing, irregular, weathered look. That was partly due to a technique I used called a "heavy float." That involved using a rubber float or trowel over the surface while it was still a bit wet causing the sand in the mix to rise to the surface.

I was pretty tired by this time and toyed with the idea of closing the building up and waiting for Spring to finish the interior. But taking a day or two off renewed my enthusiasm. I also thought the interior would be easier. Silly me!

First of all, working with ladders, tools, and plastic sheeting in the restricted space made planning and clean-up all that much more difficult. And because there were structural elements inside that I had to work around, I found myself engaged in some fairly involved gymnastics to reach areas under the eaves. Although it was good working off of the level surface of the floor instead of the sloping landscape outside, I discovered a serious disadvantage. On the exterior, because I was standing below the bottom of the wall I was working on, I didn't have to bend very low to apply the stucco. On the interior I was applying it a couple inches from the floor. I hurt in new places after a day of working on the interior.

The tokonoma and storage area required stuccoing free standing panels framed by round timbers. They involved extra masking and care to follow the irregular edges. Also working in the confined spaces meant having to take special care not to mar newly-covered adjacent surfaces.

I mixed a warm grey for the color coat inside the tokonoma display area to set it apart from the rest of the interior space. This was also the only area of the building where I used a white stucco mix as apposed to the grey mix on the rest of the building. The white base gives color a little more intensity. (I hadn't ordered the white mix, but they sent me one bag by mistake. Another happy accident.)

This winter I plan to work on my designs for windows and doors. I also plan to look for someone with more skills and tools to help me with the cabinet work for the interior. The roof still needs copper for the ridge and I think I've found a good person to supply me with gutters. There is still a lot to do, but with the stucco finished the worst is behind us.

An account of this project wouldn't be complete without talking about clean-up and waste. Whenever I cleaned my tools I would store the wash water in 5-gallon buckets until the solids settled out and then re-use the clear water. As much as possible the clarified water I didn't need went on the garden. 

Used plastic sheeting, leveling boards, piles of masking tape, all added up every day. A lot of it could be thrown out with the normal weekly trash; but some things, like the 200-lb test panel, could not. It took more than a little effort with a heavy maul and wire cutters to break it into pieces I could handle.

The panel, concrete solids, as well as a number of other heavy items that had been accumulating in our yard all went in the truck to the the Dane County landfill. It cost $22.00 to dispose of 720-lbs of stuff. I still have a few tools to clean and put away, but I can look forward to winter with a real feeling of accomplishment this year.

My Garden Odyssey: Tea house stucco, Pt. 2

PART 2: TOOLS AND TECNIQUES

HE SAID:

Everything takes longer than you think it will. This seems to be a universal truth when it comes to projects, big or small. However, I've found that time spent preparing is always well worth it. "You Tube" proved to be a very useful source of information on the technique of stucco. And the Portland Cement Association provided me (for a price) a booklet called the "Portland Cement Plaster/Stucco Manual."

Another rule is that the right tools, and quality tools, will make the job a lot easier. The stucco manual provided me with a list of the tools I would need for the job: hawk, floats, scarifier, corner trowel, darby. I, of course, was unfamiliar with many of these tools and had no idea where to find them, but a short time with the yellow pages and $150.00 set me right up. The clerk at the construction materials company said he could find someone to help me if I got into trouble and wished me good luck.

I decided that another useful expenditure of time would be to do a test panel to hone my non-existent skills. In the picture above is the 2-foot by 5-foot wall section I built to practice on.

And here I am only looking like I know what I'm doing. The first thing I realized is that cement is heavy! The second bit of insight I gleaned is that applying stucco is not like brushing on paint. Not only is it hard to hold up ten pounds of stucco on a hawk for long periods, but it takes a lot of effort to force the mix into the lath hard enough to make it adhere to the wall.

While planning the project I thought of renting a cement mixer from Home Depot. You can rent it by the hour, day or week. Since I thought it would take more than a few days to complete the job I considered renting it for an entire week. Had I gone with that idea it would have been a financial disaster. As it turned out, even if someone had done all mixing for me, I physically couldn't apply more than four 80-pound bags a day — and I needed 50 bags to finish the job. Under the brown tarp above are 4000 lbs of stucco mix!

Having gathered tools and materials, practiced my technique, and screwed up my courage, I started on the tea house itself.

In this shot you may be able to see the stainless steel wire tie that I spoke of in the previous post — just below and to the left of the right side blue nail head. I also used screws along the edges (near the other nail) to hold the entire panel centered on the framing.

Here you can see the first coat of three, the "scratch coat," on the panel with the circular window. In order to make a tape mask prior to putting on the second or "brown coat" of stucco, I had to build a jig to locate the center of the window. Then, using a pencil and a rotating beam, I was able to establish a circular line around the frame of the window to stucco to.

After drawing the pencil line I cut the tape with a mat knife and peeled off the outside portion of the tape.

I could then stucco over the frame, up to the tape line, securing the window frame into the wall structure.

The stucco manual said that I should make sure the material cured slowly by keeping it moist. I did this by misting the surface periodically with a garden sprayer and also by covering it with plastic to keep the water from evaporating too quickly.

In the end it took about ten weeks to stucco the tea house, but much of that time was spent cleaning tools, hanging plastic sheeting, applying masking tape to protect the wood, and moving scaffolding necessary to reach the higher areas of the walls. I'm still a little amazed that, given my makeshift efforts to level my work platforms, I didn't fall off the narrow plank I spent so much time working on.

The sprayer I used to ensure slow curing.

In this shot you can see the exterior with its first coat complete. It was time to start thinking ahead to the third and final coat — the "finish coat" or color coat.

As I worked on the brown coat on the tea house I also started making color tests on the practice panel.This step proved to be extremely important. I only had five shades of colorant available to me and no idea how they would look when mixed with stucco. Also, the color when first applied looked nothing like the color of the coat once it was dried — which took a couple of days. 

My Garden Odyssey: Tea house stucco, Pt. 1

We wrote 36 Garden Odyssey episodes describing the process of designing and constructing our gardens. We're still on that journey but we've given up the numbering system! That said, this is the first of three posts describing the process of covering the tea house with stucco.

HE SAID: We planned from early on that there would be a "tea house" located at the top of the rise near the upper pool. It's indicated in the plan below by the small black rectangle on the upper right. (The large black shape in the center is the house and deck).

While we worked on the pond and other structures in the garden, I went through a whole series of design ideas for the "tea house." Sometimes it took the form of a tool shed; sometimes a roofed bench. At least one design combined the two.

Eventually there came a time when I had to make a decision. After working with a mock-up made of a few blocks and boards to get a sense of an appropriate size, I committed to a 7 x 9 foot building. 

From the beginning I pretty much made it up as I went along. There were constant adjustments based on standard sizes of materials. For instance, I didn't want to have to cut any of the tumbled, colored cement blocks I used for the foundation. So their size determined the final footprint.

As much as I might have liked to use traditional Japanese joinery to construct the frame, I knew my carpentry skills were not up to it. But about this time, I inherited a radial arm saw from my father that allowed me to make a reasonable facsimile of traditional joints.

Roofing the tea house with cedar shingles was also a challenge for me. I'm grateful for all the great information available on the internet. I'm not sure I could have managed this project without it. An interesting side note on the roof: because the underside was going to be exposed, I used four different lengths of roofing nails, depending on the thickness of shingles in any given spot, so the nails wouldn't poke through.

After doing the mockup in 2004, the roof in 2006, and making little progress in 2007-8, I was finally able to install the 2-inch pink styrofoam in the walls in summer of 2009. I then made temporary windows of 1 x 2 inch frames covered with plastic sheeting to fill the window and door openings. This protected the interior from the elements — and squirrels — for the next two winters.

My concept was to fill the 3 and 1/2 inch wall spaces in the timber frame structure with a "sandwich" made of 2-inch styrofoam with a 3/4-inch layer of stucco on each side.

The only place I had seen something like this was in factory made panels that would be assembled on site. There was little or no information about how to do what I had in mind. Once again I found myself making it up as I went along.

The problem was how to get the stucco to adhere to the styrofoam and how to get the whole sandwich to stay in place.

I started by "nailing" expanded diamond lath to all the styrofoam surfaces, inside and out, with plastic headed nails. The lath has a proper up and down as well as a back and front. If you put it on wrong the stucco will tend to fall off when you try to apply it.

Everything seems to be harder and take longer than you expect. Cutting the lath to fill all of the odd spaces on the tea house was definitely hard on my hands; but over several weeks I got it all cut and installed.

The plastic headed nails I used to hold the lath in place on the styrofoam were only temporary. They didn't have enough holding power in the insulation to be of much use in holding the stucco on. To create the "sandwich" I drilled sets of holes through the styrofoam and tied the interior and exterior lath together with loops of stainless steel wire. I made a wire loop approximately every square foot. This may have been excessive, but I figured better too many than too few.

The tea house nearly ready for stucco.

. . .

SHE SAID: For readers using the metric system, 1 inch = 2.5 centimers and 1 foot = 0.3048 meters to give you an idea of the size of the elements that Mark is using.

My Garden Odyssey: Tea house update

SHE SAID: One of the benefits of creating a master plan for our garden is that there is always a project or two or ten waiting for us to tackle. Some can be done in an hour or an afternoon or are on-going for far longer than we ever imagined. Our back fence and gate took three years to build. On the other hand, it is gorgeous and has become a major feature of the garden and well worth the time, effort and money.

The fence from our neighbor's side (the gate is open and not visible).

Designing and building a Japanese-influenced tea house is the current long term project that Mark is engaged in. I am engaged in keeping up his spirtis when they flag, feeding him, and parking my car in the driveway instead of the garage which is a summer construction workshop. When I say "long term" I am talking seven years. You read that correctly: seven years! One of the great advantages of digital cameras and garden journals is that one can go back and see what you did when.

2005: Design the tea house structure, construct the foundation and the basic framework of the building.

2006: Add the roof and shingle it.

2007: Record rainy summer and exhaustion from the previous two summers meant no tea house work done. Instead Mark created a sloping gravel path from the Moon Garden to the West Gate. (Every area in the garden is named).

2008: I lost my job, we traveled to visit family and friends and Mark's mom moved from her little house on the Mississippi to Madison. We enjoyed the garden as a refuge and didn't do any extra projects!

2009: The pink insulation board walls of the tea house finally go up and its ultimate shape is much more obvious. Mark did a lot of work on the tea house in addition to converting the back garden paths from bark to gravel.

2010: Mark re-built the first stone wall he ever constructed which fell down at the end of the winter. And he worked with the contractor on a major interior re-modeling project.

2011: Mark retires and can garden full-time! First he replaces the front bark paths with gravel and then he begins the final work on the tea house. But I will let him tell you all about that himself.

For those who are interested, a complete description of constructing the foundation, the structural elements and roof can be found here. And Mark's explanation of putting up the Styrofoam walls and cutting windows and doing the interior structural work can be found here. You can also read posts about doing the back path, the front path and the remodeling.

To read the entire Odyssey of our gardens, click on My Garden Odyssey in the categories list.

China syndrome

My favorite of the five China-themed exhibits at the Milwaukee Art Museum was "Way of the Dragon: The Chinoiserie Style, 1750-1830," which runs through Nov. 6 in the Decorative Arts Gallery. MAM defines Chinoiserie as "a style of ornamentation that developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries out of a growing interest in the exotic, admiration for the beauty of Asian art, and a curiosity about Chinese people and places." MAM partnered with the Chipstone Foundation in this display of more than fifty decorative objects from their collections as well as local private lenders.

This exhibit is a dream for anyone who is in love with blue and white china, teapots, punch bowls, and fanciful natural imagery. It's also a chance to see rare books by Mark Catesby and Linnaeus. Catesby was an English naturalist whose work was the first published account of the flora and fauna of North American, while Linnaeus was the father of botanical nomenclature. This particular MAM exhibit got all my China — as in dishes — genes pumped up and put me in the mood for shopping. And then my sister-in-law mentioned what she'd recently seen at Atomic Interiors. 

I dashed right over and discovered the Madison shop had three dinner plates created by the award-winning designer Niels Refsgaard for Dansk, and manufactured in the 1970s in Japan. I was ecstatic as I used to have service for four in this design. It was called "BLT" and not for that favorite American sandwich; in this instance the initials stood for "breakfast, lunch and tea." The three-piece set of plate, bowl and squat mug came beautifully packaged in the Japanese style, as this old Dansk magazine ad shows.

I'd been dreaming of replacing what had been broken over the years but most on-line sources were selling the plates for $65+, which put them outside the realm of possible purchase. But I snapped them up instantly when I saw Atomic had them priced at $35.00 per plate. Not exactly cheap but very reasonable given what I've seen elsewhere. So now I have four plates again (!), which means I'm only lacking one mug and two bowls to have my service for four.

Mark was very sweet when I brought them home as they are not really his favorite dishes. But I bought them when I was just out of college and in my first apartment, so they have huge sentimental value for me. And besides, he just got a new Trek bicycle in anticipation of his 65th birthday next month, so he really couldn't complain too much. 

FYI: If you love mid-century modern and Herman Miller, Atomic Interiors is the place for you. In its various locations over the years, they've always had an eclectic collection of items ranging from dishes to jewelry to lamps and fabulous furniture — all with reasonable prices and Midwestern friendliness.

A season of iris

When we moved into this house almost 17years ago, the yard had traditional flowers like peonies and iris. The peonies have almost been shaded out over the years, but the iris are still going strong. Most likely they are Iris pallida dalmatica: tall, pale lavender, tough as nails with a Concord grape fragrance. I brought Iris pumila 'Cherry Garden' with me from our former garden. Over the years I've acquired countless other Iris until I now have Iris of all types blooming from the end of the snow until mid-June. That was never a conscious plan but it's certainly worked out well.

My Iris photo parade (below) includes a Rosebud matchbox for scale in a number of the pictures. It's 1 and 1/2" tall (3.8 cm) x 2" long (5.1 cm) and 1/4" (.06 cm) deep.

Reticulated Iris: Iris reticulata 'Harmony' (above)

Lake Iris: Iris lacustris 'Alba' is found along the gravel shores of the Great Lakes and blooms earlier than the Crested Iris in my garden.

Lake Iris: Iris lacustris 'Alba' is about half the height of the crested Iris.

 Dwarf Crested Iris: Iris cristata 'Navy Blue Gem' is a darker form of the popular plant.

Dwarf Crested Iris: Iris cristata of unknown origin. I bought a couple of plants at the WHPS sale and also at the West Side Garden Club sale — perhaps from the same garden. 

Dwarf Crested Iris: Iris cristata of unknown origin. This photo gives you a sense of what a great ground cover this plant is.

Iris gracilipes: a Japanese woodland plant. Slightly taller than Iris cristata.

Iris gracilipes: This was the first season for this plant. Notice the delicate stems and buds. I am totally in love with this little gem! It will develop into a rounded clump, a bit like a daylily.

Dwarf bearded Iris: Unknown Iris pumila from the garden of my former co-worker and garden mentor, Doris Lang.

Tall German or Bearded Iris: I call this Iris pallida dalmatica "Smithy," in honor of the Don Smith family who built our house and put in the original trees and perennials.

Tall German or Bearded Iris: These are pretty much pest-free, very tall (38" / 96.5 cm) and never flop over — even after strong winds and rain.

Tall German or Bearded Iris: This view shows you the irises in place. The area long the dry stream where these irises bloom is dry, compacted soil and they love it.

Dwarf bearded Iris: Iris pumila 'Cherry Garden.'

Dwarf bearded Iris: I've been growing 'Cherry Garden' for just over 20 years and still love its velvety falls and rich saturated color.

Bearded Iris: Iris germanica 'El Dorado' is bi-color and tends to flop a bit but the flowers are so stunning that I put up with that little fault. 

Bearded Iris: 'El Dorado' is described as an "unusual elongated open flower in which the tips of lthe standards never touch." It's about 35" (88.9 cm) tall.

Water Iris: This unknown Iris laevigata arrived in a pot of supposedly blue plants. Either that, or it is the result of the blue water Iris crossing with Iris laevigata 'Snowdrift' while I wasn't looking. 

Water Iris: This view shows two varieties of Iris laevigata that self-seeded in the pebble beach at the edge of the pond. The rest of these Iris grow in the bog where they were originally planted a dozen years ago.  

Not pictured: Siberian Iris (Iris sibirica) and Japanese Iris (Iris ensata).