Sunrise is a different thing with our woods since the winter storms. Just look at the sunrise silhouette.
Tag Archives: garden
mrs. cardinal
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the winter of it all and looking ahead
This morning we woke up to Mother Nature’s diamonds. Otherwise known as a lot of glittery ice.
Even the screens on one side of the house were clothed in tiny, sparkly ice crystals. Ice is now tumbling off of trees and shrubs, and soon I will go out to rescue a rose bush from the heavy hands of winter and tie it back up.
We have had big branches come down all around us, but fortunately have not lost power. My neighbor’s lost a giant tree limb, but thankfully for it missed their house.
Everything in my garden and woods are gripped in the shiny coats of ice and snow. My neighbor’s cornfield looks other-worldly pale and almost shimmery.
As I look out the window and listen to one of the dogs growl and trill at a garden Buddha brought inside for its own safety I find myself already thinking of spring! And I keep reminding myself that Mother Nature’s wintery cloak of snow and ice will indeed give me a better garden.
The indoor plants are of mixed opinion. My bay leaf tree keeps threatening to call it quits on me, but (knock on wood) thus far the rosemary seems to be holding its own. The clivias are happy in their pots and so is the grapefruit tree I grew from seed. And as luck would have it, my Christmas cactus had new buds!!!
Now as the sun reaches probably what is its peak for the day I listen to more bits of ice tumble off the trees and roll down the roof. Next door I hear the faint buzz of a chainsaw. Such are the sounds of winter.
Enjoy your Sunday and if you live in Chester County, enjoy what is shaping up to be the first White Christmas in ages!
snow bell
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december garden
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fall in the garden
Fall has arrived in my garden. I am now in the home stretch of planting for the year.
My garden has come a long way in the past year. It is now more than a garden with good bones.
Now my garden is only half feral.
This garden was overgrown for years before I began to make it my own. It has been a lot of brutally hard work at times to get it even this far. But it is a true labor of love, because I just love to garden that much.
I inherited the garden from a prior property owner who was quite elderly, hence the huge amount of work necessary. And this is a process that will take years, because every good garden is an evolution in and of itself. It doesn’t just happen overnight. It is about time, work, love, and patience.
The more layers I peel back in the garden, the more I find to do . And lots and lots of pachysandra.
I have now unearthed all garden paths that I know exist, and had no idea my front walkway was so wide. The pachysandra had just crept and overgrown everything for years.
My garden is predominantly being re-planted with things sourced locally. Chester County has amazing plant nurseries.
There is one nursery I do not patronize, however. Main Line Gardens on Paoli Pike. They are hideously overpriced, and they are short on customer service. I tried going in there a couple of different times when I first moved to Chester County and I just didn’t like the way I was treated, nor did I care for the price points on basic items. They don’t seem to get that only Waterloo could be Waterloo.
With the exception of some heavy work I could not do myself, which was performed by Woodlawn Nursery in Malvern, DelVacchio in East Goshen, and a couple of tree guys, I have planted my own garden.
A lot of people don’t take the time to plant their own garden any longer and I think that’s a shame because they are missing out. This trend is clearly seen in our everyday life if you have HGTV in your cable or FiOS lineup. There are no longer any true gardening shows, it’s all about instant fix landscapes and hardscaping. Done by other people. I call it the “you’ve been shrubbed mentality.”
Gardening is a very basic thing. Some people believe it is very primal. It is terrific stress relief, and it connects you to the earth. I also consider it an artistic and creative outlet, and there’s nothing better than seeing the fruits of your labor bloom. It is very satisfying.
Gardening is a trial and error process. It has taken me years and years to get to the point where I can accept that occasionally something I plant isn’t going to take where I planted it. I try not to have to transplant things once I have planted them, but sometimes you can’t help it. Sometimes stuff just dies inexplicably, and well, you can’t escape the basic responsibility of having to divide your perennials every couple of years.
So now I am about halfway through my fall planting, and I am thinking about the plants that are arriving over the next few weeks that will go into the garden this fall for next year. A lot of those are things like bulbs, which come from various sources, and also perennials from Applied Climatology.
Applied Climatology are the plant people from the West Chester Growers Market, and you can find them in Facebook. If you get on their mailing list, you find out about their amazing specials. And they have a variety of cultivars you just don’t see any place else.
I made my final list of plants that are coming, along with bulbs, tubers, and roots. I think I know where everything is going, but I think I might have to dig out more pachysandra.
How I plant, in case anyone is interested, is I try to plant with a four-season interest in mind. That way my garden seems to have a different outfit for every season of the year for lack of a better description. I also don’t plant many annuals.
Okay, time for me to go digging the dirt. There aren’t very many of those days left in the year! Happy gardening all!
simple gifts…from the garden
I love fall gifts from the garden. Like the flowers I cut this morning in advance of the rain which is coming. Days like this make me think of the old Shaker song “Simple Gifts”. You will find the lyrics below the photo
Simple Gifts Lyrics
Joseph Brackett (1797- 1882)
Shaker song
‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.When true simplicity is gain’d,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.‘Tis the gift to be loved and that love to return,
‘Tis the gift to be taught and a richer gift to learn,
And when we expect of others what we try to live each day,
Then we’ll all live together and we’ll all learn to say,‘Tis the gift to have friends and a true friend to be,
‘Tis the gift to think of others not to only think of “me”,
And when we hear what others really think and really feel,
Then we’ll all live together with a love that is real.The Earth is our mother and the fullness thereof,
Her streets, her slums, as well as stars above.
Salvation is here where we laugh, where we cry,
Where we seek and love, where we live and die.When true liberty is found,
By fear and by hate we will no more be bound.
In love and in light we will find our new birth
And in peace and freedom, redeem the Earth.‘Tis a gift to be simple, ’tis a gift to be fair,
‘Tis a gift to wake and breathe the morning air.
And each day we walk on the path that we choose,
‘Tis a gift we pray we never shall lose.
what a tangled web we weave….
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the ultimate tree carving
So. We had this tree. It was beautiful but was a house killer so it had to come down. I hate when trees have to come down. The tree guy says to us at the time (a few months ago) “Do you want to keep a tall stump I know a guy who carves trees.” We said yes. We called this guy up several times. Only this tree carver never called us back. Good thing in the end, because our tree was carved by the person I think meant to carve it.
Around the same time Carver “X” wasn’t calling us back, friends in Phoenixville had a giant tree carved. It was amazing. We asked them who they used. “Marty Long” they replied. So we called him up. He asked us to look at his website to see if what he did was to our liking.
I think it took five seconds of looking at his website to say “oh yes, please”. This was tree carving I had never seen the likes of. It was fully sculptural, often lyrical and even fey. I have a friend from high school who is a marvelous sculptor, so I appreciate the craft.
Marty said he would fit us in when he had time.
Summer rolled through and I began to realize that some of my favorite wood carvings I had seen out of trees were his creations. The giant frog in North Wayne. The rabbit totem pole on the Haas Estate facing County Line Road in Villanova. And many others. It ends up that all of the wood carvings I really like are his.
Marty was trained as a chef at Johnson and Wales. He went from crazy ice carving to tree/stump carving. He also carves benches and furniture and does extreme power carving. One of the many articles written about his work was written by my friend Bonnie Cook:
Tree sculpture creates a buzz A dead white oak is transformed into art with a children’s theme.
By Bonnie L. Cook INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Posted: September 02, 2008
High above the road in Villanova, what’s left of a giant oak is becoming chainsaw art.
Marty Long, an ice sculptor turned wood carver, slices away at the 12-foot-high trunk in front of an orthodontist’s home at 91 N. Spring Mill Rd.
We had a different vision for our tree then the people interviewed above. We both love owls and I also love green men and wood sprites and spirits. Marty came and walked around, checking out my quasi tamed but somewhat feral garden (as I have previously mentioned, my garden suffered from lack of care due to an elderly gardener before I got my paws on it.)
He called us a week ago and said it was time. I was so excited I think I was probably a bit ridiculous to live with.
Marty and his assistant John showed up and he asked me what we wanted, or should I be more specific, had what we wanted changed since we first met with him. I said nope and said the end result would be up to him as the artist. I figured the wood would tell him what it wanted to be as he got into it.
From the body of a tree formerly known as a GIANT RED OAK has arisen this amazing sculpture. It’s like a totem pole and it is awesome. I have the ultimate owl on one side 
guarding over us and my garden, and on the other side of the tree is a wood-spirit who must have a green man as a cousin. He gazes out at us with knowing all-seeing eyes and his hair and beard are partially made of leaves.
I find myself just staring at the tree. Marty’s work is simply amazing and very beautiful. His tree carvings are raw energy and then they flow into these amazing creations. They are indeed pieces of art if you let him go with the flow of his creativity.
If you want to connect with Marty, here is his website: www.martylong.com. Tell him you read about him on Chester County Ramblings. If you want the most amazing thing ever, this is your guy.
Chester County has some truly amazing crafts people and artists.
I think this thing is so cool that I need my own druid…..
Thanks Marty!
more playing in the garden
So this summer I discovered a gardening book I just loved. Truthfully I have not enjoyed a gardening book as much in easily twenty years. The book is called Suzy Bales’ Down to Earth Gardener.
Anyway, I had found this book completely by accident and bought it on a whim. I am so glad I did. It was like this author was speaking to me directly and got how I gardened. And the author happened to like a lot of the same plants as I did, including David Austin English roses. I have a friend whose David Austin English roses have move with her she loves the so much, but I digress.
So I have this rose I planted last fall on a whim when I found it on sale at a local nursery – Del Vacchio’s on 352. It was supposed to be a shrub so I planted it adjacent to a walk. Well, it has developed a far more rangy habit and I was faced with either a rigid pruning or moving it. I did not really want to move it. Something in Mrs. Bales’ book as far as her approach to roses made me think – she said she lets her roses grow how they want, so I thought “why not?” and ordered a topiary form for the garden. The form arrived a few days ago and I put it up. So simple a solution and it so works!
This is part of the fun of doing your own garden– you can try your ideas out and it’s much more cool (at least to me) than walking around after some random landscaper has put their commercial version of your vision to work. It is just more satisfying.
So today I was almost ready for a truss by the time I got it in place, but I finally found the garden bench I had been searching for. I wanted a small to medium sized vintage concrete or wrought iron bench for a corner that is a little wild but felt right for a contemplative spot.
I have been looking and looking and looking. These vintage benches are not only hard to come by but darn tasty in price most of the time. I have had dealers and pickers and flea market pals on the hunt. Saw a heavy white but slightly shabby chic cast iron bench at Brandywine View Antiques but it was a little wobbly and priced too high for me considering the wobbles. You see I wanted a bench that I could experiment with, but not too dear in price if it only lasted through a few Chester County winters. From a practical standpoint, there is only so much garden furniture I was to shift, store, and cover.
Well this afternoon on a whim I stopped at Resellers Consignment in Frazer. They get a lot of odds and ends of all types of garden furniture in all the time. A couple of weeks ago they had some really large concrete garden benches and I didn’t get them….because they were more than the price I had in my head that they should be and big enough that I had no clue how I would move it off their sales floor.
So outside I saw a bunch of great looking vintage wrought iron furniture and so on outside e front door and wondered if I would just end up with a mesh backed garden bench that I would somehow have to find room to store over the winter, but the little bench I saw was part of a pair and well I definitely did not want to store a pair. One of the owners was on site and offered to split up the pair, but then he said “well I do have one old concrete bench that is a little beat up that hasn’t made it onto the sales floor.”
Music to my ears!!!!!!
He showed it to me and it was love at shabby chic bench. I never wanted anything new, I wanted something I could plop in my garden today, yet had the look of belonging there for years and years. The price was right too: $40 because it did have a little mend in the seat.
So I hauled it home and maneuvered it into place. Somehow I managed on my own although I shouldn’t have. I have my bench! I have plans to plant daffodil bulbs around the cement bench “legs” and I think in a year it will be like the bench has always been there.
I get so much satisfaction from my garden. It is a simple pleasure, yet so rewarding. Try a little gardening. It is so good for the soul !