Category: Inspiration

Moss Balls make intriguing indoor plantings

28/10/2019

Kokedama | Photo: Pistils Nursery

Like an ever-increasing number of people – especially young people – I enjoy growing indoor plants. I love the care they need and the green fullness they give in return. Each plant enlivens a room in its own way.

Right now, I have a whole garden of indoor plants in my living, ready for sharing at The Craft Revival, the semi-annual uber craft event coming Sunday, November 24, 2019 in Thunder Bay. I've made several dozen beautiful moss balls for sale like the ones pictures here.

Soil formed around plant roots
Photo: GardenGate

Following the traditional Japanese planting form called kokedama (koke means 'moss' and dama means 'ball'), the plant is removed from its pot. Clay-enriched soil is shaped into a ball, then wrapped in living moss. The moss is carefully bound in place with string. The result is a living plant sculpture.

Kokedama can be displayed individually or in a group; often several are hung together, creating a beautiful string garden.

Kokedama has its origins in Japan during the Edo period (1603-1868). This period of economic growth and political stability saw a flourishing of arts and culture. Nerai Bonsai, the ancient tradition of compact gardening, became more popular. In Bonsai, the plant grows so compact that, when removed from its shallow base, the roots hold their shape and the soil remains in a compact ball. Kokedama is an adaptation of this Bonsai method. Everyday tropicals can be used to create sculptural plant forms that carry the beautiful Bonsai tradition forward in new ways.

A wide selection of plants can be used for kokedama. I prefer small tropical varieties such as pothos, ferns and marantha. These plants enjoy the water-holding quality of the clay soil mixture used and benefit from regular misting between waterings. In fact, a moss ball is a plant partnership between the central tropical and the moss which is also living. Misting helps to keep the moss fresh and green.

Preparing a supply of kokedama has been a labour of love, but with my garden laying its head down for winter, it has been a joy to source new plants for the indoors and create these living sculptures.

I hope you will look for KOKEDAMA by THERE BLOOMS A GARDEN at The Craft Revival next month.

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On being in a garden tour

8/8/2019

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Shade border in the morning light | Photo: therebloomsagarden.com

This week I did something I thought I never would; I opened my garden for a garden tour, and it was a lovely, validating experience.

You can imagine the behind-the-scenes preparation. Even with several weeks notice, there was manic weeding, edging and mowing to do the day of the tour. And there were doubts. My garden was one of five selected by the Thunder Bay Horticultural Society for a weekday evening tour for their members. I thought, "This is an informed audience. Surely they will notice the insect damage on my begonias."

Then, as both gardening acquaintances and people I didn't know came though the gate, I felt my doubts fade. And I learned some nice things.

For five growing seasons, I've worked to create a personal space that is both beautiful and healthy. I am always 'up close' with my flowering perennials and my vegetables which means I naturally focus on the 'pieces' of the garden. As people strolled about, they commented freely on my garden 'as a whole'. The few plants that didn't get deadheaded and the pots that offered fewer-than-hoped-for blooms suddenly seemed unimportant.

I discovered that people were responding to the way my garden made them feel.  Several described my garden as 'calming'. I thought, "Really? That's how this green space feels to you? Wow, that is nice."

Now you cannot analyze that feeling; it would be like trying to bottle the light fragrance of the evening air. You would be considering the 'parts' of the garden – the many shades of green the hostas infuse into the shade border, the punch of red coleus and coral impatiens, the feather reed grasses catching the lowering evening sun. No, it's the 'whole' of it that is calming. I know this, and yet, it took the tour and those comments to know it again.

That evening nearly 50 people visited my garden. Over the past 10 years, I've worked on the Thunder Bay Art Gallery Garden Tour – an important annual fundraiser – as a Master Gardener volunteer, answering garden question and talking about featured plants. But sharing your own garden in a public way feels different.  I have a new appreciation for the generosity of gardeners who agree to be on annual tours.

You are welcome to come through the gate too. Here's a short morning tour.

Have you taken a garden tour in your community? Share in a comment.

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Put ornament in the winter garden

3/2/2019

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Every winter I'm fascinated by the way snowfall transforms the garden. Trees acquire new definition, as do now-leafless vines, and shrubs take on softened shapes. Snow has a way of sculpting the garden, giving it an entirely different visual presence.

Most articles about 'The Winter Garden' focus on the structure and interest that untrimmed perennials and grasses lend to the landscape. Some writers suggest pruning shrubs or small trees in a specific way to capture snow and add winter interest.

But I agree with Marlene Mullet, an Ohio reader who commented in Fine Gardening, "Arbors, birdhouses, rocks, and other garden decor along with untrimmed vines and shrubs also look lovely with snow cover. Every year I try to come up with more ways to keep my winter gardens from looking dull and drab. It's another way to enjoy the garden all year!"

Marlene's rustic winter arbour is an example of how simple structures and ornaments can create winter interest – if we plan ahead.

Photo: Marlene Mullet

Ceramic containers and fragile ornaments have to be put away in the fall, of course, but other pieces can stay in place. Post-mounted bird houses, lend charm to the winter garden as miniature rooftops gather snow.

Photo: Lynda Bobinski

Even small metal ornaments – like this cheery little frog prince – can offer a happy surprise when they peek through the snow.

I hung an old lantern in late fall and watched it transform with the arrival of a wet snowfall. Another suggestion: grapevine weathers well and when woven into a wreath, it lends texture to a fence or trellis. A wreath can last several seasons.

And here's one of my favourite images. A heavy birdbath stays in place year 'round in a friend's yard, proving that snow brings true poetry to the winter landscape.

'Holding up Winter'
Pihoto: Geoff Hudson

The structures we place in the garden are a wintertime diversion. When temperatures plummet and we must stay indoors, these 'snow catchers' give us something to admire from inside. And wouldn't you love to have one of these giant pine cones created by Beamsville, ON metal artist Floyd Elzinga? Out-sized and simply marvelous.

Photo: Floyd Elzinga

As writer Jodi DeLong observes in Saltscapes Magazine, "Winter is more than a season of hibernation in our gardens; it offers insights and visual delights... It’s a softer, more subtle sort of garden, especially when snow wafts gently down or sunlight adds watercolour shadows to the mix. We just relax, enjoy what’s already planted, and think about what we might want to do next spring."

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
― William Blake

Special thanks to L Bobinski and G Hudson for their photos. Unattributed photos in this post are by therebloomsagarden.com.
How do you put ornament into your winter garden? Share in a comment.

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I needed a reminder

24/12/2018

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Two things came my way today – a beautiful picture and a meaningful quote. These two things remind me – or gently admonish me – that it's high time something bloomed on my garden blog.

The Picture ...
This bellflower (I cannot name the campanula cultivar) was photographed quickly in the front yard of a gardening acquaintance. It was blooming happily in a perennial bed that earlier in the season I'd help to redesign.

Photo: therebloomsagarden.com

As I consider this photo, I am reminded of how often we look at a garden without really seeing. How often we centre on the 'accomplishment' of what we've grown rather than the simple beauty that is quietly unfolding before us. I was lucky – I realize all these months later – to have returned in time to catch a glimpse and a photo of these violet blooms.

As another year comes to a close, I'll hold on to this reminder. In the coming season, I'm going to work harder to see and appreciate what my garden and the gardens I visit have to share. And then, I'm going to share too. For you see, that brings me to the other reminder I received today.

The Quote ...

Sharing experience is a natural impulse for most gardeners. I like to think I'm fairly generous in sharing the things I've learned in my garden. Still, I hadn't thought about 'not sharing' in quite this way. I think Annie Dillard is right. When we fail to share what we've learned – and that reaches across all areas of life – it does become lost to us. I've found what is true in life is true in the garden and vice versa. The lessons flow from one to the other. So I ask you – could a garden writer receive a stronger prompt to get busy and write?

Until the next post ...

A further note:
Annie Dillard is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism. Her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. See the author's official site.

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Gardening memoir offers passion and advice

13/4/2018

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Like most novice gardeners, when I first took an interest in growing things, I didn't know what I didn't know. As I gathered bits of advice at the nursery and from friends, I also gathered stories. I discovered the delightful value of reading gardeners' memoirs.

Tottering in My Garden by Midge Ellis Keeble was the first book in this genre to come my way. Billed as "a romp through 40 years of gardening," this Canadian actress, broadcaster and teacher describes the six gardens she has established in the various places she has lived. She conquers many challenges, including clay, sand, shade and tired soil.

I learned two important lessons from this book. First, that every gardener has more than one garden within. And second, that gardening is an endeavor worth sharing through story.

During the time I was building my current – and fourth – garden, I picked up Elizabeth's Garden: Elizabeth Smart on the Art of Gardening at a book swap. "During the last years of her life, Canadian author Elizabeth Smart devoted herself to creating a magnificent garden around her cottage in Suffolk, England. She documented her gardening in a series of eleven journals and twenty notebooks," says Google Books' thumbnail sketch of the title: The resulting book, edited by Alice Van Wart, includes excerpts from Smart's writings from 1967 to 1984, and "describes the evolution of her garden, and herself as a gardener."

This last observation – the evolution of the gardener – is the reason I love gardening memoir. I am always curious about the motivations and passions of the people who create gardens. These stories remind us that gardens thrive on imagination as much as they do on compost.

Rose | Photo: moguerfile.com

hese stories also tell us as much about the gardeners as they do about the gardens. In recounting the autumn catastrophe of hunting hounds pounding through her lovingly-created pond and the sad job of re-establishing it, Elizabeth Smart observes, "You have to abandon pride along with sightly fingernails when you take up gardening."

Sadly, Elizabeth Smart's book may be difficult to track down I suggest making a request at your public library if you want to read it.

Just this week, a colleague shared Alexander Chee's story, The Rosary, published in The New Yorker (April 18, 2018). It's a rather improbable account of establishing a rose garden in the ruined yard of a Brooklyn apartment. It's a story of blind faith and rambling rugosas that strikes at the heart of garden memoir. It made me smile.

If you need a break from watching the snow melt or your tomato seedlings stretch toward the light, I highly recommend stories shared by other gardeners. They will cheer you. They will encourage you for the season ahead.

A little more detail...
Elizabeth Smart (1913-1986) was a Canadian poet and novelist. Her novel, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, detailed her romance with the English poet George Barker. Published in 1945. her book is widely considered to be a classic of the prose poetry genre.

Midge Ellis Keeble (1913-2011) was an actress, author and broadcasting pioneer who worked in the early days of CBC. Her obituary in the Globe & Mail.

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Moss Balls make intriguing indoor plantings

On being in a garden tour

Put ornament in the winter garden

I needed a reminder

Gardening memoir offers passion and advice

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