My blog started as a way to write about feelings I had while gardening and walking around the woods just outside my garden. I thought you might like to see just what it is that I am leaving when I go Beyond My Garden.
I've been planning and creating my garden for about 28 years, starting with a small wildflower path then expanding to what I now have. Sculptures and whimsical art change as my taste changes and as friends contribute.
This sculpture is Father Time and Family. It consists of a sundial made of a metal sailboat sailing on a circular sea. My parents bought this when I was a child. The sundial is resting on a cut sandstone pillar that was once part of someone's home or barn as were the sandstone pedestals making up Father Time's "family." Each pedestal has been chiseled on the top to hold a ball, one of stainless steel and one of copper. They are located in this grass area encircled by the garden wall, fence and Trinity Gate. Beyond their enclosure, is the entire world.
As you can see, at the other end of this enclosure is the arbor gate, part of my original plan. I used to make guests walk through this gate when there was still nothing here but grass and the log blacksmith shop you see in the background. This plan included yellow rambling roses climbing the arbor. I've planted twice so far, but drought and Japanese beatles have other plans. I have not yet given up, though.
In back of the blacksmith shop are a couple paths and a fern garden with a lilac bush making up part of the border. On the left of this picture is a pink dogwood, a "gift" from Arbor Day Foundation given with my membership. Just to the far right, in the corner of the photo, you can see the only other survivor of this membership gift, a white dogwood. That was probably about 1990.
Here, we have walked just a little bit past the pink dogwood. You can see its trunk at the right and the corner of the blacksmith ship on the left.
Here is the fern garden the year it was build. I laid those stones myself, carrying them one at a time in my garden cart then using levers, wedges and fulcrums to fulfill my grade school teachers prophesy. The stones may look small, but some are a foot thick and I'm a bit of a weakling.
This is a photo looking through the Trinity Gate into the garden using a flash on a dark night.
In this photo we are at the other end of my garden with the library in the background. The dirt showing is in a recently turned herb bed.
This is the Bell Gate build in the spring of 2010. There are now tiny Indian bells hanging on strings at the far end of this arbor, toward our house. This shot was taken in the spring with frost melting off the roof.
I've been planning and creating my garden for about 28 years, starting with a small wildflower path then expanding to what I now have. Sculptures and whimsical art change as my taste changes and as friends contribute.
As you can see, at the other end of this enclosure is the arbor gate, part of my original plan. I used to make guests walk through this gate when there was still nothing here but grass and the log blacksmith shop you see in the background. This plan included yellow rambling roses climbing the arbor. I've planted twice so far, but drought and Japanese beatles have other plans. I have not yet given up, though.
In back of the blacksmith shop are a couple paths and a fern garden with a lilac bush making up part of the border. On the left of this picture is a pink dogwood, a "gift" from Arbor Day Foundation given with my membership. Just to the far right, in the corner of the photo, you can see the only other survivor of this membership gift, a white dogwood. That was probably about 1990.
Here, we have walked just a little bit past the pink dogwood. You can see its trunk at the right and the corner of the blacksmith ship on the left.
Here is the fern garden the year it was build. I laid those stones myself, carrying them one at a time in my garden cart then using levers, wedges and fulcrums to fulfill my grade school teachers prophesy. The stones may look small, but some are a foot thick and I'm a bit of a weakling.
This is a photo looking through the Trinity Gate into the garden using a flash on a dark night.
In this photo we are at the other end of my garden with the library in the background. The dirt showing is in a recently turned herb bed.
A shot looking toward the side of the blacksmith shop standing under the hydrangea that is blooming in the first photo.
This is the Bell Gate build in the spring of 2010. There are now tiny Indian bells hanging on strings at the far end of this arbor, toward our house. This shot was taken in the spring with frost melting off the roof.
Here is another shot of the Arbor Gate decorated for a wedding held in the grassy circle around the "family" sculpture, a great place for a wedding to begin.
And one last shot as we leave my garden and look back in through the entrance gate.
I hope you have enjoyed this tour. Let me know if you did; I love hearing your comments.
