Summer Flowers - Enter Laughing

"The earth laughs in flowers..." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

If Emerson was right, then the earth in my part of the world, the northeast United States, is guffawing right now ... big belly laughs of coneflower, Shasta Daisy, Daylilies and more.

Chuckling up lantana...giggling petunias.....how could you not smile?

flowers make us happy...but why?

Well, a fascinating study in the journal of   Evolutionary Psychology – ISSN 1474-7049 – Volume 3. 2005. - 121 studied this very phenomenon.

Psychological reearchers from Rutgers studied the effects of flowers on people and wrote  "An Environmental Approach to Positive Emotion: Flowers"

Within their exhaustive study the scientists wrote this ( I selected these paragraphs out of the multi page report) :

"our results indicate that the simple presentation of flowers, even a single flower, will release a strong and immediate behavior reflecting positive affect...

Anecdotally, the responses are even more fervent than the behavioral observations have indicated. Some participants responded with such unusual (for experimental studies) emotional displays that we were unprepared to measure them and have only field notes to indicate their presence.

I planted these lilies, rudbeckia and coneflowers after my firm installed the swimming pool and walls - the flowers make it!

We received attractive “Thank you” cards and letters from several participants who received flowers for allowing them to be in the study, some with photographs of the flowers, one with multiple photographs to show the continuing beauty of the bouquet.

I like to combine blue angelonia with euphorbia 'diamond frost' and blue star juniper, pennisetum

In many years of studying emotions, we have never received hugs and kisses, thank you notes or photographs, not even for candy, doughnuts, decorated shirts or hats, gift certificates, or direct monetary payment; the flowers are different...

Yarrow 'Coronation Gold' - bright yellow makes us release happy chemical - serotonin -  in our brains!

...humans are biologically primed to associate flowers with happiness...

...Our hypothesis is that cultivated flowers fit into an emotional niche - their sensory properties elicit human positive emotions. The flowering plants are thereby rewarding to humans and in return, the cultivated flowers receive propagation that only humans can provide. "

 

I planted a mass of Knockout double roses next to a weeping white pine and grew Dutchman's pipe around the bannister

ah! we need the flowers for our emotional health ...and they need us to propagate them.  so smart - those little flowers...

Jim's Summer Garden in a Service Station

poppies at Jim's Station

The local Gulf service station in my town is just uphill from the Metronorth train station and is located at one of our official 'gateway' intersections. How fortunate we are that Jim owns this particular fueling station!

Gardener/Business Owner, Jim

Jim, being an inveterate gardener and a firm believer in sustainable practices, does not operate a typical run of the mill gas station:

• he has installed 90 solar panels on his canopy roof (over the pumps),

• he has a compost pile using some of the coffee grounds that he generates with all the coffee he sells every morning to the NYC commuters,

• he installed new ethanol pumps for those who seek an alternative fuel

• and he has an over-the-top flower garden!

Cockscomb can draw your eye to a sign!

The flower garden surrounds the entire station. It greets commuters in the morning as they rush past his corner on the way to the train and welcomes them home in the evening. Grasses, butterfly bush, milkweed, sunflowers, Joe Pye weed, cockscomb and more stand sentinel in front of the station, brightening up what might be a dreary, utilitarian space.

Sunflower Greetings

Jim grows all his flowers from seed.  He loves Select Seeds of Union, CT (their tagline: heirloom treasures for modern gardens)

He starts the seed in a modest, home made greenhouse and then, after he plants the seedlings,  lets the plants seed themselves...that is how a few plants have grown into large swaths...

Poppies, coreopsis, achillea, bachelor's buttons, marigolds and cosmos all vie for attention.

In addition to the meadow flowers, Jim has also planted more exotic flowers such as the alluring Hibiscus moscheutos ( I wrote a blog post about this particular flower) . 

Perennial Hibiscus and Globe Thistle

He also has several varieties of one of my favorite flowers - Amaranthus. 

And to top it off, since Jim sells ethanol in addition to gas, he has planted a display of CORN plants to illustrate where ethanol comes from.

Corn and Amaranth

Wouldn't it be great if other service station owners took it upon themselves to create beautiful and inspiring gardens for all of us to enjoy? You could argue that gas stations are almost like public spaces and should be more civic minded in the operation of their business....Exxon, Shell are you listening? 

Like Jim's favorite phrase, it is time for all of us to 'RETHINK REFUELING'....

Yellow Laceleaf Sambucus at Jim's

Art in the Garden - Ladder Art

Ladder by Allen Buckoff

Ladders are the perfect 'art form' for a garden ...they are a homage to garden husbandry and speak to us of trees, of wood, of utility and craftsmanship. And  they can be accessorized, as seen above and below!

Ladder by Allen Buckoff

Ladders can also be fashioned from tree logs as done by David Nash, aculptor, below . This is in a museum in Espoo, Finland. It almost looks anthropormorphic - like a giant 'walking stick' or something..

David Nash, Ladder, Espoo, Finland

The most marvelous thing about a ladder is that is can be altered so that one end is more narrow than the other thus creating a forced perpective and  artificially diminishing the form to look as if it is longer than it is, traveling farther away from view. 

This one below by Martin Puryear was inspired by homemade ladders that he saw in the French countryside while he was working at Alexander Calder‚ Äôs studio, in 2003.  Puryear commented to Michael Auping:

“It just occurred to me that this would be an interesting project to try to do, to make a very tall or long ladder. For a long time I had been interested in working with a kind of artificial perspective through sculpture, which if you think about it is not so easy to do. With a ladder, a very long ladder, I could make a form that would appear to recede into space faster visually than it in fact does physically, by manipulating the perspective and exaggerating it by narrowing the parallel side pieces toward the top of the form.”

Martin Puryear

Martin Puryear, Ft Worth Museum of Art

Of course, you can argue that a real ladder is much more preferable in a garden. The one shown below is a real apple picking ladder that, to me, is a piece of art as well.

Of course, there is nothing that says you can't paint a ladder some great color and have it placed strategically somewhere in your space...here, below,  is an art piece called 'Jacobs Ladder' by Eddy Gabriel:

Then there are carved ladders, such as this Dogon Ladder (Christine Cloutier photo). These are carved from a tree and are considered an important part of the Dogon tribe's culture.....(they live in Mali, Africa).

A great ladder for a garden - for the aesthetic more than anything - is a Kiva Ladder....used to climb into a kiva in the Southwest... You can get this one from Grand River Supply.  Have fun!

Greetings to all!

Made with My Cool Signs.Net

Creating a Serenity Garden - why? how? NOW

The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

~ George Bernard Shaw

(above photo - sculpture by Ruth Moilliett)

Some of us in the western world have recently rediscovered Nature's 'holy' qualities. We no longer see the natural world as something to be tamed or conquered but, rather, as something to be preserved and revered. And we now understand Chief Seattle's 1854 admonition:

(a dry stream garden by Jan Johnsen - created in 1980)

“Man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.”

 

garden by Jan Johnsen

This deep ecological awareness has compelled us to seek a more meaningful connection to the earth which, in turn, has led some of us inevitably to gardens and landscapes. This is the impetus behind this blog.  I have a strong desire to share my lifelong landscape design experiences in order to inspire others to ‘touch the earth’.

garden by Jan Johnsen

And I want to promote a particular, reverent way of looking at the green world which sees the piece of ground outside our door as an ‘everyday conduit’ to the energy of life that flows within plants, water, trees, sunlight, rocks, birds and assorted creatures.

Truthfully, I aim to promote a more reverent way of looking at the green world; one which sees the piece of ground outside our door as an ‘everyday conduit’ to the life energy that flows within plants, water, trees, sunlight, rocks, birds and assorted creatures. Indeed, it is in a garden, as George Bernard Shaw declared, where we can touch the divine.

Looking at the natural world in this way is nothing new. The idea of sanctified outdoor space was the genesis for the sacred groves of the Egyptians, Indians and Greeks. It birthed the medieval labyrinths and Native Americans’ 'medicine wheels'. And of course, ancient Chinese geomancy, ‘Feng Shui’, and Indian ‘Vaastu’, which see the earth and her directions as living, vibrant forces, derive their power from our acknowledgment of ‘sanctified outdoor space’.
We have, up until recently, largely forgotten these traditions but, now, as our enthusiasm for plants, spirituality and the unseen has increased, we see there is something more to Nature than what we have been taught.

cascade and garden by Jan Johnsen

So we look back to great thinkers such as Lao-Tzu, Pythagoras and Emerson and ancient peoples such as the Native Americans, Chinese and Hawaiians for their sage guidance. They, above all, can remind us of the power of the natural world upon the human spirit. 

In my blog I aim to explore some of these traditional practices and share them with you, the seeker / garden lover. I believe that now, at the dawn of the 21st century, we can learn a lot from these 'rediscoveries'.

My firm belief is that the ancient ways touch the 'numinous dimension' of a garden. And truly, this is where we will find the enchantment that we are all seeking....

Don't Forget to Hug that Tree, too....

hug a tree today!

I try - I really try - to keep this blog focused on the physical, earthly environment and show how it can uplift us ... but sometimes I just have to share with you other items that also make us feel wonderful. 

This video has nothing at all to do with gardens, outdoor space or plants but, man, does it make me smile.

I hope you don't mind my little detour - and I send you all a BIG HUG!

Native Landscapes and 'sanctioned space': Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary in South Wellfleet, Ma.

As we all know, gardens are a contrivance. Designed landscapes are artifice.

Gardens are a grand collaboration, a co-creative endeavor with a certain Ms. Nature. Our partnership is an unequal one, for sure, as we are simply intruding on her domain, seeking to improve what is inarguably a perfect system.

With that said, I look to her - that grand dame we call Mother Nature - for inspiration and guidance. She never fails to renew and replenish.

Toward that end, each year I camp at the Audubon Society's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary in South Wellfleet, Massachusetts for about a week amidst 1,100 acres of sandy pitch pine woodlands, meadows, maple and beech forest, salt marsh and fresh water ponds. This gem fronts onto Wellfleet Bay where naturalists volunteer to explain the wonders of the natural world to any who show up.

I get recharged here. Cape Cod, which juts out into the Atlantic Ocean more than any other place in the United States, is the world's largest glacially formed peninsula.

Dotted with hundreds of fresh water 'kettle ponds'--created by ice left behind when the glaciers retreated-- the combination of ocean, bays, salt marsh and ponds within a 5 minute drive to each other is a serenity garden lover's paradise.

My favorite is the tidal salt marsh. "A salt marsh sanctions space and a rooted integrity," wrote the naturalist John Hay. "The centuries pass, and its patience deepens." Ah, so.

Filled with eelegrass and spartina grass, the marsh edges bays and inlets and traps life giving sediment and muck. Spartina actually filters the saltwater and pumps oxygen down from its leaves to its waterlogged roots.

The trails in the wildlife refuge travel through open meadows, shady woods and sandy beach.

I marvel at the asclepias ( butterfly weed):

thrill at the beach plum:

and savor the view.

Try Island trail - a rare combination of oak and beach and marsh

This is where the Pilgrims first landed before they went to Plymouth. The Indians were a little surprised - nearby is 'First Encounter Beach'. This is also where Marconi put up his tall tower to send the first wireless message across the Atlantic ocean. It is called 'Marconi Beach'. (Now we have those infernal wireless towers all over the world.....)

If you have a chance please make sure to put the Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary on your 'bucket list'.