Painting in plants creates art. This art is the highlight of the Jardin Botanico in Madeira, Portugal. Landscape design is a combination of texture, color, structure, climate and patience. An artist working in oil must allow time for the canvas to completely dry. The garden painter working with a palate of plants must wait for the art to grow.
Category: Garden Articles
April Whimsy
Plant Whimsy
The sweetness of April arrives bringing spring’s green leaves, sprouts, blooms, and wildlife babies. The potential for delight could hardly be greater in any other month of the year. Garden visitors wander in with their expectations high. New gardeners, flush with knowledge, walk wide-eyed now identifying annuals, edibles and perennials. The serious horticulturalist seeks out specimens and hybrids, checking to see how last year’s new varieties survived the winter. Landscape designers explore the style and flow of the garden. Plant fans hurry in to see the collection of their favorites, be they bamboos, orchids, agaves or roses. There are so many opportunities to enjoy and explore a garden. Yet whatever category you find yourself, if you are visiting a garden in April, you want to be open to whimsy.
Shamrock Green
A Little Bit Irish
In March almost everyone claims to be a little bit Irish. It might be because of the music, the dancing or the festivities but really it is all about the green. In March dormancy gives way to spring green shoots of new growth and that is worthy of a party whatever your ancestry. Public green space is worth celebrating too, and Boston holds the distinction of establishing the first public park in the nation. What city is there more Irish than Boston? Boston Common was designated public green space in 1634. Yet there is also a public garden attached to the Common and it was the first created in the nation.
Promenade, 91st Street, Riverside Drive
Hearts & Flowers
Some of my favorite grade school memories are from Valentine’s Day. We decorated boxes with red paper hearts, pink ribbons and flowers. In the days leading up to the celebration we watched as classmates slipped envelopes inside and anticipated the sweetness the messages would reveal. The celebration of Valentine’s Day has spread around the world. The day has something for every sense; chocolates for taste, flowers for scent and beauty, romantic words and cuddles of affection, an infusion of delights engaging our emotions.
Garden of Useful Plants, Montreal Botanic Garden
A Year of Happy!
Inspired by a new year we follow a familiar path as we resolve to; spend more time with family & friends, learn something new, help others, eat better, exercise more, reduce stress, and save money. The list designed to inspire us to be our better selves often does just the opposite and creates more stress within the first month of the year. If only there was an easy way to achieve these resolutions! Well, “There is a garden for that!”
Rooftop Gardening
Up on the rooftop. . . .
Where will gardening grow as more than 1/2 the world’s population moves into urban environments? (citymayors.com) Urban living is associated with greater opportunities yet one cost of city life is giving up ready access to green space and gardens. Is the future a space age view like the Jetsons or will gardeners prevail and work green space into the picture?
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, NY
Grateful for Gardeners who keep the garden alive
November is a month for Thanksgiving and we celebrate it with a feast of food symbolizing the harvest celebration. Gardens, and those who tend them give us much to be thankful for throughout the year.
Getty Villa, Pacific Palisades, CA
Too hot to garden?
Furnace Creek Inn, Death Valley, CA
As the summer heat wears on I wonder if I might feel cooler thinking of places that are hotter and drier than where I am. So Death Valley National Park and Furnace Creek CA spring to mind. Just the names sound hot and years of record high heat support its reputation of the hottest, driest, and lowest place in the U.S. Though Death Valley was set aside as a protected area in 1933, it didn’t become a National Park until 1994. Always curious about this fierce sounding place I was completely surprised by the flowers of the park and the oasis garden at the Furnace Creek Inn. Travel really does break apart our preconceived notions of a place.
Plant People
San Diego Botanic Garden
Just before the killer cold snap last January I had managed to prune my torch bougainvillea into a heart shape topiary. It made me smile and I eagerly looked forward to it as part of the landscape for a Valentine celebration in February. Then nature changed my plans and the shape was lost in the freeze damage. A topiary is a fanciful thing, it isn’t a garden style that appeals to everyone. It is a living work of art that requires a vision, patience and an artist using the medium of plants.