Serenity in the Garden

Swami Radhananda, the director of Yasodhara Ashram in British Columbia, Canada, has sage advice for the overstressed denizens of the 21st century: “When you desire peace, visualize your favorite place and go there whenever you want. Place yourself in a wonderful beautiful garden – see your favorite trees, flowers, smell the most beautiful scents, feel the warm air, hear the birds sing.  It is a very simple practice…. Sitting quietly, constructively using the senses, is one way to relax and to rest to your central nervous system. The mind is absorbed, contained, and focused…” (  www.ascentmagazine.com/columns ) Swami Radhananda describes the secret of a serenity garden. Within such a place, you can be carried away by the quiet offerings of a glorious natural world. Your mind relaxes and loosens as you focus on colors, scents, the sunlight, birdsong or the breeze. That nervous energy within you slows down and you breath...

photo courtesy of  Purdue Plant & Pest Diagnostic Lab The Smoke Bush rules in June and July!  I planted a red-purple leaved variety of Smoke Bush ( Cotinus coggygria ) in my small front yard years ago and it has been a constant eye catcher from the beginning.  It makes the front of my house extra-ordinary in early summer. 'Royal Purple' Cotinus As a result, I use the oval purple foliage of Cotinus in many of my landscapes - it makes a great backdrop and is also a sturdy specimen shrub...and it is DEER RESISTANT. The Cotinus species is a rounded, bushy shrub that is happy and hardy wherever you plant it.  Known as Smoke Bush due to the 'smoke-like' appearance of its delicate flower clusters in summer,  it can even be used in a planter.    Both the varieties of smoke bush - green with flowers and the red leaved variety  - are in this planter The burgundy leaves of the 'Royal Purple' S...

garden by Jan Johnsen The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there. ~ George Bernard Shaw Being in a garden elevates us and inspires many of us... That is the why I write this blog.  I want to share my lifelong landscape work and experience with others so that you, too, will ‘touch the earth’. And I want to promote a 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. a place, 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, ‘Fen...

courtesy of  Proven Winners When the American Horticultural Society decided to create a large meadow at their headquarters, River Farm, in Virginia the first plant they seeded was  Little Bluestem.   ( I wrote about this earlier but have added to it. ) Photo Courtesy of Lazy S'S Farm  They applied 100 pounds of Bluestem seed. The Latin name is  Schizachyrium scoparium or  skiz-ah-KEER-ee-um sko-PAR-ee-um. Why was this the first plant they seeded? Because Little Bluestem is a NATIVE, wonderful, durable, upright,   clump forming grass that is eminently suitable for 'meadow making'. 'The Blues' courtesy of the  Battery Database Little Bluestem is native to almost all of the United States and parts of Canada. It is found in  45 of the 50 states, making it the most abundant of all native grasses. It is drought and flood-tolerant, can grow in light shade and thrives in relatively poor, sharply dra...

Here's a tip:  white flowers are a STAND OUT! Who would think that simple white flowers would be so remarkable? Amidst green foliage and gray skies white petalled flowers sparkle and shine to such a degree that you have to smile ...and I am not the first to discover white's compelling brilliance. Vita Sackville West, the English garden writer(who became famous for her White Garden in her estate, Sissinghurst),  said it best, "White flowers are anathema to all but the oldest and most sophisticated of gardeners." This is a very sly way of saying that if you like white flowers you are are so cultured and discriminating. ...so there you go! I must be very classy because I fancy white pansies,white gardenias, white euphorbia, white lilies and white roses. Euphorbia Diamond Frost ( deer resistant) courtesy: Proven Winners (BTW, the above quote was the impetus for the name  'White Flower Farm' ...which is an outstanding mail or...

NY Botanical Garden Groundbreakers photo by Ivo Vermeuelen “ A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”  -    Ralph Waldo Emerson  The long-maligned Mullein ( Verbascum bombyciferum ) is considered a weed by some but here its wooly, whitish leaves,  rising four feet high, show off its yellow flowers amidst a glorious flower display at NY  Botanical  Garden... It was NYBG's homage to the great Beatrix Farrand, landscape designer of the Eyrie and Dumbarton Oaks. This is from several years ago.

On June 8, 2019 the NY Botanical Garden will open their new exhibit dedicated to Roberto Burle Marx! I visited it this week in a preview and it is spectacular!  You have to see it - #plantlove The centerpiece of Burle Marx show at #NYBG I wrote this a few years ago and feel it is the perfect time to share this post again: Roberto Burle Marx Roberto Burle Marx  (1909-1994) was my idol when I studied landscape architecture at the University of Hawaii in the 1970s: he worked with tropical plants and was trained in painting. I loved that Burle Marx painted every morning before attending to his design practice and that he said he 'painted his gardens'. tablecloth design by Burle Marx  He also asserted that the creation of a garden was 'an attempt to regain a lost paradise'. I could not agree more! Flamengo park Burle Marx's grasp of pattern was one of his signature features.  His bold use of color and shape captured the Br...