Arching Bells

Maybe because its Latin name could inspire fear in any designer, or maybe because it isn't seen often, but Nectaroscordum siculum ssp. Bulgaricum should be used by more garden and landscape designers. A bulb, hardy from zones 6-10, it is delicate yet architectural with mauve, ivory and pale green bells arching from a single stem. N. siculum is sometimes called the Sicilian Honey Lily or sold as Mediterranean Bells. It is another underused plant that deserves more attention.


I have used it in my garden as well in those of several clients. The deer don't eat it and it starts its show right after the alliums--to which it's related. The leaves, like alliums, aren't terribly attractive and can easily be hidden by careful planting design that allows N. siculum to punctuate shorter plants with more interesting foliage. The first time I saw it in a garden, its companion was Hosta 'Sum and Substance' and the combination stopped me in my tracks.

A European native, this bulb is easy to grow in sun or partial--so easy in fact that these have been slowly multiplying in an abandoned garden near here for as many years as I can remember.

Long ago I lived in Lille...France that is

I have long been fascinated with all things French. I even went so far, years ago, to live there for a while. Not in romantic Paris or sunkissed Aix en Provence, with its fields of lavender, but rainy, industrial Lille. My only garden there was a pot of geraniums on my kitchen balcony to brighten up the grey skyline view.

Even though the photographs evoke the grey that, for me, is unique to northwest France, imagine how thrilled I was to find the work of Frank Lefebvre and his company Blue Nature. Primarily interior, there are outdoor pieces as well. Some designs are modern and clean lined while others are traditional flights of fancy.

Inspiration--This would make a wonderful deer fence for any garden

I just flat out want this...for me or one of my landscape design clients

Using petrified, reclaimed and untreated wood this company, based near Lille, crafts beautiful and evocative pieces that honor and respect the materials they are made from. Isn't this what the best garden design does also?

Clean and crisp--fusing ancient and modern

Just because--again a great inspiration piece

All photographs: BLEU NATURE – Sarl BN HOME Photographers : Didier Knoff and Gilles Piat

White

I started thinking about this when all of my white shrubs bloomed at once this spring. They are supposed to bloom in a kind of sequence. The absence of color was just as, if not more powerful, than a garden full of color.

Just the spireas--lilacs & fothergilla were blooming too

I know the idea is not new, but white has a symbolic power beyond the absence of color and I think it's appropriate for our times.

The staircase at Chanel for the 2009 Haute Couture collection
photo via Chanel

A puff of dandelion seeds (plenty of those around here)

A lace table cloth

Santorini

Nautical ropes

Weathered Picket Fence

Dodecatheon meadia--native and beautiful
Photo via Vanderbilt.edu

White wicker

The White Garden at Sissinghurst
photo via Meade/flickr.com

Often way over my head

My neighborhood has some unusual street trees. A few blocks away there's a solid block of Sweet Gums (Liquidambar stryaciflua) that make an incredible tricolored foliage show in the fall and an unbelievable knee high mess when they shed their macelike fruit. Bags and bags of them are heaved to the sidewalk by the homeowners who have to rake them from front yards, sidewalks and hell strips.

Anyway, when I was out for my early morning walk today I noticed a young, low branched Tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera) in bloom. An eastern native, it's not often I get to see these exotic flowers at eye level as the trees in my parts are tall, tall, tall and their blooms are usually 50-60-70 feet above my head.

A sun kissed 'tulip'

Talking to Myself

I have in some way and in fits and starts kept a journal for years. There have been times when just the act of chronicling what ever was happening in my life has helped me sort it out. As a teenager they consisted of pages and pages of laments, descriptions of parental and personal drama, social slights and ad hoc adventures.

After graduating from art school I starting making illustrated journals in black bound sketchbooks and for years I kept them safely in a box to be looked at now and then. Ten years ago, all but one of these sketchbook journals were destroyed in a basement flood.

Studies for a series of landscape inspired brooches circa 1977

What wasn't destroyed were the two new types of journals I had been keeping. In dated composition books I kept a series of garden journals. My garden composition books were often carried with me to the nursery, library or bookstore. My first designed garden is in one. Although I have an extensive design education and years of experience, I am a self taught gardener. My garden journals contained sketches, ideas, bloom times, receipts, plant labels all types of information that I wanted to remember.

A page of one of my garden composition notebooks

In small sketchbooks I kept travel journals. Since I have always had to travel on the cheap, these journals became souvenirs of my adventures. I recorded descriptions of places and made collages of tickets, postcards and sketches. Ephemera was collected and the notebooks were created on the go. They were a record of where I had been in the world larger than my own backyard.

From a trip to London in 2001

In both of these new journals there were also tidbits of the old journals--personal notes and the occasional lament.

When I first started writing Miss R, I didn't realize that it would evolve into a new type of journal. The first year was stop and go, and I didn’t really pay much attention to the content or frequency. Now I realize that the content is really an extension of my years of writing about my life. No, I don't often write about personal drama, but I do definitely write about the way I feel about what I do. I also write about places I've been and plants I've seen and post drawings, designs and other tidbits of my creative life.

A recent page from my current notebook

I still carry a notebook with me to jot down ideas, plant names, or make a quick sketch of something--although digital pictures have replaced some of my sketches. I realize that recording my ideas and experiences has been part of my life long creative process.