My garden is poetry...
For Throwback Thursday, I am publishing this post from June 2016.
"A garden should make you feel you've entered privileged space -- a place not just set apart but reverberant -- and it seems to me that, to achieve this, the gardener must put some kind of twist on the existing landscape, turn its prose into something nearer poetry." ~ Michael Pollan, Second Nature: A Gardener's Education.
Gardens are very personal spaces. Some gardens attract butterflies, and bees, and birds. Other gardens soothe frayed nerves with gurgling fountains.
But it's the little details that transform our gardens into poetry rather than mere prose.
Gardens encourage experimentation
I spent years buying plants, moving trees, perennials, grasses, from one bed to another.
I learned many lessons along the way.
Some plants spread in places I didn't want them to be, and took over the beds. Others were just too finicky for my limited abilities. Such plants never flowered for me, but they burst into glorious blooms for my friends. Yes, I felt very inadequate as a gardener!
I tried delphiniums and roses (wild and tea roses) and hollyhocks among so many others. None of them seemed very happy with my experimentation.
Finally, I threw my hands up in despair and called in professional help. I requested that my flower beds be not too labour intensive in the years to come.
Cindy, at Beyond the House, suggested a variety of grasses and small trees, lots of texture and interest from the different foliage, and not many actual flowers.
To everything there is a season...
I have plants that bloom spring, summer, and fall while some seed pods and dried flowers remain in the flower beds through the winter as consolation for the desolate scene outdoors.
In the spring, I fill in a few gaps here and there with annuals to add that pop of colour each year.
Treasured garden ornaments
My most treasured piece in my garden is definitely the mosaic butterfly my grandchildren made for me several years ago for my birthday. I can just imagine their little hands finding all the glittering pieces of smooth, rounded glass and ceramics and affixing them in the cement. Every year, it is the first ornament I pull out of the garage where it is stored over the winter months.
It adds a bit of colour under the bird bath that I bought from a local concrete lawn ornament manufacturer.
I love my garden decorations bought in Merrickville, Ontario.
Kevin Robert Gray glass ornaments
I was visiting this quaint little Ontario town in 2011 with my American friend, Linda, and walked into the shop where Kevin Robert Gray was blowing glass. While Linda chatted up the owner, I selected the first of two globes.
Kevin Robert Gray was well-known internationally as he had exhibitions outside of Canada. Moreover, his art is owned by galleries, as well as individuals, corporations, and government.
And no wonder. The colours of the glass and the uniqueness of the pieces cannot be matched by the cheap reproductions imported from China.
Kevin Gray, the founder of Kevin Robert Gray Glassblowing, passed away from cancer in 2012.
Since then, his son Michael, has continued to make the lovely pieces such as witch balls, friendship balls, perfume bottles, and so on. The shop is now Gray Art Glass. It is well worth a visit and there are daily demonstrations of glass blowing as well as a shop where all the glass works of art are offered for sale.
I support local artisans with my pocketbook.
As an artist, I know that a long time was invested in learning the trade, and hours devoted to the design of individual pieces, and the actual creation of each one-of-a-kind work of art.
My garden has rhythm and rhyme
From the comfort of my backyard deck I watch sparrow, robins, cardinals splashing in the birdbath in the morning.
I admire the glistening morning dew on my Lady's Mantle while sipping my morning coffee.
The tall fronds of grass sway gracefully in the cool evening breezes.
I take pleasure in seeing the transformations as the weeks of summer flow into fall. My garden now has rhythm and rhyme.
It is poetry to me.
