Blackberries, Irises, Horsetails and Teasels in Walter's Gorge

 The lawn mower is broken. The grass alongside the road is getting long. The blackberry is getting out of control.

I spent a couple of hours cutting back the blackberry that was reaching into Walter's Gorge threatening to cover the beautiful flowers growing there. Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus) is classed as an invasive species here in BC and it does invade at our place.

Japanese Water Iris (Iris ensata)

Two years ago after Ron and I had cleared the blackberry jungle out of the seasonal stream that flows into the pond, it sat bare until my sister and brother-in-law came to stay. Sister Donnel, who knows a lot about plants (as does my other sister Megan Rae) looked at the site and pronounced "Japanese water irises and ferns." Brother-in-law Walter did the back breaking work digging up and transferring large ferns to the sides of the stream.

We, plus our mother (a phenomenal gardener) went shopping/hunting for the exotic sounding plant and found 2 varieties.

This is the second year of flowers and they get larger each year. They are obviously very happy with the conditions - soil continually moist to flooded depending on the season, acidic soil/water - runoff from the forest up the hill, shade.

I'll have to ask my sister when I should divide the plants up to keep the flowers large.

Horsetail (Equisetum arvense) - behind the iris - has also flourished. The seeds of this ancient plant were waiting deep in the soil for the right conditions. 

It is a most unusual plant as well as being one of the oldest on the planet. During the Carboniferous dinosaur age, horsetail grew a hundred feet tall. The Romans called it "hair of the earth." 

The hollow stems with 'bad-hair-day' fronds are 30 plus percent silica and a valuable source of the mineral for other plants. Steeping the plant in a barrel of water for a few days produces a rich mineral tea for other plants. 

Horsetail is said to be the best product for cleaning pewter and for polishing wood and glass without scratching. That is the silica at work. I have yet to try it. It all goes in compost and teas and hasn't made it inside the house.

With blackberry on the right, irises and horsetail in the middle, the teasel has grown up on the left side of the bank.

Teasel (Dipsacus fullonum syn. D sylvestris)

This magnificent plant grows to 10 feet tall. It is fascinating to look at its parts in detail.

The leaves cup the rainwater and hold interesting collections of things. I have been trying to catch with my camera a frog bathing in the water. This teasel bath has been known since ancient times as the bath of Venus and said to be good for warts among many other things. 

The most well known and commercially valuable part of the plant is the dead flower head. I'll tell you all about that once I have some pictures of the flower to show you.

With all of these interesting plants to observe it is no wonder I get lost for a few hours while out in the garden.

Backyard Project Update - What happened while we were away

While we were away Sammy and his crew continued to work on the Backyard Project.

They mulched the hugelkultur beds with straw to slow down evaporation from the soil as we enter our dry season.

Sammy cut more rounds from logs and extended the gardener's paths around the perimeter of each hugelkultur bed.

They started construction on another garden room - the fruit hedge. 

This room begins on the south side of the path next to the Gravel Bed Garden.

They made a lasagne bed composed of many layers of different materials. It will be left for the soil organisms to do their work breaking down these materials to make a rich soil. Once the soil has cooled down the trees and shrubs can be planted.

In the Cut Flower Bed, the peonies and irises are at their peak.

The alliums are moving into the seed-head stage which I enjoy as much as the flowering stage. I leave them in the garden until the stems are getting dry then cut them. I bundle up the stems and hang them in the garage to dry further.

In spring time the rate of change in the garden speeds up.

Backyard Project: Garden Rooms

Gravel Bed Garden Room

This garden room came about because of the site conditions. Grass would not grow in this area of the back lawn. We found the reason why after the thin layer of topsoil was scraped away before the studio construction began. Bedrock was exposed. Thin soil exposed to 12 hours of sunshine and reflected heat from the house suited a hot dry garden bed.

Tom dug down around the bedrock to make a sunken 'U' shaped garden room. The 2 entrances to this room are accessed by flat rock steps.  

It has rock walls and grey/white washed gravel flooring. I laid out a length of yellow yarn to mark the path through the room.

I have started planting. I have gone around to other beds to find plants that would be happier in a place with full sun and free draining to dry soils - rosemary, thyme, sage, lavender.

Marking out the beginnings of another garden room.

The walls will be a hedge of pineapple guava (feijoa), fig trees and Callistemon (bottlebrush).

Another room is called Walter's Gorge. It is now bisected by the deer fence but still reads as a room because of the plantings - Japanese water irises, horsetail and a number of different ferns, as a start. The blackberry we cleared from this area a couple of years ago still tries to inhabit the gorge but doesn't take long to cut back now.

I am starting to develop the garden room next to the studio porch. The pink tulips, hyacinths, and alliums will be transferred to the Water Drop bed once they finish blooming and die back. To the left will be a hydrangea hedge. Cuttings have been planted and the whole bed mulched with straw. 

The floor of this room will be a meadow of native ground covers that can be walked on but doesn't need mowing. The soil is being built up before their planting.

Valerie Easton's book 'A Pattern Garden The Essential Elements of Garden Making' has been most helpful while designing these garden rooms. Her design philosophy is based on the Japanese concept wabi-sabi and the Pattern Language work of Christopher Alexander. She designs garden rooms using 14 of Christopher Alexander's patterns.

Surprise Visual Treat While Out Malling

While rushing through the mall to pick up a few things I was slowed down by a visual treat.

Mannequins dressed in blooms.

Dressed by 'Victoria's best floral designers'

The mannequins were still being dressed so some weren't complete.

But I saw them when the flowers were at their freshest.

The event was called 'Victoria. Stop and Smell the Roses'

It certainly had that effect on me and on others passing by.

Backyard Project and Work in the Studio

Ron and Nordic Fencing team leader, Mat, plan the location of the deer fence along the south boundary.

Nathan is digging trenches for irrigation pipes.

The main pipe will be located under the path going around the pergola and arbor. If there is ever a problem with the pipe it can be dug up without disturbing any garden beds.

Meanwhile, I am collecting leaf skeletons from under the tulip trees.

The damp conditions are ideal for the soft parts of the leaf to rot away leaving the leaf skeleton in tact.

After washing and laying the leaves out to dry...

...I am sewing them onto an embroidered afternoon tea cloth that spent a year or so outside wrapped around a tree trunk. I have been adding leaves to this cloth for the past couple of years. The repair of the decayed cloth with darned leaves speaks of how leaves fall to nourish and repair the soil, the skin of the earth. I will keep adding to the cloth for another season or so to demonstrate how soil building is a long term continual process.

The work is called, 'Earth Repair.'

The hyacinths are blooming in the studio bed. There is such a lovely smell as I come and go from the Green Shed.

Now that the winter rains have eased we can continue with the Backyard Project tasks

Real Time Update April 26 - Backyard Project

In the cut flower bed, the first iris has bloomed.

Why is it that the white is the first to bloom for many flowers?

Also in the cut flower bed, the first allium has opened up.

In the rock garden beds, the green manure crop is being turned under and a mulch layer of straw is added.

In a week or so these beds will be ready for planting another soil building crop.

I have set up a straw bale garden bed on top of one of the new beds where the soil mix was not as rich.

Layers of compost, coffee grounds, and straw were piled on top of the straw bale. It was deeply watered and left to cook.

In a couple of weeks, the internal temperature has gone from 50 F degrees to 120 F degrees. The rise in temperature indicates a certain group of soil organisms is at work decomposing the material to make soil. The temperature needs to rise into the grey area for the next lot of organisms to get to work. Once the bed temperature has dropped back down to the 60s F again it will be ready to plant.

The days have suddenly become much hotter. I am watering the new plants every second day.

Here is the beginning of the path through the gravel bed garden.

There is lots of activity in the garden.

Backyard Project - Recap and Coping With Winter Rains

It has been so long since I posted on progress on the Backyard Project I'm going to do a quick recap of where things were at in the beginning of November.

The raised studio beds were constructed, filled and planted with spring bulbs.

The 3 hugelkultur beds were constructed and planted with a winter green manure mix.

Soil was laid down for the meadow plants in the flat areas in between.

Here am I planting comfry roots around the base of all 3 hugelkultur beds.

I mulched the studio beds with fallen maple leaves making them ready for the winter.

Tom had excavated and placed the rock for the gravel bed garden.

He had also constructed all of the raised rock garden beds and filled them with logs and soil.

Then the rains kept coming turning the gravel bed garden site into a swimming pool. It served to highlight where we needed to place the French drain.

The areas around the hugelkultur beds got super-saturated. We want the water to accumulate around these beds where the buried logs have the capacity to absorb huge amounts of water but the amount of water showed us how much we have to build up the pathways.

Meanwhile, the raised rock beds soaked up the above average rainfall like a sponge. The rotten logs under the soil are doing their job.

And this is how we left the project until the new year.

Nyonya Baba Culture in the Straits of Malacca - Traditional Garments

Georgetown, the old part of Penang, is a well-preserved UNESCO World Heritage Site. There one can explore a unique culture that began in the 15th century when the Straits of Malacca was one of the busiest shipping routes in the world. Chinese migrated from southern China and settled up and down the Malay coast and into Indonesia. They married the local Malays and over time developed a distinct culture reflected in their houses, clothing, customs and cooking - the Nyonya-Baba culture. Here is a link to a Nyonya's blog where she explains her origins.

The above image is outside an award winning restored Nyonya Baba mansion in Georgetown. It shows the Baba (the man) in typical Western formal men's dress of the day while the Nyonya (the woman) wears the traditional garments of her culture.

An elaborately embroidered blouse is worn over a wrapped sarong.

The sheer fabric is silk crepe or Swiss lawn embroidered with silk thread in satin stitch and long and short stitch. The area around the hips is edged in buttonhole stitch before the centres were cut out to make intricate organic patterns. The blouse is secured with 3 to 5 elaborate, jewel-encrusted pins.

The fitted shape with the long front is typical. It certainly emphasised the wearer's main role in life - to produce heirs.

However, when the woman turns 60, after 5 cycles through the Chinese horoscope, she refits her wardrobe with simpler more boxy garments usually made in heavier more opaque fabrics. 

The under garment has a starched raised collar like the stay of a men's shirt and it is held together with gold studs as found on 19th century western men's formal wear. This shift to clothing elements normally worn by males is interesting. In this matriarchal society, as she ages and becomes a grandmother the woman's role changes from child bearer to being head of her family.  

She still wears her costly pins, kersang, to show her family's position in society. The Nyonya line began with a Malay born woman who owned the land and passed ownership on to her daughters, giving them long-lasting and legal authority. At the same time, the Chinese-born immigrant Baba set up the business and if  he was successful brought wealth to the family - a powerful combination.

A 1930s matron's/grandmother's over garment made from apple green embroidered flowers on lavender Swiss organdy. The 3 pins are circles covered with gold and rubies.

The starched collar of the under garment has gold studs.

A Nyonya Matriarch

The wealthy Nyonyas were expected to master the skills essential for finding a good husband - an effective beauty regime, how to behave in public, and how to run a household. 

Above is a painting on the side of a Georgetown building of 3 Nyonyas having afternoon tea.

In several museums, I did notice it seemed pretty important also to learn how to master bead embroidery because one was expected to make one's own bridal shoes.

Here is a mother teaching her daughter to bead. The daughter's unmarried status is evident by her side-buns hair style. Her married mother wears her hair in a single high bun. Gold, silver and jewelled hair pins, Cucuk Sanggul, are worn in the buns. 

Bead-embroidered shoe fronts still in the frame.

A pair of velvet beaded bridal shoes, embroidered with phoenixes and peonies, made sometime before the 1930s.

A pair of beaded pink and green check bridal shoes made in the 1920s or 1930s. 

This culture was very open to new ideas and trends. Trade ships brought the latest commodities and luxuries from around the world and the wealthy travelled to other countries. Evidence of this can be seen in the Art Deco influenced design this modern bride worked on her beaded shoes compared with the more traditional floral design seen displayed under the shoes.

I must say my family was very patient as I absorbed and documented what we saw in the museums we visited. They would even come and find me if they saw something they thought I might be interested in. I am so fortunate to be fully supported by my family in what I do.