Twenty Plants to Beauty

Wasn't it two days ago that I looked at the duplicate place names?  Last night I went to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, ON and heard a speaker from Burlington, Wisconsin.   He is Roy Diblik, a garden writer with a garden design vision that focuses on modern design using native plants and creating 'native landscapes'.  One of his areas of expertise is understanding plants as members of a living community.  He is not amongst those people who view a plant as a potted possession. He made it clear that we garden selfishly and without consideration for the plants and their needs and requirements.  Roy's method of gardening is to create communities of plants that are 'companions' - meant to grow with each other. They cover the soil, keep out weeds, and create naturalistic gardens that can live on for decades.  They maintain themselves without the need for mulch or fertilizers.  This is possible when we give them their natural conditions.   Roy worked with Piet Oudolf and is best known as the plantsman behind Oudolf's midwestern garden designs.  He designs and creates award-winning public gardens in the Chicago and surrounding area. Best known is Lurie Garden at Millennium Park in Chicago. This is a bit of a wake-up call for someone like me who loves to go to the garden centre and purchase the latest new hybrids.  Roy can create a stunning garden with about 20 plants. There's a great deal to learn from the simplicity and discipline he espouses.  Here's Roy's website, Northwind Perennial Farm. Today's pictures show the Toronto Botanical Garden's front walk way garden.  It was designed by Piet Oudolf, and gives you a sense of the style of garden that is the subject of Roy's designs.  Our pictures show scenes through the seasons.

Gardens of the Surreal and Serene

The Aga Khan Museum and Garden in Toronto continues the trend towards gardens that engage in the surreal, other-worldly, serene and spiritual. It was in 1997 that the J.P. Getty Museum and Garden in Los Angeles, CA was opened. It is located on a hillside of 110 acres and the cost was $1.3 billion. The gardens are graceful spaces set within travertine walls of the Museum.  The walls  absorb and reflect light to create a backdrop of simplicity and warmth. I consider it a garden where the visitor can experience the serene, surreal and spiritual.  This is because sections of the garden are set within massive walls. They remove every day settings and objects and replace them with  uniformity and indefiniteness.  That is what can be experienced as the universal, the serene and the spiritual. In contrast, there are many social areas in the garden.  There are massive trees of bougainvillea that charm the visitor with their other-worldly size.  There's the playfulness of the scent of the sunken garden - it smells of 'skunk' (!) from the mass planting of Society Garlic.  And there are great panoramic views of Los Angeles from the balconies.  These give one a 'commanding' view  - leading to a sense of 'over-wordliness'. As one exits to the plaza below, again the walls separate one from the external world.  The silver and black plantings are intensified and magnified so that a 'surreal' garden is experienced. The Getty Centre is in perfect harmony with its location - Los Angeles seems to be the ideal place for gardens that delve into the real of the surreal and other-worldly.

Views of Niagara

I was at a garden meeting at the Toronto Botanical Gardens yesterday and took some time to visit the Aga Khan Museum and Garden.  I wanted to see the Autumn colours as this is a key feature of the plant choices.  There was a some colour, but the leaves have been blown off the trees so there was less than I'd hoped for. This is such an astonishing building and garden.  With the infinity water pools, the white walls of the building, and the grand walk ways, everything is harmonized and serene. Coming back to Niagara, we drove around the escarpment and took a view of Niagara Falls from Megalomaniac the Winery.  Remember the posting last week  'The Great Toronto Mirage'?  Yesterday's view of Toronto was very clear and the buildings on the landscape extend from Toronto right through to Hamilton in a continuous line. At Megalomaniac, I was able to get a good picture of the Niagara Falls view, and include a cropped view so you can see the 'thumb print' stubby building in the centre.  It is Brock University in St. Catharines, and then Niagara Falls is beyond that.  The Skyline Tower is the telling shape of Niagara Falls. There are no articles (other than camera lens compression) to explain this compression phenomenon that we saw. Storms were ahead for the Niagara Falls area.  Voting is ahead for us today.

New Year's Drop Off

Drop Off

This is the day after all the celebrations that started well before Christmas in November and end on New Year's Day  We might be looking ahead to Twelfth Night (Jan 5) and Epiphany (Jan 6) in some cultures with a strong religious orientation.  Here in North America, it all goes quiet.

It turns out that Costa Rica is full of early January celebrations.  The Palmares Fiestas starts the first week of January and is "two weeks of concerts, bullfighting, folklore dancing and general debauchery".  The first week also has the Coffee Cup:  "a much-anticipated, week-long juniour tennis tournament.  And there's the Alajuelita Fiestas - "an oxcart parade and party to honour the Black Christ of Esquipulas, Alajuela." So there's no end of fun in Costa Rica, no cliff after January 1st.

Perhaps it is time to schedule for next year's after-Christmas holiday in Costa Rica.

The two images today were taken in St. Augustine Florida, a lovely historic town.  The oldest house museum complex has historical houses surrounded with courtyards, gardens, and statues. St. Augustine gardens have clear Spanish influences in architecture and design.

Tropical Interlude

These bougainvillea images were taken in Florida in the Four Arts Garden in Palm Beach.  They are our visual interlude while we travel the Christmas journey learning all sorts of  things about food traditions at Christmas. 

In Japan, a food associated with Christmas is the Christmas cake.  It is a sponge cake with whipped cream, chocolate and strawberries.  Any cake that is not sold after the 25th is unwanted.  This idea was applied to single Japanese women over the age of 25: they used to be called Christmas Cakes.

Part of Spain's celebration of December 28th as a fool's day is to put salt in their cakes in place of sugar to 'fool' children. 

An Italian tradition is Carbone dolce.  This is a rock candy that looks like coal.  It is intended for bad children, and is left behind in place of toys on January 6th, Epiphany the last day of Christmas.

A number of countries have a Christmas Pickle tradition.  It is most attributed to a German tradition of hiding a glass pickle ornament in the Christmas tree.  Ground Zero for this, though, is Berrien Springs, Michigan.  It bills itself as the Christmas Pickle Capital of the World.  Thy have a parade in early December with the Grand 'Dill' meister giving out fresh pickles along the parade route. 

Parkwood Estates in Oshawa

This is Parkwood Estates in Oshawa, Ontario.  It was the home and garden of Samuel McLaughlin, who was the founder of General Motors, Canada.  It is now an historic sight as the house interior was intact with furnishings in place.  At this time of year, the colourful formal beds are gone and what remains are the structural elements such as statues, trelliswork, pathways and gates.  The canopy of trees and shrubs becomes evident and the landscape starts its transition to the narrow palette of colours of winter.  

Parkwood is one of the great gardens within our own backyard in the horseshoe area.  Most of it was designed by H.B. and L.A. Dunington-Grubb. They were the founding architects of Sheridan Nurseries. The gardens have been restored to the 1930's style that was its zenith.

There are quite a few gardens on the grounds.  More to show another time...

Bench Works

Benches are an enjoyable focal point for the photographer.  There is usually a path in a garden leading to a bench, also providing the photographer with a leading line in the image.  Here are two benches from the lovely Longwood Gardens, near Philadelphia PA.  The first is a spring image and the latter an autumn one.

How a Picture Influences the Garden Design

Now that I photograph gardens a lot, I realize how much of an interplay there is between the photographic image of the garden and the garden design itself.  Great garden designs usually result in great pictures, and pictures can help lead to great garden design.

I took tho picture of the new water feature in my garden at 3 Sunnylea Cres in Grimsby.  The summer garden encircles the fountain in the lower portion of the picture, making a nice frame for the feature.  I noticed though, that the stone edging in the far background ended part way through the image, leaving my eye wondering where to go next.

I've corrected the line in the picture, and next will get out to the garden to correct the design so that the actual experience is as pleasant as the still one.

Here is the before and after.

Kansas City Gardens - The Serene Garden - Kauffman Memorial Gardens

I so enjoyed seeing the gardens in Kansas City.  I had thought it would be a colder zone than here, but that turned out to be incorrect.  They are in zone 7 - with Crape Myrtles, Seven Sons Tree, lots of Redbuds and Dogwoods.  However, they do have dry, hot and windy summers, so the leaves are smaller and the trees a bit sturdier of the trunk for the height.  My favourite garden is the Kauffman Memorial Garden, a beautiful example of the Serene Garden.  Many people want their garden to be serene, so Kauffman is a model to examine and learn from.  Here are a few scenes.

My Hosta Fantasy

l cut off most of the hosta flowers along the front garden this year.  With the mass showing, the weakness in their colour and uprightness is glaring.  By weakness in colour, I mean the light lavender colour.  It seems to take away from the green shades that contrast and complement each other.  In addition to that I have intense orange begonias and coleus to complement the colour of the front door and the yellow bricks.  As white would do wonderfully, perhaps I'll concentrate on some more Royal Standard Hostas for a nice end of season show.  And they have a beautiful fragrance, too.

So today, I worked a little in photoshop and turned the hosta in the foreground of this beautiful rural garden in Grimsby to a more pleasing shade.  I would like to try out a Crocosmia orange, but didn't manage to get photoshop to get to that colour.  If anyone knows the technique, I would appreciate a comment or a link.

Here's that lovely winding path with the pergola destination.

Grimsby Gardens - Beautiful August Gardens

I wonder why there aren't garden tours in August.  There certainly are beautiful gardens.  This one is in Grimsby and has a wonderful display right now.  We see red Crocosmia, yellow Rubeckias, pink Echinaceae, and the soon-to-flower Sedum.  The wonderful architecture of the house and the pretty metal gate are the perfect setting for this beautifully designed display. 

So this garden tells us that August is a perfect garden month.  Besides the beautiful flowers in the garden, we might plant Day lilies and Hydrangeas.  They are perfect right now.  If you enjoy the Oriential Lilies, they scent the air and fill the garden with their large blooms in bright colours.  There's a beautiful array of yellow and gold in August - Helianthus, Helenium, Coreopsis, Yarrow and Rudbeckias.  There's a lot of  pinks, whites and lavenders with Phlox.  So there is a lot of floral colour in the garden in August.  

Usually, though, we have a bit of brown in our lawns.  This is not the case this year.  Everything is perfectly green.  It would be a great year for an August garden walk.

Buffalo Garden Walk 2014

I had such a great time on the Buffalo Garden Walk yesterday.  It seems that there must have been even more people than last year, as I parked even further away from the Central Headquarters.  I saw some gardens I hadn't seen before thanks to Dan Cooper, garden writer and book author.  He sent me the release to media on the showcase gardens to look at.

Here's one I hadn't seen before.  What beautiful architecture!

Grimsby Gardens

I wanted to share another beautiful Grimsby Garden that was on the July 5th Grimsby Garden Tour.  You can see that big views of this garden work wonderfully - the paths are gently curving, and the focal points of plants and structures seems perfect.  This is the garden of a jewellery artist - so often artists create the best garden compositions.  The other aspect of this garden is the pictures that are from a higher point of view - the property drops down so that it is possible to take the pictures from the house at the higher elevation, giving one the sweep of the garden all at once.  What a great canvas to work with and what great art has been created in this garden.

Sunnylea Garden's 2014 Milestone

Hi everyone,
The Sunnylea Garden was ready for the July 5th Grimsby Garden Club Garden Tour.  It took a lot of work over the last 2 months to get the back yard into tour-ready shape.  It was only last October that the hardscaping was installed, and the end of May this year that the garden carpentry was completed.  The original concept ideas were done by Frank Kershaw.  Christopher Campbell, who designed my back garden at 46 Orchard Crescent in Toronto, did the design.  I particularly appreciated his design of the Rendezvous with its trellis work and seating area.

Here are a few images of the garden on the morning of the tour:

This is a significant change from 2011, where the back garden featured a large deck, seating area, hot tub and ponds.   With the move of the Conservatory from Toronto, the raised deck, hot tub and bedroom wall were in for major changes.   The front garden was renovated to include a parking area for a second car, and a seating area under the mature red maple tree.