Category Archives: Garden Design

March Showers, April Flowers

Posted on by
37

April showers bring May flowers.

For most of North America, spring is very early this year and the year is unfolding in rhythmic consonance but the downbeat is ten minutes before concert time. In spite of April’s alternating waves of warm days and frosty nights, the garden continues to bloom anew each day, bringing cascades of color from both blossom and leaf. Every morning, a walk through the garden is an adventure – “who bloomed today?” Music is percolating in my studio, soon to be revealed – in the meantime, I share this photo record of a beautiful world opening petal by petal, leaf by leaf outside of my door and window.

Spring has returned.  The Earth is like a child that knows poems.  Rainer Maria Rilke

Ajuga in Bloom
Daffodil and Foliage
Daffodil and Spirea
Daffodil La Traviata
Dicentra Goldheart
Down the April Hillside
Fern Head Unfolding
Gateway and Bloodgood Maple
Herb Garden in April
Kerria picta
Redbud Blossoms
Snowbell Blossoms
Up the April Hillside
Violets and Golden Lamium
Virginia Bluebells
Warm April Foliage

Lining the Path

Posted on by
34

 All paths are the same, leading nowhere. Therefore, pick a path with heart! Carlos Castaneda

Dusk is falling, I am determined to renew the mulch of my garden paths but the length of day challenges me.  The design of this part of the garden depends on the paths – they define and shape everything. Without them I cannot expect to stroll the garden nor photograph it. So each spring, I renew the garden paths.

As I work quietly, I begin to consider how frequently “the path” serves as a metaphor for life, for making choices, for encountering difficulties, for taking the easy way out, for pursuing an adventure. According to American psychologist James Hillman “Sooner or later something seems to call us onto a particular path… this is what I must do, this is what I’ve got to have. This is who I am.”  Italian psychologist and criminologist Cesare Lombroso wrote “Good sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius, never. And that is why the crowd, not altogether without reason, is so ready to treat great men as lunatics.” Thoreau exhorts us to “Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence” but Spanish poet Antonio Machada states “Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking.”  Personally, my favorite path saying is by Groucho Marx – “A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In the garden, a path is literal, practical, yet highly symbolic. Visually, it leads the eye and the foot, like a giant arrow pointing the way.  There may be unexpected twists and turns, creating places for plant treasures, ornaments, a bench. This particular part of my garden was designed to be seen from the decks above it, not unlike the Elizabethan knot gardens that were meant to be viewed from a high castle window. The garden beds are both defined and connected by the paths.

Before the dark drops so deeply into the garden that I must retreat, I look at the paths with a sense of satisfaction. Task finished for the year, the paths are clear and ready for use, and I walk them home.

One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect, the whole world looks like home for a time.  Hermann Hesse

All photos ©2012 Lynn Emberg Purse, All rights reserved

The Lenten Rose

Posted on by
33

Helleborus. Latin for hellebore, a perennial flowering plant from Europe and Asia. Most of the hybrid hellebores found in gardens in North America and Europe are often called the Lenten Rose, since they bloom in February and March, during the Lenten season.  Many years ago, a friend gave me two Lenten Roses from her parents’ garden in the mountains of Virginia. I brought them with me from my former garden and have let them seed about, resulting in flowers ranging from cream to pink to dark rose.  This year, they began blooming two weeks earlier than usual, a welcome sight in a dreary winter.  Today, more blooms have opened, including a few rarer ones purchased for their dark mysterious colors.

Deer resistant, first to bloom in spring, happy in shade or sun, dry or wet, and dressed in handsome leathery foliage, this is a plant for all gardens.  Enjoy the gallery of photos!

Hellebore
Hellebore
Hellebore

For more beautiful hellebore photos, including double forms and unusual colors, visit:
Pine Knot Farms
Northwest Garden Nursery
Sunshine Farm and Gardens
The Lenten Rose

To learn more about the beautiful hellebore, including its history and its variations, visit: hellebores.org
The Lovely Lenten Rose 

Think spring!  More music next week.

Brass Fanfare in the Garden

Posted on by
3

I catch my breath every time I enter the garden through the front gate and turn towards the house.  The copper garden has grown huge, a bower of bright and dark coppery colors celebrating autumn early.  The Coleus have gone to flower and the ornamental sweet potato leaves are lacy with insect nibbling but the color!  The brass section of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra was magnificent this weekend in its performance of “Pictures at an Exhibition” – it seems those grand brass flourishes have translated directly into the September garden.  I turn to look down the stone steps and the color continues, like a brilliant fanfare of red and gold and every shade between.  I look up at the decks from the side and deep warm colors overflow from every pot and hayrack.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

After a large tree fell on the decks last year, I had an opportunity to refurbish the renovated spaces.  I was inspired and challenged by garden artist Keeyla Meadows’  remarkable book “Fearless Color Gardens: The Creative Gardener’s Guide to Jumping Off the Color Wheel.”  I have worked with color in the garden for years, but this book stretched my notions of what was possible.  I took the plunge into bolder color on the upper deck, inspired by a Mad Mats outdoor carpet and my love for dark foliage.  This was the opportunity to revel in the warm tones – apricot, peach, gold, orange, rust, burgundy. I painted a table and chairs, added a bench with pillows, and filled up pots and hayracks with ornamental sweet potatos, petunias, Agastache, Million Bells, zinnias, and cherry tomatoes.  It has become my morning haven, the perfect place to drink in a large draft of glorious color while I write and think.  Unexpectedly, it has also become a haven for bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds.  The deck is small and perched high among the treetops, a promontory for viewing the garden below.  In another month, the trees will shift from summer green to the gold and scarlet of autumn – I look forward to a spectacular flourish to end the gardening concerto for another year.

All photos and text of “Brass Fanfare in the Garden” ©2011 Lynn Emberg Purse, All Rights Reserved