Artificial & Natural: Guatemalan Style

On the road...



At the window...



In the nursery...

White Blooms

Yucca.

At our wonderful friend's most amazing garden in the Chicago suburbs.

Bottlebrush Buckeye.

Intrinsic Moves Sustainably

The wonderful wholesale nursery, Intrinsic Perennial Gardens, one of several favorites we may use to order plants for clients' gardens, told me we were a first the other day....well technically, they are more in the foreground. The owner, Brent Horvath, told me that we were the first to receive some of their new sustainable pots made from rice hulls. The pots contained ferns and Brent said next year they hope to sell all their ferns in these containers. You go Brent!

Can't find a picture of Brent, but here is a client's mature garden with many of their perennials.

Practicing What I Preach

So, this year I am finally happy...with my back porch plants anyway. All foliage: no flowers. Expressly conceived to lighten up the north-facing, solid (we protested, but that's condo life) back porch we view 365 days a year from inside our dining room.

Things to note: non-plant materials are 4-season interest (pottery & hanging chakra flags provide contrast & movement); pathos hanging near neighbor's trellis and cat is a substitute for ivy which is poisonous to pets; repeated variegated leaves amplify the little bit of reflected light.

Of course, no time for me to plant anything at home which means a bit more watering (don't tell), but I must maintain my position in the condo community as the last owner to plant the porch. The shoemaker's children...

Below the flags out back up to the second floor, you can see the thriving Ostrya virginiana, American Hophornbeam (native, dry shade, cool fruits & elegant leaves) in about it's 6th year. After some pruning & compost tea applied by the Care of Trees, it really glows!

A Little Bit of Bloom Goes a Long Way

But the leaf predominates...

Emerging Oaks, Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts

I believe they're red, but they might be black. Who could resist?

Martha's Vineyard Plant Conservation, Chilmark

Our chock-full spring planting schedule opened up to provide me one day of marvelous solo exploration. My first walk was shadowed by diverse shades of gray, an impending rain storm, and quite a controversy (just Goggle the name and read the comments in The Vineyard Gazette) as I skipped down a lane connecting the Priscilla Hancock Meadow (Land Bank) to the ocean beach. The native Serviceberries' white bloom was thrown into relief by a ground layer not yet greened up mid-May. Even though we had a cold, late spring in Chicago, the Vineyard (despite it being an island) hadn't yet caught up: the red oaks were just beginning to leaf out (see next post) in their fetching cartoonish postures.

On the Northwest part of the island, at Daggett's Pond, I had the entire Cedar Tree Neck Sanctuary (Sheriff's Meadow Foundation) to myself...well, just me and the deer ticks. One must be hypervigilant about Lyme disease. I'm always drawn to beech and so this whole grove had me enchanted.



Of course, given our logo is a fern (albeit a very abstract one), I was compelled to obsessively photograph the enchanting, anthropomorphic fronds as they emerged. On the return trip home through Boston, I just HAD to consume some with my trout dinner. This balanced my daily Vineyard meal of Lobster Bisque...now that I've been working with clients there for the past half dozen years, I know where to get the best.