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A Restoration

Some garden ornament is so irresistable that you don’t mind doing some restoration. This very old French cast iron and porcelain vase is dated on the side-Paris, 1827. That it was 183 years old, of great size, and unusual in its construction and surface-this made it a very intrigueing and compelling object.  I arranged to purchase and ship it to Michigan from Florida-having only seen pictures. 


Though I expected to see considerable evidence of its age, pictures do not tell everything.  I was enchanted with its worn porcelain surface; the original pattern is so beautifully faded.  I had visions of it placed and planted in a landscape such that the benefit would be to everyone’s mutual satisfaction.  The sheer scale of it was exciting.  One of Rob’s pictures from Italy is of a massive Italian olive jar that served as a prop to an old climbing rose planted next to it. This vase brought the possibility of that level of romance to mind again. 


However, the vase had issues. The thick cast iron base plate had deteriorated considerably over its very long life.  Buck doubted that the trip from Florida had anything to do with the fact that the base was in pieces.  The bolts which fastened the base to the top had completely rusted through. It was just very old, and in need of some restoration. It took four people to get this piece over to the Branch studio.  Buck had a 1/4 inch thick piece of steel cut to make a new base; the restoration project would have to get in his queue-at the end of the line.  

He had the base drilled with holes, hoping that he could weld what was left of the bolts to the new base.  He  would work on it as he had time; the new base and feet got completed in fairly short order.  What was to come would take a lot more time, and be quite involved. It would have to wait until there was time.  Early this summer a landscape project came along that was calling for this vase. My client fell for it just as fast as I had; the restoration process picked up speed. 

The first order of business-getting the vase in a position and at a height where he could work on it. A bridge crane in his studio which can lift and move up to five tons at a time is a handy gizmo at a time like this.  He was able to thread straps through the bottomless pot, and set it on a work surface.    

The vase is comprised of six separate cast iron panels.  Each panel had two flanges which allowed each piece to be bolted to the next.  Construction of course was dependent on the technology of the time.  The inevitable spaces between adjacent flanges were stuffed with some kind of caulk which had dried, shrunk and otherwise deteriorated to an alarming degree.  Once the vase no longer had a bottom, realigning all the panels to recreate the original round shape was a challenge.    

With the pot stabilized on the table, the bridge crane would help him maneuver the base into place.  The process of fitting the new base to this piece took what seemed like days. 


Buck finally called this morning to say vase and base were one again. He was able later to weld the old rusted stubs of the fastening bolts to the new base.  He plans to finish the steel in dark grey automobile primer.  I know it will be beautiful.  The landscape installation is finished, and ready for the delivery and planting of this vase.  I cannot wait.

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 Tags: , ,
Posted in Art, Garden Ornament, Garden Pots, The Branch Studio | 2 Comments »

Late Summer

The view out onto my terrace right now is lush and loud.  really loud. I like to plant this group of containers with a different color scheme every year.  This year’s  pink and red spectrum runs the gamut from light to dark, from moody to electric. But the overall effect is definitely on the rowdy side.  Sometimes you just have to get certain things out of your system by giving them a try.  Having never planted anything red at home before, I scratched the itch.  The Mital Italian terra cotta rectangles are on a north wall , so they demand a planting that is shade tolerant.  The red caladiums provide a lot of a rich red/green mix in the leaves- which I like. The tropical ferns and the vinca maculatum are essential to the look.  The red solenia begonias are brilliantly red.  Since red and green are opposite one another on the color wheel, the combination makes for a lot of visual action.  Had I the chance to do it over again, I would plant lime irisine in the back; that very tall lime green with carmine veins would make the caladium red read more dramatically.  The big empty wall behind those pots-wouldn’t you think I could sort that out?

There is nothing particularly fancy in this pot-red mandevillea, cherry sun zinnias, cherry million bells and giant pink petunias.  What is of interest is the vigor with which this planting has grown.  These plants like being neighbors, and they like this pot size and location.  Everything observed in the garden will come in handy the next time around.  Where’s my journal?

My pink begonias have suffered some from sun burn.  This has never been the case with the apricot or orange solenias.  It made me study the sun on this wall more carefully.  It turns out there is a lot more light here than what I thought; what I assumed was an eastern exposure is actually south easterly.  How I could have planted these pots 14 times for part sun and done ok is a testament to every plant’s will to live; they suffer me kindly. The red irisine has tried its best to grow luxuriantly, but the top leaves bleached from the sun during our long run of hot sunny weather.  I am hoping for a better fall. 

You can spot the sunburn on the pink solenia begonia in this picture. That orange solenia shrugs off the hot sun is called varietal variation.  This series of begonias is the easiest of all to grow, in my opinion. The pink apparently needs more protection from direct sun. I am sure there will be no pink begonias here in 2011; I am a quick learner.  I don’t mind trying to grow things that are tough to cultivate, but I have to balance that interest aginst how much time I actually have to put to any aspect of my garden.    


Though the botanical name is not part of my vocabulary, I do like polka dot plants. Available in white, pink, and rose, they remind me of a choir.  A big and coherent voice generated from a cast of thousands. They thrive on pinching; they thicken up, and represent.  This moody pink and green foliage plant compliments this rose pink and green caladium better than I could have hoped for.    

Last year this English concrete square of classical Italian design was home to a homeless ancient agave.  That agave went to a client this spring; I was on my own with a planting scheme.  Though I planted a white mandevillea, white angelonia, lime nicotiana alata, gobs of silverberry mini petunias and variegated plectranthus, I worried that the planting would never grow up into and spill over this massive pot.  It may be mid August, but I like what I am looking at now.   

I have never had pots on the limestone pillars integral to my front door.  My idea to move these antique English terra cotta log pots to the front, from the rear deck-capricious.  I so love the look of these pots here-but keeping water on them given a merciless exposure to western sun has been a challenge.  This variegated abutilon is great looking-I plan to have plenty of them for spring.  The verbena and lime licorice tolerate a hot spot.  How these small pots dry out has been a lot of trouble-worthwhile trouble.

I am so happy with my English concrete pots fabricated in the classical color and style reminiscent of Italy. This is my third season with them-and I think my most successful planting.  Taxus topiaries-I had never seen them before a visit to Mori Nurseries last year.  These double ball yew topiaries rule the garden just outside my front door.  They seem quite happy in these enormous pots-the soil moisture is steady.  The generous skirt of mixed petunias, cerise pink verbena and white bacopa-a perfect foil to that seriously dark green form.  I am delighted.      


My late summer garden views-I like them.

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 Tags:
Posted in Annual Flower Design, Garden Pots, container gardens | 8 Comments »

Making Interesting Conversation

The big blue tuscan kale I know as Nero di Toscano is a favorite plant.  The giant blistered blue-green leaves have that vaguely prehistoric look to them.  The common name, dinosaur kale, aptly describes this massive growing, highly textured plant. As with any member of the brassica family, they are beloved by chewing insects.  It is a rare cabbage or kale whose leaves do not bear holes and chomp marks.    

The lower leaves mature in a spectacularly unattractive way. Some ornamental cabbages are grown for the cut flower trade; a long thick stem will have a tuft of brightly colored or white leaves sitting on top.  All plants have characteristics that are less than desirable.  Annabelle hydrangeas are weak stemmed, and flop over the minute they are in full bloom.  The roses get blackspot; post-bloom maturing foliage on daylilies is nasty looking.  Designing with plants is much about pairing them with other plants that minimize those faults.  I would not give up growing kale over their legs.  

I planted the pots in front of the shop this year with the aforementioned kale, green and white variegated plectranthus, and sun parasol white mandevillea.  I thought the three planted together would make for some interesting conversation.  This plectranthus is lax growing.  The thick stems will droop under their own weight.  They grow vigorously-in this case, they are growing vigorously around the kale that are loosing their lower leaves.  Their trailing habit makes them the perfect cover-up for those awkwardly leggy and stiff growing kale. 

Related to coleus, they do respond to pinching back, but once the weather gets hot, they grow with huge stem spaces between the leaves.  This puts them on the verge of becoming a vining plant.  This does however take time.  They are great for a gardener that likes to watch things grow.  These pots in their infancy were not all that great looking.  I avoided looking at them all together for the first month after they were planted. 

These concrete pots are quite tall, and have a smaller planting area that what I would like.  Though they have a graceful presence as an object, it is not easy to grow something in them large enough to balance all that pot height.  I think this planting is my best shot ever at getting a finished proportion that is right.  We have had such a warm and rainy growing season this year that the pots are already rootbound. Maintaining these another few months will be a challenge. I need more horizontal volume from that plectranthus-judicious pinching back is in order. 

The third party at the table, the white mandevillea, is a tropical vine that doens’t begin to get going until the weather gets really hot.  This plant did not perform particularly well last summer, as the weather stayed cool.  The Sun Parasol series is known for its glossy and disease resistant foliage. The red cultivar is particularly heavy blooming. My experience with other varieties, such as Alice de Pont-spider mites and mildew rule the day.  No thank you.  Though this plant is a vine, I decided to grow it as a trailer, and let the chips fall where they might.  One never knows what a plant will do, left to its own devices.   

Early on, I was worried this might have been a mistake. The pots looked ungainly, underscaled, and ill-defined.  But plants seek the sun, and live companionably with other plants.  Most of the plants on this earth manage to live and prosper without much help from people.  The three plants in these pots share one characterisitc-they are all vigorous growers.  The battle they do for light and water is creating the overall shape you see.  They share the light and water as they are fairly equally matched. The large mandevillea flowers help cover the leggy kale as much as the plectrathus does.  The mandevillea gets support from the stiff stems of the plectranthus. 

These tall pots are finally beginning to look like something.  The combination is to my eye more interesting than any of the individual plants.  Growing mandevillea as a trailer, and plectranthus as a climber and a kale for some other purpose than braising is what makes gardening so interesting.  Whenever I visit a garden or a landscape, a good deal of what I see is that conversation between the gardener and the natural world.  Is there an interesting conversation going on?  Is one of the involved parties talking too much, or not enough? 

 I am hoping these containers are a little better than half-way to being good.  Should they never get really good-fine.  There will be something about the experiment that will help make me a more interesting gardener.

Sunday, July 25th, 2010 Tags: , , ,
Posted in Annual Flower Design, Garden Pots, container gardens | 3 Comments »

The Solver Boxes

I have no idea whether you are enjoying the Buck week posts-but I know he is.  It is tough when you make things, and never see what becomes of them. The finish of a box is not really the finish.  The placement in a garden, the plants-there is a whole other melody to come once they leave Branch.  Any garden box asks for planted material-he is seeing that relationship in some cases for the first time.  Some boxes are one of a kind, but have no name-as they are much more about what gets planted inside, than their aesthetic appeal as objects.  These galvanized and painted sheet metal boxes are a vehicle for a planted expression.  Sturdily made, and held by substantial steel brackets, they are a forum for a planted discussion on a garage wall. The garage wall-not so prominent now. 

This giant box at the end of this driveway has a purpose.  Drive an additional three feet-you and your car would be presented with the prospect of a steep ravine.  This box is a not only a stop sign, it will stop you should you be coming down the drive on icy pavement. The boxes and plants are so much window dressing-who would guess they are more importantly a substantial safety feature.    This home is paved right up to the front of the garage and house-not much opportunity for landscape to soften all this hard surface. These boxes on the second story are galvanized sheet metal-with a sanded and painted finish antique like finish.  The color is much more punchy up close-at a distance the color is soft and unobtrusive.  This makes the view much more about plants, than about boxes.  They also make the house look warm.

A corner sun porch just 3 feet from the lot line makes an in ground garden all but impossible.  The wall hung boxes permit a garden to be viewed from inside, and do not obstruct traffic from the front yard to the back. The square footage of soil is considerable; my first complaint about most boxes like this is that they are too small.  It is not long before the planting virtually obscures any mention of the word box.

This box I did name-but Buck only made four, and they are gone now.  I call this the Charisse box, as in Cyd Charisse.  A dancer whose long legs were a legend in the entertainment business; this box has legs I like.  The flared bell flower shapes on those legs-a beautifully decorative detail.  The scroll arms and handles were time consuming to make; I never hear Buck ask when we are making them again.  But I  have not forgotten them.  They went to homes not known to me-I have never seen them planted. They do indeed make me smile-they are so light on their feet.  Not every space asks for a handsome box-some spaces call for pretty. 

These massive boxes are also contructed of galvanized sheet metal-this is a much less expensive material than 18 inch or 1/4 inch steel.  A second story balcony terrace was completely exposed to view from neighboring buildings; this client needed big boxes, and lots of them.  The first year, we planted them as a meadow.  In recent years, they have done a good job of providing a permanent home to a hedge of arborvitae.  The trick to maintaining evergreens year round, above ground-as big a soil mass as you can manage.  This minimizes the effects of freezing and thawing that ejects plants from pots, and exposing their roots to the air.  This client has a completely private outdoor terrace, thanks to this wall of boxes.

Some less than visually thoughtful builder installed a giant downspout dead center in an alcove on this client’s rear balcony terrace-unsightly. One of our two extra balcony boxes was modified and placed here.  Buck made a steel stand for the box, which includes an armature on the back which bears most of the burden of supporting this substantial decorative iron panel.  A morning glory, and a pair of cherry tomatoes will help to obscure the drain pipe from view.   

The last of the balcony boxes landed on the ground-in a bed.  I like this unexpected treatment; flowers at the bottom of the box look great.  The bed is too narrow for any garden of size; the wall behind it is very tall.  A little change of level provides some interest in a tight space. In retrospect,  I probably should call these boxes the Solver boxes.

Friday, July 2nd, 2010 Posted in Garden Ornament, Garden Pots, The Branch Studio, containers | 3 Comments »

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