May I Offer you a Handkerchief?

When we visited Stourhead, an 18th landscape garden during our garden tour last week, the Davidia involucrata trees were in bloom. Davidia involucrata is also known as the handkerchief or dove tree because of the large white blowsy flowers, was brought to England from China in 1900 by the plant hunter E. H. Wilson. I suspect that the seed that he collected was also sent to the Arnold Arboretum in Boston where I have seen a magnificent specimen. 

On the right side of the picture, with the Temple of Apollo in the distance, is a Davidia involucrata  tree in full flower.

A closer view of the same Davidia involucrata tree

My favorite memory of this tree was when I visited Sakonnet Garden in Rhode Island about a dozen  years ago. The Davidia involucrata tree was in bloom and I pressed one of the papery flowers in my gardening journal. It is a wonder reminder of a beautiful garden and an unusually lovely tree.

Small Gardens Are Like Short Films

Quotes from  ‘The Oscar-Nominated Short Films 2014: Live Action’

“12 Years a Slave” Director Steve McQueen
"The structure of short film is all about narrative."

"You have to say a lot in a short period of time. You think, 'How do I do that? How do I have the maximum impact within a time restriction?' But it could be actually much more effective than a long film. All this thing about short and long--its all about whether it is good or not. Often a short film can be better than a long film. It has nothing to do with length. It has to do with intelligence."

Luciano Giubbilei Chelsea Flower Show Garden

 Matthew Modine Actor and Shorts Director
"As artists you have to find someplace where you can go and find quiet and hear yourself; to hear your voice, because it is small."

Peter Wooster's Garden, Roxbury, CT

2013 Shorts Winner Shawn Christensen
"You have one idea, one notion, and you can take that idea all the way. If it is a strong idea, you can just explore it and you don't have to worry about being complicated. You can do that one simple idea."

Sakonnet Gardens, Little Compton, RI

Peter Webber Director "Girl with a Pearl Earring"
"There can be a purity about a short film. You can take a very simple pure idea...and make it purely cinematic."

"There is something much purer about working with a smaller budget or working on a smaller canvas."

"Short film is a real skill. It is like writing a Haiku."

"You need to have a really good story to tell and you need to tell it really well."

Rosemary Verey's Potager Garden, Cirencester, England

Jim Field Smith Director "She's Out of My League"
"The constraints of making a short sometimes end up being the strongest points."

Michael Trapp's Garden, West Corwall, CT

Opus at Sakonnet

Ed Bowen, owner of Opus, contemplating just the right plant for his customer

Connoisseur plants looking for a home

Ed's delightful wife, Ivy, is often on hand

When I am at a plant sale, like I was last weekend at the Sakonnet Symposium in RI, I have to suppress the urge to use my, admittedly quite large 6' 3", body to it fullest advantage to get at the plants I am most interested in. Long arms are always an asset but it is really bad form to knock over a little old lady to get to the Arundo donax 'Golden Chain' so I behave myself.

One of the nurseries with plants for sale last Saturday was Opus, Ed Bowen's self-descibed " deliberately small nano-nursery." I first met Ed about a decade ago when he worked at the now defunct Conway's Nursery in Tiverton, RI. It didn't take long to see that Ed is a true plantsman. He knows his plants and he knows how to make them happy. After Conway's closed, Ed opened his own nursery named Opus specializing in "under-cultivated, garden worthy and unusual perennials."

Ed is open by appointment only but it is probably easiest to see what plants he has to offer at one of the half a dozen symposiums or gardening events that he frequents each year. Ed is extremely knowledgable and he couldn't be a nicer guy. The plant I was most excited about was Centaurea benoistii. Centaurea benoistii has excellent silver grey folliage with knobby maroon colored flower heads. It likes well-drained soil and I am hoping it will be happy in my upper border. Check Ed's website for more details about where you can find him next and his very intriguing plant list.

Express Yourself

The Main Axis of Sakonnet Garden

An Acer griseum grove smolders in the backlit Orange Room

The grey foliage of Scot's thistle, Onopordum acanthium, in the Silver Meadow

The Red Pavilion from Old Delhi in the Tropical Quadrant

The bold foliage of Petasites through the Meconopsis Ditch into the Central Lawn

View from the Cental Lawn into the Dog Pen

A pine limbed up by Mikel

More Architectural Limbing

Small Sculpture on a Pedestal near the House

View from the Meadow through a Holly Topiary Entrance to the House

The Path in the Wild Wet Meadow

Saturday I spent the day at a symposium called Lofty Aspirations of Down-to-Earth Gardeners hosted by Sakonnet Garden and Wildmeadows (SG&W) in Little Compton, RI. SG&W is the magical garden of John Gwynne and Mikel Folcarelli which has been a collaboration in the works for thirty years. This is their first day-long symposium. You knew that they were serious when the invited Fergus Garrett, the head gardener at Great Dixter and Marco Polo Stufano, the now retired horticulturalist who created the gardens at Wave Hill in the Bronx, to be the guest speakers. To top it all off, add Dominique Browning, the former editor of House and Garden, as a moderator and you have created a splendid day for conversations about "gardening as an inspiring art form."

Marco Polo Stufano stressed the importance of structural plants to create form and, when properly placed, how they can help pull the design of a garden together. As an Italian, he affirmed that he "loved things touched by the hand of man." Fergus Garrett talked about how gardening gave him the sense of freedom to express his thoughts and to be creative. He encouraged the audience to be more willing to be experiment while gardening. At Great Dixter he is carrying on Christopher Lloyd's legacy by keeping the garden the same, that is to say, to keep it vibrant through revision, refinement and change.

Fergus immediately noticed how John and Mikel are having fun in their garden. After the symposium, we were invited to tour the garden which is contained within a wall of hedges and fences and is separated and hidden from the house. It is divided into a series of rooms each reflecting "the owner’s ongoing experiments with lighting, space, color mixing, collecting and growing wonderful plants."

I went away feeling a renewed freedom to continue to express myself in my own garden through, as Fergus stated, style, atmosphere and personality. And, thanks to John and Mikel, I won't forget to have it be fun.