How does the frame speak to the art inside

Dan Hill's Salvia sclarea is the perfect compliment to my Papaver somniferum. There are some benefits to adjoining gardens. It is like Robert Irwin's discussion of art in a frame. My garden is the art inside Dan Hill's frame: how do they relate. I love the combination.

When the rain stops . .

..flowers, like this Acroclinum, open.  Mind you, this is not its first opening, but when the sun hides, so does it. Acrolinum rotates back into a tight little bud when the weather is unfavorable.

Meadows and misanthropy

I have been here a year plus.  In that time I have never casually strolled in the gardens in the evening.  Walking in the place that I work is not relaxing, but since being in perimeter I want to linger by the managed meadow more and more.  And so I did.  I passed the meadows, made a short circuit around the Italian water garden and returned to the first bench looking out to the meadows between a dying maple and a columnar Tulip. There wasn’t a guest in sight.  It was perfect.  (As an aside, I am so introverted that at times I am uncomfortable sitting on my own porch because of the nearness of my peers. Ridiculous, I know; but true all the same)  The world with minimal human presence—of course it is a “managed” meadow and the history of human activity is evident, but I was the only physically present human, and only observing at that.  The wind moved the tops of the trees slowly and bright flecks of gold ignited between the trees where the sun was setting behind the woods.  A rabbit ate near me.  The rain that has toppled my garden hadn’t much affected the meadow.  I think the grasses and forbs are so compact that they hold each other up.  This is an admirable lesson—I need to stuff my garden more for it to support itself. As it is now, I will have to cut a lot back.  The kniphofia is prostrate and unsalvageable.  The cornflowers are exhibiting a limberness that is near deformity (yet in a day the stems will turn upward again in the most stubbornly serpentine way.  Those funny little cornflowers make me laugh.)

Still, as I sat there, I understood my love of history and the landscapes of my childhood—there were so few people in them and a lot more wild open places.  I do not mean to be so misanthropic, but there it is.  I am, sadly, misanthropic.

A garden of life

A sequence of blooms 2009

Seasonal Container Display, Winter-Spring-Summer

Bulb Display at Red Lion Row 2008-2009

Gentle Exterminators

How many people does it take to kill a bug on a palm?  Apparently three:   one to spray; one to fold leaves back; and one to feed the spray line from a story above you.  Joyce Rondinella, Erika Kemp and I doused Longwood’s tropical houses this evening.  Our masks fogged up, the respirators dug painfully into our flesh, and everything glistened surreally like an oil soaked dream.  The worst that we used was Sunspray Ultrafine horticultural oil to smother crawling mealy bugs and scale.  All the same, I think the origin of these pests merit some discussion at some point.

Dappling in Nursery work

Yesterday, I met a NYC design/install/maintain gardener, whose business is at a point of becoming.  As businesses are wont to do, it is moving at an accelerated pace towards a yet-to-be-defined “something,” though clearly a promising “something.”  The factors pressing upon its “becoming” are what he wants to do, what the business naturally wants to do, and what the demand for either might be.  As a designer he is excited by thought, the human exchange of ideas, a community of intellectuals pushing the boundaries of aesthetic good taste; and of plants themselves—the many cultivars of plants (aka the infinite variety of life).  As a business in an urban center (Brooklyn) space and help are limiting factors, but the aesthetic quality is higher and the ability to experiment greater than average.  A move into suburbia may open up the floor plan of a garden but decrease the intellectual buoyancy of that garden.   His current clientele may assist in his decision making as they include him in garden making outside of the city at secondary homes/retreats (on Long Island and in upper NY State).  At which point, he might enjoy the best of both worlds.  (I discourage a full plunge into suburban design).
It is exciting that he wants to establish a large-caliber rare plants nursery in Chadds Ford.   The property is his parents, and it is beautiful:  wild, exuberant, unplanned gardens casually though lovingly attended on land that was once a farm and surrounded by woods.  He approached Mark at the Rare Plants Auction at the behest of his mother.  His objective right now is to stockpile plants he wants to showcase in his garden designs.  It may become a new business providing designers-in-the-know with quality, large caliber, hard to find tree and shrubs locally.  Location is important—no one wants to buy a $2000 to $5000 tree without seeing it first.  This is the success of Long Island nurseries—they are close to their market (NYC, Connecticut and the Long Island suburbs/ summer homes).
Can I do this?
The only certainty I have is that I NEED to brush up on my plant names, yet I am not sure how to improve my woefully inadequate memory.  I suspect less worry about the future and more focus in the present might help.

This is the preface to all my entries now.  It is necessary to make this statement in order to make these entries relevant to my Capstone Project at Red Lion Row, which they are:

The following musings are relevant to my garden because in finding my identity as a gardener, I am finding the identity of my garden.  Myself and my beliefs about my relationship with the natural world are apparent in my choices in my garden, how I make my garden or what I let go.  This is interesting to me.  This is why gardening is my life’s ambition. Everything I learn, every thought I have, leads to understanding and possibility and implementation (mostly in that order).