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.

Art Nouveau and Art Deco - On the Lookout for Art Styles While Travelling

After flying across the Pacific from New Zealand we endured a 10-hour layover in San Francisco. We occupied ourselves with: finding a short term hotel room - no such place; a shower - closed for renovations; a place to sleep - the meditation/prayer room but that didn't last long because the dark quiet room was intoxicating when in a jet-lagged state and lying on the floor, as opposed to sitting cross-legged, was forbidden.

The many exhibitions within the airport were a welcome distraction and kept us moving.

Curtain panel, c. 1900 - 1910, USA, cotton

The SFO Museum was established by the Airport Commission in 1980 to humanise the airport environment, share some of the unique cultural life of San Francisco, to provide educational services for the travelling public, and to keep jet-lagged people occupied.

Centrepiece, 1900, Loetz, Austria, glass, bronze

We didn't find all 25 galleries but what we did find certainly worked for a while to distract from our basic needs for sleep, personal hygiene attention, and moving the body. 

Jardiniere, 1903, Austria, bronze

When I travel I am always on the lookout for expressions of different art styles in architecture, interior design, and artworks. I am particularly interested in the more recent styles that encompassed more than 2D paintings and sculptures.

The rebellious Arts and Crafts movement at the end of the 19th century in Europe morphing into the Art Nouveau period was the beginning of taking 'art' off the walls and plinths for Europeans.

The motifs on this jardiniere are typical of the period - dragonflies and plants, particularly the stems and leaves caught up in the hair of languid women. 

What do you think of the women with their mouths open forming the feet of the dish?

Octopus Chatelaine c. 1900, William B. Kerr & Co., Newark, New Jersey, silver

I had not noticed the octopus motif being used before but with its curvilinear legs it would have been seen as having great design potential if more designers of the time had been familiar with sea life.

Art Deco shop front in Ngatea, New Zealand

My favourite art style is Art Deco, a style that flourished not only in Europe between the world wars but it was the first style that spread around the world. It may have been halted in Europe once WWII started but it continued to develop elsewhere. I love to find Art Deco gems in unexpected places.

It was the first style to unify people rather than separate them. Art Deco concepts were freeing providing a spring point for many different cultures to interpret.

Another reason why I find the Art deco style so fascinating is that it was the first style that permeated all material culture at all economic levels, from grand hotels to this modest shop front (above), from costly wood inlaid furniture to a mass produced milk jug. Everyone could identify with and express themselves through the style.

Whakaari/White Island New Zealand

While in New Zealand, we did a unique trip. We went out to Whakaari/White Island, New Zealand's most active volcano. There had been several earthquakes and a volcanic eruption the week before so we wouldn't have been surprised if our tour was cancelled.

The first challenge was to get over the bar and out to sea.

No problem. Just a gentle swell.

Here we are outfitted in our safety gear - a hard hat, to be worn at all times and a gas mask around the neck, to use at leisure (when feeling overcome by the fumes).

The sea stayed calm for the journey and no one was seasick (as in 'threw-up').

According to our guides, it was already a good day.

Next challenge - getting from the RIB to the rust poles they called a ladder by timing the swell and the step/stretch/leap just right.

The sea co-operated with only a smooth light swell.

We were supposed to be listening to our guides giving us the safety briefing but most people were already hooked to their cameras.

And most of us had our masks on already. The acidic air caught in the throat, made eyes water and noses run. We were handed boiled sweets/lollies to suck on as relief for our acid etched throats.

Steaming fumaroles and boiling mud.

This what our guide warned us about. "Stick to the trails and don't stand on a mound - it could be a thin crust of ash covering a fumarole." (My Spell check wanted to know if I meant 'funeral.')

With the most recent eruption happening last week there was grey ash everywhere and steam continually drifted through our group. It was difficult to see where the actual path was.

Peoples' cotton t-shirts were getting bleached.

The centre of the island is now a lake of acid.

This is a colour picture/photograph - not a black and white. 

If we saw glowing white steam we were instructed to move away because it was sulphur dioxide.

I Googled it - 

What are the most important things to know about sulphur

 dioxide in an emergency?

Emergency Overview: Colourless gas. Suffocating odour. VERY TOXIC. Fatal if inhaled. Corrosive to the respiratory tract. A severe, short-term exposure may cause long-term respiratory effects (e.g., Reactive Airways Dysfunction (RADS)). CORROSIVE. Causes severe skin burns and eye damage. May cause frostbite. SUSPECT MUTAGEN. Suspected of causing genetic defects.

eeeek!

Sulphur was mined on the island until last century when and eruption killed all 10 workers.

The remains of the operation are a fascinating study of corrosion.

The strongest materials are eroding the fastest - steel and concrete while wood and rubber seem to be being preserved.

Rusted equipment

Steel and wood.

The last challenge - getting across the sea to home.

No problem - the sea was mirror calm. So calm albatrosses couldn't get the lift they needed to take off from the water and were marooned until the breezes started up again. 

A bonus was seeing literally hundreds of sea mammals - dolphins, porpoise, whales.

Such an amazing trip. A 'must-do' on any NZ trip.

Kaipara Coast Sculpture Gardens Exhibition 2016, New Zealand

While in New Zealand recently we visited the Kaipara Coast Sculpture Gardens to see the 2016 exhibition.

This was one of my favourites.

After walking along the hydrangea avenue one sees at the end Janette Cevin's 'Hydrangeas'.

Large-scale hydrangea paintings with their glossy highly decorative metal surfaces covered in acrylic and resin are larger than life and draw the viewer in.

Audrey Boyle's 'Kareao (Supplejack)' is made of steel to mimic nature.

Jane and Mario Downes 'Taraxacum Forest' is also made of steel and mimics nature in an overblown scale.

Marlyne Jackson's 'Beneath the Willow Tree'

Reminiscent of yarn bombing, Marlyne works to express the struggles of recent immigrants...

...making a new life for themselves.

Margaret Johnston's 'Sleep Out' is like a miniature Janet Morton installation...

...until one gets up close to it. 

Margaret remembers childhood summers spent sleeping in a pup tent in the back yard and playing beside the sea. She feels sad about how these activities are now polluted by the huge amount of dumped waste from the telecommunications industries. She knit the tent from this waste.

"What are we doing to our land?"

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 - Mulching and Tree Planting - Beginning of the Guilds

After the green cover crop was turned under the soil was covered with straw as opposed to hay. Hay has seeds which is part of its nutritional value for animal feed but seeds mean lots of unwanted plants for me to pull out. Straw is the stubble left after the crop is cut off. It is quite expensive because here on the island we don't have any large flat areas for growing grains. The straw has to be brought across from the mainland.

Straw makes a wonderful mulch or cover for bare soil while newly sown seeds are thinking about germinating. It stops evaporation of moisture out of the soil and keeps the soil warm creating ideal conditions for those soil organism working on breaking down the newly turned green cover crop.

The key element and the beginning of a plant guild (a collection of plants living symbiotically and in harmony) is the tree. After much reading, list making and pondering we have begun the tree planting. I will detail the guild compositions later but here only to say at this stage the Water Drop hugelkultur bed has a pear tree, and behind it the Feather hugelkultur bed has a cherry tree.

The Leaf hugelkultur bed has a medlar tree....

...as does the tip of the Feather. Design-wise I wanted the symmetry of these 2 trees at the entrance to the path to the studio. They repeat the perceived symmetry of the studio windows and porch posts.

I can tell the trees are happy because within a couple of weeks they are producing flowers. My sister said to nip off the flowers in the first year so the tree concentrates on producing lots of roots and leaves. So, yes, sister, I did as you advised and nipped off all the flowers.

In the bed leading away from the studio porch, I planted cuttings from a friend's hydrangea bush. (Thank you, Barbara, for working in the rain with me to share your hydrangea).

The cuttings got a cosy covering of straw mulch and a good watering to help them along. I can already see the magnificent hydrangea hedge they will become.