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My Sister’s New Garden
Meandering nasturtiums splay over the edge of the patio. They thrive on the concrete’s radiant heat.
A curvy flagstone path wends into the back corner, as if there were more to see just around the bend. Crocosmia has nearly finished blushing scarlet; a few sunflowers reach skyward (why aren’t the centers going black, she wants to know).
In their midst stand gayfeather (liatris spicata) and a staked tomato!
The piece de resistance anchors the back wall – two significant clumps of bamboo confined to an elegant wood planter she purchased up the coast. It is both an appreciation of things past and a recognition of bamboo’s beauty constrained by reality: you don’t want these aggressive grasses overrunning your main garden.
My sister tends her new garden with care and delight. Whimsey and prudence. Premeditation and pluck.
The first thing she installed was the incandescent string of lights vining the translucent, shed-like roof over the sitting area, which is the perfect place for enjoying the flora while reading, writing, sipping – or, finding a brother savoring Sauvie Island Blueberries with Barbados Cream. Heaven.
Posted in Design, Inspiration, Mind | 
Tags: bamboo, blueberries, clumps, container, crocosmia, design, flagstone path, garden space, gayfeather, liatris spicata, nasturtium, outdoor space, outdoor spaces, patio ideas, planter, radiant heat, sauvie island, summer, summer blooms, sunflowers, sw portland, tidiness, whimsy | 
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Early Spring Dance
New England, March 2012: So odd to have late June’s cameo appearance.
Last year's echinacea
We pensively enjoyed the abundant warmth and sunshine, while summer’s annoyances buzzed and swarmed around us, eventually driving us inside from the patio.
So many things sprang to life this week – the helleboros from Grace & Jerry, which must be thinned and would probably work better at the foot of the stone wall; our accidental hyacinth — a reliable, discarded gift from a beau to one of our teenage daughters, who are both in their 30’s now; streets bursting with magnolias already past their peak on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston; and, allergies galore.
I began clearing last year’s garden refuse and I re-installed the garden foot bridge on reset brick footings that lower the leading edge of the bridge so it’s neatly flush with the adjoining patio. This fundamental satisfaction I will enjoy forever. On walks at Humarock Beach I’m harvesting tumbled, black stones to supplement my medium hard-scape around the bridge; I will place the rounded rocks such that they become a Zen garden-like flow.
Crocus cast in myrtle
It’s too early to put out my little water feature because here in New England, in March or April, a sudden freeze can descend at any time. One doesn’t put out one’s tomatoes before Mother’s Day. My wish is for a brief cold snap to kill off the flying insects that hatched prematurely, then, a long, drawn out spring with just the right amount of rain. We can have the most spectacular Mays and Junes.
Spring is planning and planting and visioning and acting. Who knows how this season will progress? Is the sudden warmth a friendly lark or a portent of grave weather to come? Neither, both.
Posted in Design, Inspiration, Mind, Soil | Tags: Boston, bridge, Commonwealth Avenue, dance, echinacea, environmental design, flow, fountain, Grace, Helleborus, Humarock Beach, hyacinth, Jerry, Marshfield, Massachusetts, New England, patio ideas, perennials, stone, wooden bridges | 4 Comments »
Sarabande: Kinetic Garden Art
Sarabande is a mobile – kinetic art made from copper, bronze and aluminum, standing six feet tall with a six foot radius. She was conceived to replace a withered dwarf maple that once stood in the center of the garden. Whimsical wind mobiles, like garden sculptures, provide vertical and horizontal contrast — plus movement — to the surrounding perennials.
A Garden Dancer Comes to Life
Named for the courtly dance and musical movement from the Baroque era, Sarabande is the work of kinetic artist, Vladimir Barsukov (Perpetual Mobiles) from whom I took a mobile-making class in November, 2009. You might think of Alexander Calder, an American mobile artist whose work is in the Guggenheim Museum (NYC).
Sarabande was almost a year in the making because Barsukov had to experiment with ideas and materials that would scale to larger proportions and perform well outdoors – wind mobiles can have a rougher life. Barsukov invented a sturdy pivot to give the mobile the needed “degrees of freedom.”
Besides freedom of movement, a mobile requires precisely balanced elements that communicate with each other, and sensitivity to slight, animating air movements.
Outdoors, a mobile must maintain its responsiveness while coping with extremes of wind, weather and elements; it must float on gentle breezes and ride out coastal gales. And do it all gracefully.
sarabande-in-snow-4
sarabande-in-snow-5
Sarabande In Snow 2Installing the Mobile
I saw the first prototype at Barsukov’s Cambridge studio in July, 2010. While the artist completed the final design, I had to figure out how to keep a mobile garden sculpture permanently straight and plumb. Googling
The dwarf maple stood leafless in its last years. Stark and twiggy, it became a favorite perch for small birds. Chickadees and humming birds would alight on the end of a tiny dead branch to rest; it was our snag tree. It toppled of its own accord just before Sarabande’s installation on October 30, 2010. Sarabande was too broad for that spot so we installed her farther back, overhanging the dwarf mountain laurel (kalmia latifolia v. ‘Elf’), Alberta spruce (Picea glauca ‘Conica’) and daphne. Originally a backyard patio idea, Sarabande moves gently and more subtly far away, where her long arm and large sweep complement her surroundings.
Reflections on Sarabande
Posted in Art, Kinetic, Sculpture | Tags: Alexander Calder, aluminum, art, artist, bronze, Calder, chickadees, dance, daphne, degrees of freedom, design, dwarf maple, freedom of movement, garden, garden sculpture, garden statue, humming birds, kinetic, kinetic art, kinetic artist, maple, mobile, mobiles, mountain laurel, patio ideas, perennials, post hole digger, Sarabande, sculpture, Vladimir Barsukov, wind, wind mobiles | 10 Comments »