Elsa'a Perfume

If a woman enters a room wearing my grandmother's perfume, a quarter of a century after her death, it immediately brings me back to her. Olfaction, the sense of smell, is closely aligned with memory. Proust wrote, "When nothing else subsists from the past, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, bearing resiliently, on tiny and almost impalpable drops of their essence, the immense edifice of memory."

The heady scent of Gladiolus callianthus 'Murielae' transforms me in time to the late Elsa Bakalar's lovely garden in Heath, Massachusetts. For that was the first time I had encountered the the warm intoxicating fragrance of this so-called Abbissian gladiolus. On a warm July evening, a moment before dusk, a waft of an exotic aroma passed through the garden and I immediately needed to find the source. Elsa pointed out the elegantly arching stems of white flowers with long throats tinted in burgundy. Gladiolus callianthus 'Murielae' is zone 6 corm that needs to be harvested each fall and stored as one would a dahlia in the basement in New Hampshire. It flowers for about 3 weeks in my garden. The spent flowers are easily dead-headed; simply give the wilted flower a gentle tug and it slides right into your hand.

Elsa was born in England and taught grade school and then high school in New York City. In 1984, she and her husband, Mike, moved to Massachusetts where she built a flower garden. After retiring from teaching, she began to lecture about gardening for the Arnold Arboretum and the NYBG. Her 1994 book, A Garden of One's Own: Making and Keeping Your Flower Garden, is a personal favorite. Elsa died, at the age of 91, in January 2010. Horticulture has an article about Elsa and her garden in the current issue. The present owners have kept the garden intact with the help of Jeff Farell, Elsa's friend who helped her in her garden for many years.

Garden View Walking Down High Street

Garden Read: The Full Monty Every Day

The Ivington Diaries by Monty Don

My sister wanted to find the perfect birthday present for me last December; I was reaching a half century milestone and she hoped to make it memorable. At the end of the year, I kept reading about The Ivington Diaries, a new book by Monty Don, the former BBC gardening host and Observer columnist. I had seen his name many times in my garden reading but had never sat down with one of his books so I greedily suggested a gift for myself. My sister promptly ordered the book and we waited...and waited.... and waited. The book was available in England but didn't arrive in the States until July. It turned out to be fortuitous timing because we were going on vacation the first week in August and I needed a good book.

The Ivington Diaries is a compilation of entries from Don's gardening journal from 1994 to 2006. Don and his wife, Sarah, were rather famous costume-jewelry designers in London. Their business collapsed in the late 80's and they began a new life, centering around gardening, at Ivington Court, a medieval farmhouse they bought in Herefordshire, England. The property had no gardens when they began living there in 1991. The book is the personal story of the creation of a garden. He writes that "the context for this is a profound hunger for a sense of place and an urge to make a home." The entries are in date order but they jump from year to year. It has over 50 informal, yet lovely, photographs taken by the author.

The book has about 20 entries per month. Many of the passages are predictable and have plant titles like 24 March 2001 Clematis, 1o June 1995 Roses and 26 June 2004 Eremurus. Others are more interesting: 24 February 2001 Danger, 13 April 2005 Whiff, 10 July 1999 Flux and 11 August 2002 Stasis. There are also funny entries like 14 September Pretentious? Moi? and 20 September 1999 Slugmare. One of the more provocative entries is titled, 3 December 2000 Sex. In that piece Mon maintains that "neither pure femininity nor unalloyed masculinity make good gardens or gardeners. You need a balance of both." Something to ponder the next time you visit a garden you admire.

The Ivington Diaries is a book best read in clips and pieces in many sittings. My first time through, I read the titles that interested me most. I raced through these passages. Then I leisurely read the titles I was less gravitated toward. I was surprised how well I like these entries. Finally, throughout the gardening year, I will reread and savor the passages during the time of year the entry was written. The Ivington Diaries is a book one can read over and over again. It will never fail to satisfy.

What a Difference an Edge Makes

The Lower Garden Newly Edged

Before Edging

After Edging

Left Border From the House

Right Border From the Garden Bench

Boxwood Topiary at the Edge of the Terrace

I like borders to have strong edges. I like the contrast of the line, straight or curved, and an exuberance of foliage and flowers sometimes crossing the line. My first borders were edged by hand with a garden spade several times during the growing season which was very labor intensive. About eight years ago, I laid down a row of bricks perpendicular to the edge of the garden. It was an instant success and created the formal straight line I was after.

Several years later, the plants began to fall out and over the brick edging which made cutting the lawn difficult and time consuming because all the plants needed to be pinned up off the lawn every week. The brick edge was too narrow. So this weekend I laid two additional courses of brick longitudinally to the end of the beds. The brick edge expanded from 7 inches to 14 inches creating a wide panel for the plants to rest on. The ornamental oregano is the only plant that crosses the line.......so far.

Peterborough's Community Garden Project

Francie Watering one of the Four Flower Boxes on the Bridge

The Northwest Flower Box

The Northeast Box with the Nation's First Public Library Behind

Close Up and Personal: The Southeast Flower Box

Francie Von Mertens was busy watering the flower boxes on one of the bridges entering downtown Peterborough early this morning. Francie and her volunteers, the Community Garden Project (CGP), plant and maintain the eight flower boxes on the two bridges. This dry summer has meant watering eight gallons of water for each flower box every other day. Francie's husband, Carl, built the boxes at the base of the light posts.

Around Memorial Day, the CGP volunteers plant the boxes with an exuberant combination of annuals selected by Francie. Some of her favorites are petunias, Salvia 'Victoria', verbenias and the trailing Sanvitalia procumbens also known as creeping zinnia. They continue deadheading the display until the first frost in early October. Around Thanksgiving, they fill the boxes to overflowing with branches of white pine, spruce, junipers and winterberry to adorn the bridges for the winter months. It is a labor of love that has become an eagerly anticipated tradition in Peterborough.

Antique Shop to Art Gallery in Wells, ME

Gallery from Rt 1: Tony Conway Sculpture on Display

Another Tony Conway Sculpture

Four Boxes in the Front Meadow

Spheres on the Lawn

Cairn of Granite Found on the Property

Corey Daniels Antiques in Wells, ME has always carried a fine selection of antiques, objects, furniture, art prints and photographs. The antique shop was housed in a handsome 19th century farmhouse. In the last few years a transformation of the farmhouse has occurred which is in alignment with Corey's change of focus from an antiques dealer to fine artist and curator. He has become much more minimalist in his aesthetic and the changes to the building and the grounds surrounding it reflect that metamorphosis.

First off, the building has been painted a muted grayish brown color. The passageway from the house to the barn is now a bare wall which is the perfect stage for a Tony Conway sculpture now placed there. The gallery has open spaces with a minimum of objects arranged in an eclectic and spartan manner. It reminds me of what I had read Russell Page liked to do. He would spend hours taking five or six objects on a table and trying to place them in an "arrangement which appears just." Page believed that "every object emanates -sends out vibrations beyond its physical body which are specific to itself." Corey does this when positions objects in his gallery. The sculpture arrangement on the grounds feel like another successful undertaking of that exercise.

I particularly liked the placement of four simple boxes in the un-mowed field, now a meadow, in front of the gallery. The boxes are made of iron street grates from Portland, ME (I think) that Corey found. Corey credits longtime friend, Tony Elliott (see last post about Snug Harbor Farm), for collaborating with him on the grounds and the positioning of the objects on the property. Page said " I think that awareness of the interplay between objects, whether organic or inorganic, is of major importance if your garden is to also a work of art." And so it is with landscape at Corey Daniels Gallery.

Corey Daniels has a blog and was profiled in an article for the NY Times last March.

http://coreydanielsgallery.blogspot.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/garden/25drake.html?scp=1&sq=corey+daniels&st=nyt

Snug Harbor Farm in Kennebunk, ME

Snug Harbor Farm's Front Display Garden

SHF Specializes in Topiary

Euphorbia cotinifolia Topiaries

Succulents and More Succulents

One of the Many Greenhouses

Planters and Pottery

Unusual Shrubs and Trees

Perennials for Sun

Perennials for Shade

The New Shop

Whenever we are vacationing in Ogunquit, ME, I always plan an trip to Snug Harbor Farm, a nursery "for plant connoisseurs" in the Lower Village in Kennebunk, ME. I found SHF a dozen years or more ago and every year there is something new see. The owner, Tony Elliott, has opened a garden shop this past year. It carries an interesting selection of pots and gifts which change each season.

My latest passion has been succulents for the terrace. SHF has a ever-increasing array of rare and unusual succulents. My thought was succulents are beautiful and relatively care-free. Unfortunately, my sunny terrace is slowly being shaded by a maturing specimen of Acer griseum 'Gingerbread'. It is a problem I have no business complaining about.

SHF has a great selection of rare and hard-to-find trees and shrubs. Many are quite large ready for installation with an immediate presence. Tony and his crew also provide garden design services. Speaking of the crew, they are always quite knowledgeable and friendly. Michilyn helped me when I was there this week and she knew her stuff inside out. I was trying to fill a couple holes in the garden and she had some great suggestions.

The grounds and display gardens at SHF are exceptionally beautiful. It is a great place to get ideas and inspiration for your own garden. Tony has found lots of old slabs of granite that make grand entrances to some of the greenhouses. He has an expert eye for creating a sort of relaxed country elegance. While I was there, Tony took a quick look at my blog and noted that "I need an espalier for the wall at my house." He is right, of course. Now the search will be on for the perfect dressing the the blank white clapboards in the back of the house.

Tony has a blog that I have added to my blog list: snugharborfarm.blogspot.com.

On Turtle Pond

Turtle Pond from the Deck

Textures in the Wetlands adjacent to the Pond

Turtle Pond hasn't been this small in years. The drought has dried the pond to about the size I first saw it about a quarter of a century ago. In the last decade, the beavers have created dams that have increased its size and have flooded the wetlands. Many of the red maples have died there and have created a birders paradise.

My in laws have a cabin on Turtle Pond about 5 miles inland from the ocean in Wells, Maine. The cabin is not winterized and has electricity but no TV or telephone. Watching the wildlife from the deck is the entertainment. When I first came to the cabin, you had to carry your bags about a football field distance from the road and it felt quite remote, especially before cellphones came along.

In the last several years, since my father-in-law got Alzheimer's disease, I have been involved in maintaining the land on the property. I have been clearing brush, mowing the fields and keeping nature from engulfing the cabin. In the meantime, I have become a more keen gardener and have been observing the plants around the cabin and their habitats. This year, the wetlands next to the pond are lush and relatively dry (because they are not flooded) and I have been noticing how the diverse population of plant species have woven themselves into a tapestry of textures.

I am embarrassed to say, that I don't know most the plants that are growing in these wetlands. I seem to know more about rare and unusual plants from Korea and Japan than I know about the native plants outside my own backdoor. I need to correct that. At ant rate, what I am noticing are the combinations of textures created by the grasses, ferns, spireas and the rounded leaves of the pickerel weed. They look ravishing in a very subtle way. I am certain William Robinson, Gertrude Jekyll, Karl Foerster and more recently Piet Oudolf noted all these things many years ago but I am finally seeing them now.

What I would like to do next in my gardening education is to track down some of the planting plans that these gardening Gods have created and pick them apart to see how they interpreted the combinations they observed in nature, each in their own unique way that reflected the times in which they lived. Hopefully it will give me insight into how I will build the wild garden that I am developing on my own plot. Time will tell.