A Very Special Garden Visit

Here is a sample of my photographs taken on a recent visit to Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan, featuring the Dale Chihuly exhibit, which ended on October 31. Also featured were many fall displays, with pumpkins and mums everywhere. The wonderful large horse sculpture is a favorite, a Da Vinci design with a twin in Milan. I purposely took a photo from this angle to avoid focusing on the generous endowments which are part of this anatomically correct male horse!

The American Horse

Scary with 3X Zoom

Entry to Childrens Garden

Closeup of Mum Ball

My Honey Locust Tree

AN EXPOSITION OF THE SEEDY UNDER-BELLY OF LIFE UNDER LARGE TREES

My huge old Honey Locust tree had a pod-a-thon this year. This is my pile just from this week--following a severe windstorm that swept through the Midwest.  This is not nearly all the pods--some are still clinging to the monstrous mother tree and I have another larger mound like it on the other side of the sidewalk. One annoyed owner of a honey locust tree has described the pods as "littering the yard like brown piles of poo."

I was informed by some garden club friends who spent most of their lives in Africa that the pods are used as a food source. I wonder if anybody in Michigan is hungry for some pod stew. I'm sure other honey locusts had "bumper" crops this year as well. We could pool our pods for the food pantry--or for an interesting new side dish for the homeless feast on Thanksgiving Day. Actually, the hard, rattling seeds from these mature pods would have to be roasted and ground up (see below) for a coffee substitute.

Raking all these pods makes me wonder how many more years I am going to put up with this. A fall like this after a summer that seemed relentlessly hot has made the whole notion of condo life increasingly attractive.

The roof is loaded with leaves and pods as well, and I don't even want to think about how clogged the gutters are. These pods don't mulch so well, either. I will probably bag them and make another trip to the free city yard waste site.

This year's excessive pod and leaf production may just put me over the edge--hopefully not over the edge of the roof when I have to clear it! If I didn't believe that all this exercise and outdoor air/sunshine was good for me, I would probably have decided years ago to throw down the rake.

Some Honey Locust Pod facts gleaned on-line at Buzzle.com--comments in parenthesis, mine.

• Its pulp can be fermented and used as energy alcohol and also for extraction of sugar. 
• The seeds can be dried, roasted and ground and used as a substitute for coffee.
• The seeds, raw or cooked can also be used in food as they taste like peas. (A kind of legume, I guess.)
• The unripe pods can be eaten after cooking.
• The pods of the honey locust tree are also eaten by wild forest animals like rabbits, deer, squirrels, and birds too. (Have been used as fodder for livestock as well.)

Purple Smoke Bush

My Photo of the Day

This Purple Smoke Bush (photo taken today in Client P's yard) was already stunning but I enhanced it a little, giving it accented edges! The two shrubs were very differently transformed for some reason. A very wonderful sight to behold today as much of the fall scene is fast fading.

Fall Color Just Around The Corner and Down the Street

 

The October Sky - One Fall Afternoon in West Michigan

There's just something about that October Sky! Today the clouds were playing peek-a-boo with the sun all day, providing interesting backdrops for the autumn colors.

My Jeep and I on Color Tour

Gingko Tree 

 

Tiger Eyes Sumac

MY PHOTO OF THE DAY

  

Rhus balimer 'Tiger Eyes' sumac

This is an unedited photo taken October 16, 2010 at "My Secret Garden."

The Flavors of Fall - Maple and Orange

Maple, Amelanchier, mums, hosta

Amelanchier and mums

Maple across from my house

Maple at the cemetery

Mum at Aunt V
 

Another maple at Aunt V 

More color at the graveyard

Forest Pansy Redbud turns orange

If you know anything about autumn trees or photography you know how hard it is to capture the "big picture" of the fall scene in a camera lens. But yet, I have to try, so this is my first attempt to document the flavor of fall here in Michigan. It's a daily changing panorama--some trees are already bare and some are green, but the maples are the real beauties today. We have had a record number of sunny days this fall (yes!) and it is a good year for orange/red color. The burning bush euonymus are already bright red but the red maples are only just beginning to brighten this week. More color coming!

Mums the Word

MY PHOTO OF THE DAY

Ornamental Grass

 Fall is the time for happy grass--and I don't mean anything illegal. The lawns are de-stressing with the cooler weather and taking the time for some root development. The big ornamentals are fully plumed out and blowing in the breeze. My grasses are also in their full glory, although some of them get a bit floppy in my not-so-full-sun yard. I have zebra, porcupine, dwarf fountain, Karl Foerster feather reed and a few dug up from here and there that I haven't identified. I don't care so much about learning all the names of the grasses--I can't seem to keep them straight.

Dwarf fountain grass and sedum (stonecrop) make a nice pairing:

Pennisetum alopecuroides 'Hameln' and Sedum 'Autumn Joy' or Herbstfreude

If I have one caveat for the grasses, it is this: don't plant them (except maybe a super dwarf version of fountain grass called "little bunny") where you don't have room for something getting large and fat. I know from experience that some of the grasses become extremely difficult to dig up or divide. What I really enjoy is burning them down to the ground in February when a little snow is on the ground or at least when the soil is still frozen. (Don't try this at home.) It is probably against the city rules, but I plead ignorance. A dry grass going up in flames is exciting even for a non-pyro like me. I will post a video next year! On a dry day it takes about 20 seconds to completely turn a brown grass into a poof of black powder--way easier than cutting it down, even with a chain saw.

This red annual grass was showing deeper fall color at the "idea garden" last week:

The red grass in its fall landscape context:

Another nice grass:

This grass, hiding way in the back of my aunt's pond berm, looks like it is already in flames:

One more, affording some privacy off my deck, this big and floppy zebra:

Whimsy in the Garden

Adding a touch of whimsy to the landscape seems to be a delight to many gardeners and an obsession with others. The flower bed above is unusual in that it is stand-alone, large and lovely. I have seen many re-purposed daybeds pictured in country garden magazines that are not nearly so appealing as this one. I found this photo with a google search, but I wish I knew more about it.

And yet, it is a good example of whimsy in garden decor. Whimsical can be capricious, crazy, freakish, fanciful, harebrained, abnormal and even deviant; unexpected, surprising, unpredictable or delightful are other possibilities that I like.

I was invited to see a yard filled with whimsy last week. It had many hundreds of objects and plants--more than I was able to absorb. I discreetly snapped a few photos without asking. Here is a small sample of an unusual collection of garden art:



 

The garden also included a small "cottage" complete with chandelier and skylights, safely housing many collected treasures and providing a cozy spot to read or sip wine. My thought was mostly about the work of keeping all the stuff dusted--what a labor of love that must be! The owners enjoy searching for new objects to display and sometimes have a sale of their own. At least the cottage is safe from the elements. Many of the vases and the table with the doll heads have to be taken in during the wind storms.





Sometimes whimsy just happens; sometimes it is planned with passionate precision. Does your garden include a bit of whimsy?