Hacking out the overgrowth

It has been a year with abundant rainfall and heat here in the High Country.  Many of the gardens I have been caring for and creating in the last 3-5 years are feeling overgrown & chaotic.  I am spending my days cutting back Iris, daylillies, and huge tarp loads of perennial & woody growth.  I am making a list of everything that needs to be transplanted come a break in the weather. Tree's are being trimmed and inspected for overall health. Invasive weeds are being hauled out by the multi tarp load as well. Despite the excruciating demand of energy to accomplish garden health in so many gardens..., I keep going. Be it repelling ever increasing deer destruction, fungus, aggressive weeds, poison ivy, kudzu, and overcrowding, I conclude that it all needs to be rearranged!

Perennials are funny that way....every 3-5 years, it all needs to be dug up and rearranged.  Otherwise there is no definition between plantings.

I love this opportunity to redesign and rebuild and regain some symmetry and balance. Overgrown gardens are suffocating and repel entrance by the sane in any attempt to venture into areas that threaten to leave your ankles vulnerable by those  mysterious & silent legless, venomous creatures that are hiding with in. There is beauty in the void.  

When everything grows together as one giant blob of over planting by those innocent beings that think it is cute in the pot at the nursery...it results in a nightmare for those of us that design for the genetic mature size of the plant. A great deal of this over planting I inherited. Air circulation is important, otherwise, everything rots....

The more aggressive plants take over valuable space.

In this heat, every gardener and outdoor servant of nature seems to have hit the wall of pretty much total exhaustion, myself included.  So, forgive us for stumbling around in a heat and forgetful stupor....we are really making plans, and envisioning a better way.....come a break in the weather and a new season.

In the meantime, I am eating all the garden produce I can devour, drinking gallons of water and doing the best I can to enjoy the beauty of beautifully groomed perennials, bountiful gardens and healthy trimmed trees.

Have I mentioned lately...I love my Job!

This is a 16 acre estate in Wilkesboro I nurture. The spring madness of getting everything in order is in a bit of a reprieve. The summer solstice has come and gone and now I can take a deep breath and enjoy the effort it has taken to manifest such beauty.

Not that there wasn't an overwhelming amount of work to do. Instead of taking a lunch break, I photographed the views I was enjoying, amazed, on this drippy rainy day, at the lush gardens I have been nurturing through deer and drought these last few years.....It is beautiful. Note the twisted ancient trunk of the Oak in the foreground.


Finn loves working here, it has 5 ponds he can dunk and drink from.

One even has rubber duckies floating in it for his enjoyment. It is a whimsical garden. The kind of history and antiquity I am so attracted to in this world. The house was built after WWI, and was built to survive any disaster whatsoever...The original gardens were designed by a landscape architect from Charlotte.

On days like this, Finn & I have the place to ourselves.  The owners come in for lunch, briefly. We wave Hi, and they are gone.  One of the owners is an antiques dealer and found this buddha statue in a carriage house in England.  He created much of these gardens during a few year long sabbatical.  It is a huge and well done plan.

Though, I think the deer are pruning the Japanese Maple.....

I feel at home here in the English boxwood hedges, under the ancient oaks,. with the sweeping lawn , giant magnolia, and a lush  understory of hosta's, liriope, lilacs, peonies and roses. Old gardens smell so good in the rain....The gardens are filled with lions, griffins, voluptuous virgins, and even a peeing boy.....

There is plenty of room for Finn to chase sticks and balls while I work.

I am in love with this hosta  border...I took half dead, dear nibbled hosta's from another bed and arranged them around this Oak and English boxwood....it is so lush, the photo really doesn't do it justice.  It is a challenge keeping the huge resident herd of deer from devouring the hosta's as if  they were burrito's, but so far, in spite of the rain, I am succeeding.

What is it about colonial brick architecture and boxwood hedges that makes me feel as though I am in heaven?

I took a lot more photo's of this garden, but I don't want to bore you.....Enjoy!

Garden Whimsy in Kodachrome

I have been digitizing Kodachrome slides. Hundreds of garden photo's from my past. 


A fun winter thing to do.


This is a photo I had completely forgotten taking.


This is a garden I maintained for many many years in Hillsboro, VA for sculpture artist Laney Oxman. 


Her husband Michael is an architect. 


For their daughters wedding they designed and built this pergola, in their meadow along Goose Creek. 


Each figure holding up the roof represents a member of the family with their pet pugs at the base.


On this particular day she had placed a statue of a ballerina in the pergola.

Pergola on Goose Creek

Laney's garden was the perfect garden for me. It had a walled in formal boxwood garden with ancient statuary and formal bed lines. 

Laney always found ways to add her whimsical art into the garden that always made you do a double take.  It was as though while we worked we were being observed by whimsical alien beings....


I had known the Oxmans while growing up in Reston, VA. Their daughter was a dance student of my mother. I had taken her pottery classes as a child. I loved her pottery, fascinating whimsical characters even then.  


I grew up and moved to Loudoun and many years later I was helping the folks next door to Laney's with their landscape plan.  While there, I was standing on Laney's wall and admiring her garden bones, but it a was really, an overgrown mess full of dying roses. All of a sudden Laney (Probably wondering why I was staring at her garden) Came out to talk to me. 


We quickly realized we knew each other and I described what I was doing there. She asked if I could help her in her garden and I quickly agreed.  It was a bit of amazing syncronicity, but things work that way quite often in my world. The garden really needed me.


From then on even after I moved to North Carolina, Laney, Michael and I would manage the garden.  Along with artistic insight, it was Michael's job to grumble about the cost.
Laney and Michael had no time to do a thing in their own gardens because they were incredibly busy doing their talents in the world.


They loved their garden, but were easily overwhelmed by it. Every year or so she would call with an emergency request asking if we could get the garden ready for a photo shoot for Middle Atlantic Magazine or other publications that were featuring her work. I love nothing more that staging a garden for a photo shoot. I am sure that is how the ballerina got placed in the gazebo. 


I can't seem to find the photos of her swimming pool, with the patina pug dog lifting it's leg in the tall grasses by the diving board. But this was the privacy fence she created. 

Art and gardens show each other off in such delightful ways!

Happy Thanksgiving

This year, I think, more than ever before, 

I realize just how very fortunate I am...

A Very Happy Thanksgiving  everyone!

Visiting Ayrshire

I had a special treat last weekend. My daughter brought me out to see Ayrshire Farms in Upperville, VA.

She is the landscape gardener for the farm, and I was delighted to get to see her daily world and handy work.

First she took me to see the produce fields, greenhouse, hoop houses and her herb beds. Most of the vegetable production is done by another woman, who's growing skills were impressive.

Airynee's herb boxes were in beautiful shape.

I loved seeing the espaliered cucumbers and tomato's growing in the hoop houses.

Ayrshire is a beautiful historic property, the barns, outbuildings and service areas are lovely. Espalier is everywhere you look....

I have toured this Farm in the past during the Loudoun County Farm tour. It was newly planted then. Is was amazing to see it a decade later and how it had developed.  Airynee has much to do. The gardens are not intended to be manicured. Mowing is only done occasionally.  I like the effect. It is relaxed and natural. But, I can see it easily gets out of hand. The gardeners before my daughters arrival have planted a lot of invasive species. She taking this year to access the situation and come up with a plan for how to deal.

Airynee spent the winter getting many the espaliered tree's back under control. I was amazed at the size of the wood she had to cut to restore them. They are beautiful now. She has also worked on the orchards. I am so proud of her. Pruning is such an art. She gets it!  You can't be wimpy when it comes to espaliered fruit tree's. The growth in the above photo's had extended way out from the wall when she arrived. Now they are flat against the wall and bearing fruit in sweet clusters, as they should be.

I love the antique watering trough on this outbuilding.

And this view of the lake.

We ended the tour with a feast at the Hunters Head Tavern also a part of Ayrshire Farm.

Airynee tends the gardens and planters there as well.  All of the food served at the tavern comes from the farm.  I was delighted to meet the owner of Ayrshire and Airynee's employer.It was clear they are glad to have her on their staff. 

There is nothing I like more than spending a day with my daughter, touring beautiful estates and eating wonderful food. What a perfect day!

Reality...It's not always what you think it is.....

Matt's little daughter Sita is still young enough to think that if her mother is not in sight, it is because she is sleeping. She uses sign language to express that factoid to her Dad.  


I think my clients think of me the same way.  If I am not working for them at the moment I must be doing nothing, therefore I can stop what ever I am doing and take care of their needs.  This means that I can be called and emailed on weekends...( I usually work on weekends too....) and be asked to do just a few things that are feeling urgent to them.  I suppose I have allowed them to think this, because I always respond, and get the job done. This energy peaks for Memorial Day weekend.  It's really pretty funny.  I am in recovery mode....it all got done, it's beautiful, and for one weekend people can relax in their beautiful gardens, enjoy their families and leave me alone to gather my strength for two days. Not three....a client called yesterday to make sure I was showing up on Monday for her.

On Friday, I had to get one of my favorite gardens ready for a family to move in after the holiday.  Normally, I do the mulching and such before all the foliage emerges. This year, the client didn't want me to do that, so I took on other projects to fill the void.  When she gets into town and realized how behind things are she goes into a panic. She is surprised that my schedule is so full. Like, I can hold her spot, and not need groceries.


A large area where an old aphid infested hemlocks once stood had sprouted a carpet of jewel weed.  She asked me to spray it with round up.  Under pressure I said OK, but that I hadn't used that product but maybe 3 times in the last 30 years, and this is why I won't use this product or others like it. She called me a 'bleeding heart liberal'.  Now, I have to say, I love this woman, and in context, we have had a few discussions on politics, and I knew she was saying it with affection and humor. But, I do get tired of being called a tree hugger and such, for just using my own common sense.  The choice to not use harmful toxic chemicals in a garden is not an ideology.  It is sane and practical.


So, two weeks pass, due to huge rainstorms the Friday before, that kept me from her job, and the jewel weed had grown to be a foot high. I stared at that roughly 600 sq ft patch of the remedy for poison ivy, and calculated the cost of the round up, the time it would take me to drive to the hardware store, buy the stuff, and a new plastic sprayer, that can never be used for anything else,  and considered that I would have to store or dispose of that product after only needing a few tablespoons of the herbicide, at my home, or hers, etc....  


I also thought about my own health, and my dogs's as he lay in that cool green patch in the shade.  His father died of lymphoma when he was the same age Finn is now.  


At the age of 5, I watched my grandmother spray her roses with Ortho Rose Spray, and then she would eat the petals, happily telling me they were good for your skin. I didn't eat the petals...I still vividly remember the Ortho label on her sprayer and the chemical smell. She died of cancer when I was 12.  

                                 Eating  rose Petals  Painting by John Singer Sargent, 1885/1886

I also thought of the time it would take to watch the Jewel weed turn brown and die, how it would look all brown and ugly as she drove up her driveway, and that I would still have to remove the brown dead growth anyway. We would then have to wait two weeks before anything could be planted in that spot. 


Bottom line, these people will not pay for my chemo if needed and they do not pay me enough money to poison myself or others. In truth, no one could pay me enough money to spray poison on the earth.  That's why I never got my pesticide license., I weeded it.  It took less than an hour and I pruned the hydrangea's along the drive at the same time. Job done.  Cost, $35.00, less than the cost of the round up, sprayer and mess clean up.  I still had plenty of time to get the rest of her garden into shape. 


It is a typical misconception people have who don't weed for a living, that it is easier, faster and cheaper to spray.


I can almost bet, she will never notice, because her garden is so beautiful.  

Oil Spills and the Angel of Grief

Sometime's all we can do is pray....






Prayer by Dr. John (5.6.2010)
Recite at Sundown

Great Spirit, Mother God, Father God
Surround your people with white light
To protect them from harm.
Send your spirit guides to keep the earth strong;
Angels to protect the land from the oil;
The waters from pollution;
The animals from the storm.

Surround us with your holy light,
Smile upon us to keep us strong,
Preserve the land.
Spare your children and enlighten the masses.
Give us a solution.

Four winds blow; swirl to the sea.
While the white light shines and protects the sacred center.
Remove the earth from the path of harm.
Forgive the transgressors.
Let the light remove the dark.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& 


I found this prayer here  A Creative Response to the Gulf Oil Spill


Listen to Dr. Johns 'Clean Water' here


Angel of Grief is an 1894 sculpture by William Wetmore Story which serves as the grave stone of the artist and his wife at the Protestant Cemetery, Rome.