A few harbingers in my own patch.
Tulip merging with Vinca.
Daffodils contrast with reflected blue blue sky.
Crocus perks up Gro-Low Sumac.
Early Spring After No Winter
I guess I shouldn't be grumpy about Climate Change. The fact that the weekend after Valentines Day should bring temps near 60, seems to delight the tv weather-person, just as it does when we have summer drought & they announce yet another hot day with no rain. But, I am a plant advocate, not to mention animals & some humans who aren't out to destroy the planet. And so, it was with mixed emotions that I greeted the first Snowdrops in the yard. Their reappearance for decades, many many years after my garden mentor planted them and many years since she died, gives me hope in the persistence of life in face of many challenges.
The Light Strengthens...
Luckily: we have had rain over the winter.
First Snowdrops!
Winter Containers
Installed during record-breaking high temps & little rain. Winter weather forecast to arrive in two days. Fingers crossed!
Fall in a Client Garden
Before & After
I hope you can tell which is which...
My two best accomplishments here are giving the Weeping Katsura some space & changing the path into a border edging.
Rain in the garden
On the heels of record rain in Aug., we've had even more this past week. Not only have many plants loved the combo of heat & water, but some have grown larger than normal & overstepped their bounds.
One client texted me that he was unhappy with the unruliness in his garden as the result of the rains. I suggested he stake the plants until they dried out. I, coming from a family of artists, experience a different response & find the pushing of borders, welcome.
So, I was delighted to be on-site at another client's garden & see this wonderful ecosystem mingling & growing towards its fall/winter, critter-friendly habitat.
Community Garden
In downtown Detroit, near Wayne State. Looks highly maintained. And locked...
Nice to feel uplifted by the stature of sunflowers & corn. Hope the food is nourishing to the soul, as well as to the body.
Color Pop
Begonia
Spiderwort under branch of Tiger Eyes Sumac
Lurie Garden: Native
Eryngium yuccafolium: Rattlesnake Master. A favorite form, but seeds like crazy. Great for a prairie. Here, it is being highly managed.
Good Bones
Visited a garden we did in '03. Right Plant, Right Place is the ticket, plus excellent maintenance.
Drainage drove Design.
Huge overhangs on a big slope in short distance further shaped Design. All these plants like moist and this year's rain made the garden quite lush & especially brings out the variations in texture & greens.
Favorite Tree in Summer
This is the fruit from one of my favorite native trees, Ostrya virginiana. You can see why its common name is American Hophornbeam. This fruit comes from some very old ones nearby on a parkway. They are stunted by years of full sun (they are a lowland, dry shade tree) and the neglect that comes with being city property on a rental building...not that any multi-owner building would do any better, in my opinion.
Being in its last legs, the plant is fruiting heavily.
No picture of the parkway trees, but they are about half the size of this better-placed and managed one in our backyard.
Life amidst Decay
At a garden a friend inherited, almost everything was weeds, except for these few:
Poppy
Purple Coneflower
Water Lily
The petals attach to the seed so uniquely.
Solstice & Full Moon
Here is the longest day of sun on Larkspur that still blooms even though my neighbor, JoAnn, now only inhabits the garden in spirit, Lo these many years...
Color, Pattern & Texture
Mayan back strap loom weaving shares garden qualities.
How to subscribe to my blog on a computer..
Apparently my previous post tells how to subscribe only on an iPhone. To subscribe from the computer, you must go to a blog post, click on comments & then, at the bottom Right, you will find a subscribe link.
How to subscribe to my blog
Pick a post, enter. On upper Right, tap "View." Then, go down to lower Right & Click Subscribe.
Old snapshot of Getty garden
Nature & Industry
Thorndale El stop on Red Line
I love the shadows...
Light & Shadow
Highlights Texture.
Worldview WBEZ Chicago Global Activism Segment SSG: 2 June 2016
Always a joy and a pleasure to speak with Worldview host, Jerome McDonnell.
https://www.wbez.org/shows/worldview/global-activism-sustainability-and-social-justice-in-guatemala/ac5c30ef-ec7b-473c-b484-eba34fbea1c6
join us 6/9/16 for our SSG event:
email us to attend at: secretary@sustainablesharing.org
http://www.sustainablesharing.org/news_events/
