Saturday, 14 April 2024
at home
The crocs sandals that I had ordered came, but despite my desire to give my sore toe room, they didn’t work….I felt my foot was slipping out the open back. The same delivery had brought Allan a pair of boat shoes with wide toe room, and they fit me, so I absconded with them (but will buy him a new pair). They have no arch support, which is not good for me (I was born with flat feet) but…lack of toe pain is my priority for gardening.
We did a little project. I took all the plants, about six flats worth, off of the pallet cover that Allan had put on top of the former compost bin one, so that I could pull the pallet forward.
Allan put a temporary top on the temporarily empty bin next to it (now called bin one) and a chunk of wood on the back of each so plants won’t fall through the crack.
Then I reloaded the plants and more plants. By June, I will have had my annual “World’s Longest Garage Sale” garden open and garage/plant sale (Memorial Day Weekend) and will then make bin one (formerly two!) available for compost again.
I planted a few plants. first a ceanothus from Tony in the afternoon sun bed on the other side of the compost bins, with a back drop of an old styrofoam boat that belonged to Allan’s dad, flanked by cut out plywood “boat shapes”.
I found a stray primrose in a pot.
Looks like my new polyganatum is putting out a sprout! To the left of the tag.
If I got rid of all the native foam flower or whatever it is called (I have a mental block about its name…)
…I would have more room for more interesting (to me) plants.
Most of the day, I heard a forklift at the gear shed next door. I was pleased to see the wall of crab pots appearing at our property line.
Allan noticed this tulip…
The white rhododendron is in full flower and the apple tree blossoms are coming on.
reading
I started a book, which I got through interlibrary alone all the way from Texarkana, Texas. The YouTube channel Whispers in the Garden had alerted me to the gardening culture of Buffalo, New York and its garden tours.
It is a gorgeous book….
…which I expected to have in depth visits to a number of Buffalo gardens. It offered plenty of glimpses of the gardens but no in depth coverage of each, although it did have charming stories, like the one about Mary’s garden, named for a beloved wife who died, and hosted by the widower’s second wife, also a gardener. “Annabelle and Jim’s garden is featured in many magazines and on tours because of great plants – the collections of dahlias and exotic annuals – and design. But it’s equally remembered for the lovely, surprising and touching story.”
Although in some ways it turned out to be a how-to garden design book, I was especially interested (because I love garden tours) in the story of the Buffalo Garden Walk.
I was astonished to read that “In Buffalo, what began as a simple neighborhood tour of a handful of gardens grew and grew until it comprised 400 gardens that are visited by some 70,000 people each year over a two-day summer weekend.” (How do they see them all if it is only for two days, I wondered?) Later in the book, a garden gets “at least 3000 visitors on a single July weekend during Garden Walk Buffalo.” My mind was boggled to learn that the garden walk tours are free. “In Buffalo, and other communities with egalitarian garden tours, the tours are more than showing off one’s garden. In Buffalo at least, it’s a matter of civic pride, a community service that gardeners provide to benefit a city they appreciate and of which they are proud.” Also, it is not a competition. “That’s one of the most-asked questions when people experience these Buffalo-style gardens that exceed all expectations. The answer is definitely NO. The gardeners never wanted to compete against each other or to win prizes.” I love that. Except for county fairs and village fete giant veg contests, and maybe some “best garden of the year” British telly shows, I don’t like gardening competitions that would make someone feel their garden was “lesser”. I also just adore this: “Garden Walk Buffalo’s model is unusual. It broke the mold of many garden tours nationwide that show carefully vetted, magazine-worthy gardens, and are often hosted by Federated Garden Clubs, Junior Leagues or chamber of commerce groups. Many such tours were and are one-day events with fees, carefully selected gardens that are often suburban (sometimes called “checkbook” gardens, referring to the reality that some homeowners hire professional landscape designers or landscape architects).” I’ve been to garden tours featuring professional gardens where one after the other, designed by the same outfit, were much the same. I’d love to host a garden tour that was free, or very inexpensive, maybe a benefit for the food bank, with only gardens that are designed and gardened by their not-rich owners, maybe with some help if the gardener is incapable of doing all the work herself. I wish I could go to the Buffalo tour, sounds just perfect to me. “From the beginning, Garden Walk Buffalo has felt more democratic, egalitarian and eclectic than other tours.”
They also have a separate open garden scheme, reminiscent of the ones offered in Portland or the Seattle area with membership to the Northwest Perennial Alliance or Hardy Plant Society of Oregon. It has a small fee for the guide:
“How Open Gardens work: About eighty gardens, spread over two large counties, are open for select hours on Thursdays or Fridays for the month of July. The open hours are set for a cluster of gardens in various regions of the counties. A full-color booklet, available for a small fee, online or from garden centers, provides maps, addresses, descriptions and photos.“
The Garden Walk gardens are not vetted, but the open garden ones are, since people might be driving for thirty minutes to get to one and so the gardens must be able to offer “twenty minutes of interest”, a criteria I have heard before.
I must look up this gardener’s blog; I love his description of his work: “Christopher Carrie (outsideclyde.blogspot.com) refers to himself as ‘a long-time peasant gardener for the well-to-do.'”
Regarding the book’s design tips, a good suggestion is the “Blink Test” where you ask a guest to take a very quick look at your garden, then shut their eyes and tell you what they remember about it.
The “path width primer” was usefu and thought provoking, although I disagree with the advice to put landscape fabric underneath paths…or indeed, anywhere where it might get mucked up with weed roots. And I must quibble with the suggestion of pea gravel, which to me is like a nightmare where you are trying to escape a monster but can’t get up any speed.
I would be thrilled with this path: “One tiny city garden leads visitors right to the back corner to view the compost pile – a good surprise that’s also educational.” I always like finding the compost and work areas in a garden.
“Another path directs guests to a door in the back fence – that’s a trompe l’oeil: It’s a door that goes nowhere, but painted, charming and memorable.” It is good to have a destination, but I am reluctant now to have a path that ends with no escape but to backtrack for quite a distance, ever since a friend complained about having toured a garden where she kept to a path, kind of overgrown but still apparently marked as part of the tour, and came to a dead end. It made her not like the garden at all (and I know it is a good one)! After hearing that, I made some more connecting paths in our Bogsy Wood.
Regarding garden tour guests, I suppose it’s true (but sad, to me) that hardscape wins the most praise. “…people – especially non-gardeners – see and remember the things in your garden more than most of the plants.…décor and hardscape (everything that’s not plants) get three out of four remarks.” And “People who comment on Buffalo-style gardens – whether they’re found in Buffalo itself or in creative people’s yards elsewhere – invariably mention the built objects or large structures. Often the gardeners aren’t even thinking about those things. Yes, they have a pool, or a bridge over the creek – but you came for a garden tour, didn’t you? The gardeners have been deadheading the perennials and potting up tropical plants to get ready. So why are you asking about the bridge?” Or about a specific garden: “…most of all, guests remember the red outdoor sofa, the wall of mirrors, the stunning oversized dining table, the bar, the movie screen on the side of the house, the firepit – and the overall feeling of hospitality.”
I was talking about this briefly with a friend, you know who you are, who is also a garden book author, and she said she likes “the plants to hold center stage.” Same!
As for design style: “Coordinating décor to the style of your home starts with the style question: Do you know what yours is? Colonial, Cape Cod, Craftsman, Victorian, Bungalow, Cabin, Saltbox, Federal, Italianate, Shingle, Tudor, Modern, Ranch, Spanish Colonial? There are dozens more, and subsets and mashups of each.” How about a shabby old 1979 double wide?
But lookie! I think those are the same red plastic chairs of which I have two, second hand from former client Patti’s Seaview garden.
On a page with good suggestions about finding “cheap and cheerful” garden objects, the same advice is given that I read in Liz Zorab’s book, Grounded, earlier this week: “The one recommendation I would make with trash treasures is only take things that you know you have a purpose for and can use within a couple of weeks. Otherwise you’re just collecting others’ trash and storing it at your own home.” But…a couple of weeks? I have some excellent ingredients for …years…that I know I will use…someday.
Finally, I may at last have found the author of one of my favourite gardening saying, which I have heard as “Gardening is the slowest of the performing arts.”
And I love this story because the same happened to me, in reverse, one day when I was gardening at Andersen’s RV Park and a German guest came to the fence to talk to me.
I am sorry to say we are not expecting any full days of reading weather (rain!) this week. I still have a daunting stack of library books.
Tangly Cottage Gardening 