a garden maker's notes

Is it the oxygen in a fern woodland that makes it feel so special? Do the fronds soften and reflect sound to  offer a ’soothing silence’? It may be a combination of silence, oxygenated air, or the relief one gets from leaving an open hot sunlit field to enter a shady woodland. Whatever ever it is, as [...]

Best looking rock , stump, and plant combination ever!  While wandering the charming grounds of the amazingly good Jacob’s Pillow Dance in Becket, MA, I found this shady corner.  The perennial geranium (probably a geranium macrorrhizum) meanders and cascades throughout the bed to showcase the stump as a special and sculptural object d’art.   A couple of  hosta and good sized rocks [...]

Continuing the theme of treasures found while traveling, on the lower path at Coastal Maine Botanical Garden I found this Viburnum in full fruit. It’s one of my favorites–Viburnum p. ‘Mariesii”–lovely in spring flower as well as summer fruit.  Certainly a treasure found on the beckoning trail meandering on in the distance.

Perhaps this photo expresses the genius locii of the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden’scultivated landscape. It features interwoven masses of perennials embracing the immense ‘erratic boulder’. The outcropping  reminds me of Uluru  or Ayer’s Rock in Australia–not anywhere as large, of course, but with the same slumbering sentience that some large stone masses exude.  It also features [...]

Exploring the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden in Boothbay, ME found me on a narrow path deep in the woods.  Perhaps this photo reveals the essence of the wild part of CMBG?

Last post, I was wondering how the Ligularia d. ‘Othello” would open to full flower.  Away for a few days, camera in hand, I went to check it out. Lo and behold! An unexpected visitor!  Unexpected because it’s a new plant in my garden planted for its leaf shape, dark stems, leaf color, and shocking orange brilliance in [...]

I planted the ligularia (L. dentata ‘Othello’) because of its wonderful  heart leaf shape and purplish greenish coloration (more purple in spring–more green in summer).  It gives contrast and texture midst the hostas.  I’d seen it in flower in other gardens, but never watched the flower unfolding. 
 See the pod-like shape in the lower part of [...]

The back garden path all-but-disappears by mid-summer. This is not a mistake, but intended. By the sixth month it  becomes a  path of  lush abundance. Not unlike the journey in many Japanese gardens where you are forced because of the unevenness of the stone path to look at down your feet and thus encounter something not seen when looking [...]

The back garden’s on a lower level–great to see from my office and the shady refuge of the lower patio–but not visible directly from the first floor.  However, I’ve learned deck rail viewing. Nice mornings I enjoy coffee on the deck and view the gardens from above. I love the tapestry created by the plantings.  [...]

Driving north yesterday, listening to NPR interview a magician, my attention stopped at his words “a day without wonder is a terrible day”. Yes!  I often refer to the ‘magic’ of the garden and being open to its’ wonder’.  Each day as the garden lives its’ life of photosynthesizing and reproduction, we have the opportunity to [...]