Tag Archives: Garden

Garden of Weedin. Part one– the Good.

What a difference a month or so can make…

The cleaning-up part of the garden year has not historically been one of my strongest talents.  While I’ve been know to pull off some 11th hour jungle-takeover heroics during the season, I am not so much a fan of the fall clean up.  Stupid, as it just means more work, and more weeds, in the spring.

I have the awesome blessing of being much healthier this new year than in many past… and I am marveling at the renewed joy and total stress catharsis of slogging around in the garden.  Last week was so nice on cello lesson day, that I settled Lil and Ryan on the front porch and made like a groundhog in the garden beside them.  For one thing… I think cello accompaniment should always be available when there is gardening to do.  That was a nice idea, for sure.

Then I kicked weedy-butt.

I did.This was the sad blueberry hedge– which is now TWO bushes that aren’t doing all that well.  The strawberry plot has fed no one but SLUGS for a few years now, so I ripped that apart as well.

Don’t think it’s all freedom and ease, there are a fair few mulberry roots that are giving me fits and conniptions….  I reached a standstill on this one… I cannot get it loose, and am not sure how to KILL IT FOR SURE at this point, so if anyone can advise, please leave a comment!!  I do not want to see it’s nasty devils-snare tendrils ever again.  As you can see it is right near the retaining wall, so no tying it to the gnomemobile and heaving-ho.  The roots appear to go down under the wall and driveway.

So it’s one of the most exciting times of the year for me… garden is cleaned up and ready to go, and I just need to make a new plan.

Please send any ideas you want to share… I need a new full-sun ornamental vine idea to grow on the fence– I have grown hyacinth bean there in the past but am looking for a new inspiration.

I am also WIDE OPEN for garden orphans and contributions… If you have an overabundance as your seeds go in and your gardens grow give me a yell!!  We have lots of sunny and shady spaces in need of plant material, I’ll come and thin out your crowd and give them nice homes!

Tomorrow, part two– the BAD and the UGLY.

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Memories of warmer days.

Here are some images that I am trying to keep in my mind as I sit here mis-typing words because my hands are soooo coooold. Brrrr.

One of the Fairy rooms outside

Brawwwwk!

This beautiful day. I know it was warm. :)

This is where the gnomes meet up at night to talk crap and play pinochle. Isn’t that a great word? Does anyone really play pinochle?? Teach me please.

The Godseye tree. It’s the giant Dogwood. We eat dinner out here many nights.

Up in the neighbor tree. This is where it is best to talk to Erin and her tribe.

Urban Gnomes?? Or deconstructionist witches at the Home Despot??

Ok. I am off to bed. I have a BUNCH of really lovely handspun to update the Etsy Shop with tomorrow. More then!

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The Artful Environment

As threatened, here are momentary thoughts on GARDEN and life ART .

First– I am the kind of person who has crap really great and important stuff everywhere.  It drives Jim crazy.  It may be the reason why I am crazy.  Shall I post a poll?

I hang stuff on doorknobs, I pile stuff on the steps… heck, I pile stuff everywhere!!!  My windowsills and frames and picture frames and any other spot that I can claim as mine, are covered with little shrines of said stuff.  Little parades of the ephemera of my life.  Kids sculpey creations, rocks, marbles,nature, tiny stuff, candles, bits of this and that.  It’ sort of the same way outside.

Is it not written–the way you do anything is the way you do everything.  This pop philosphy both comforts and terrifies me. :) I find it both a measure of truth and a measure of where I need to examine/change the way I do things.  I am such a creature of habit– though I love the excitement of change. It’s such an easy slide down the slope to that wise-guy Einstein who (maybe) said that Insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.   It all makes a difference. Every. Thing. We. Do.  I am voting for change everywhere, my own little world included!

Anyhow– skipping analysis of the ALL of my life, the GARDEN is full of stuff.  And I like it like that.  Stuff in trees , stuff on sticks, stuff.  I like to think it not so like Sanford and son, but more in the realm of art and memory and visions that have inspired me like Derek Jarmon’s lovely garden.

Yeah– I am a lot more wabi-slobby.  But it still is part of the garden magic for me.  My gnomes, and kids art and shells that I dutifully put away in the Fall each year and bring out again in the Spring.  The things I would have out there if I had real magic and money were dirt.  ( see Gypsy Vardo on ebay)  Anyhow, I love my garden and the outside world of this house.  The barn and docks of Jim, all of the little nooks and crannies, the front yard as food garden/weed farm.

My friend Peg has been working on a wonderful sculpture for us  inspired by the Helligan Giant.   This the Heligan version–

Here he is blooming.

I’d like to visit that garden some day.

Our is more of a non-botanical garden scale.  Just right for us.   It makes me smile everytime I go out to the back-world.

The birth of our mud/moss-person is  a long evolution, which I love, because it means gets worked on now and then while we visit and have tea.  I sort of hope that it never is really ” done” but keeps evolving through time and our friendship. It’s lovely.  It grew hair recently.

Lovely variagated green hair with purple highlights.

I’ll continue to post the changes, and thank you Pegella.  We love it.

I have an ongoing collection of Garden-as-sculpture images.  Here are a few that I’d love to share with you, they fit right in with our lovely garden head.

This beauty won the 2006 Chelsea Flower Show in London.  I think it was called “Garden of Dreams”.  So nice. The sculptors were Sue and Peter Hill, who have done other, similarly gorgeous works.

Belinda Villani

2 hysterical mentions:

( this biggest chia pet evah!)

I could go on and on..

A piece that really touched my heart was this prayer hut at the 2007 Bioneers conference in CA.

Environmental artist, sculptor and Santa Cruz firefighter ( !) Wendy Domster made this amazing piece.  It was created from a field of leek blossoms from an ‘excess crop’ that would have otherwise been just plowed under.

Leekhut

“It was a “gratitude hut”, with a dark interior where you could go to sit and ponder the miracles of your life, and remember what you were most grateful for. Inside it was full of ‘milagros’ or little charms and notes hanging from the walls in representation of all those miracles.”  I love the idea of this…all of it.

Milagro

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knitty calculations– now with more, more, more mantises!

Back to knitting news.  For the family in fact.

I am working on those lovely sproingy-patterned socks for Knitty Spring Forward . It is a really fun pattern, looks great, is easy enough to remember, but has enough going on pattern-wise to be a fun knit :)

Marigold, per usual is a experiencing crafty-schizophrenia.  The weaving is to the side now and we’re back to knitting.  She is knitting her first circular-knitting project,  A hat.  She is planning to make a LOT of hats.  She wants to jazz’em up too– viking hats, egg hats, wig hats.  It ought to be good!  We have found this site so helpful for calculations.  Many helpful tools there, including the ever daunting ” how to knit a bust dart”.  I don’t think we’ll need that for her hats– but still good to know it’s there.

Still with the mantises.  Went to grab the doorknob the other morning and almost got a handful of THIS.

I mean, WOW.  Look at the size of that thing!

And there have been more– on the kitchen window… ” Look Mama here’s one and it still has it’s head.”

And THAT folks, is good for the garden.

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Mosaical Me, vacational me!

I am off on a whirlwind vacation tomorrow with my mom and sisters and all 8 kids! Awesome!! We are off to the beach and the lake as well ( as posted previously). I am so excited. We’ll be with nature and our crafts and each other. I am so looking forward to it– and the kids are levitating, they are so excited!!

I have a gnome headed off to the Netherlands today. I can’t wait to show you… gotta wait until it arrives though. Don’t want to spoil the surprise!! I was up late birthing him, and I left him in front of the coffee maker so that my jim would get to see him this morning. Poor guy, he stumbled in there this morning to get a cup and said it scared him silly. ( he said something much more colorful in fact) Never know what you’ll find around the gnomegarden!

I’ll be back in a week or so, with lots of pictures and adventures to share. I think by then I’ll have some classes to announce as well. Have a great week!! Please remember to send me your favorite blog links! It is so much fun to share them!

Here’s mosaical me– if you decide to play along– please show me yours! The titles aren’t always the literal answer. You’ll have to interpret them. Also, there’s a clue in there to my next big garden-art post. :)

xo Dawn

1. dawn and dandy, 2. Handmade chocolate cupcakes filled with blueberry cream and topped with dark chocolate ganache and some more of these absolutely delicious wild blueberries, 3. Lansdowne storefronts, 4. Flying purple, 5. johnny depp, 6. Chai tea latte mix, 7. Maho Bay in the Morning, 8. Chocolate Torture Tart & Coffee Ice Cream, 9. Sweet Wendy of the Leeks, 10. I Am My Father’s Daughter – Crop, 11. Two of each, 12. Stitch Markers from Ravelry Swap

Here are the rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page of results, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

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