Leaf Art. Why not?

By illustrator Christoph Niemann, in today's NY Times.

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Posted by on November 18, 2009 at 4:24 am   This post has 4 responses.

What’s a Garden Photographer To Do?

This story that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle a couple months ago got me thinking about the fate of garden photographers in the digital age. Used to be that a photographer could spend a lifetime shooting plants and gardens, keep them filed and organized and cataloged according to...

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Posted by on November 5, 2009 at 12:43 pm   This post has 19 responses.

An icon to suit every taste

It’s always best to tread lightly when discussing garden statuary that doesn’t totally suck, but I was intrigued by some emails I received discussing a trend toward “spiritual” rather than “religious” imagery for the garden (especially among genX gardeners). The difference between the two words for me has always been...

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Posted by on November 3, 2009 at 12:06 pm   This post has 15 responses.

Fordhook Farm has sculpture, too

Another photo array two Sundays in a row?  Let’s call it a GardenRant tradition!  This bunch is from my visit last May to the home of W. Atlee Burpee and his family for 100+ years – the Fordhook Farm in Doylestown, PA. For more,  here’s their photo set on...

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Posted by on October 25, 2009 at 4:36 am   This post has 12 responses.

Sculpture in the Garden

Images from the North Carolina Botanical Garden.        That last one’s for Amy.

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Posted by on October 18, 2009 at 5:32 am   This post has 22 responses.

Artists’ gardens

In today’s New York Times. Check it out. I think I like the Sonnier property the best, judging by the limited slide show.  Though the Blell garden is magnificent in a way, I can’t imagine trying to relax around all that severely clipped shrubbery. The grass and pavement checkerboard...

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Posted by on August 21, 2009 at 11:23 am   This post has 8 responses.

Gardening on wheels

  Ingredients: Donated punk Shopping Carts Burlap coffee bean bags for liners Best soil I can get Compost Ground up coconut shells leftover from local hydroponic farming Organic seeds Caretaker/gardeners Faith —Stella Marrs, artist and creator of shopping cart victory gardens  Abandoned shopping carts are a well-known feature of...

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Posted by on August 18, 2009 at 5:04 am   This post has 13 responses.

How about this garden ornament?
An original Chagall

Georgetown resident Evelyn Nef and her husband were friends with Marc Chagall, so he naturally brought them a hostess gift for one of his visits – a mural for their walled back garden. It's still there, and I'd sure love to get inside those walls and see it in...

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Posted by on July 26, 2009 at 5:35 am   This post has 7 responses.

A Good Ornament Is Hard to Find

The demise of Smith & Hawken, which actually sold some ornaments that weren't too dinky or ugly for a self-respecting garden, is really unfortunate for everybody who likes their natural mixed with the artificial.  Here is some incredible garden ornament from Congress Park in Saratoga Springs. This is one...

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Posted by on July 22, 2009 at 4:40 am   This post has 22 responses.

These kids today

This speaks for itself, I think. Billy Goodnick, Owen Dell and friends present “Taking Out the Grass is a Gas”

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Posted by on June 25, 2009 at 10:47 am   This post has 10 responses.

Stickwork “Summer Palace” at the Morris Arboretum

One of the wonders of the Morris Arboretum (at the U. of Penn. in Philly) is their newly created "Summer Palace" sculpture by North Carolina artist Patrick Dougherty.  Made entirely of natural materials locally acquired and no nails or hardware of any kind, this three-story Russian-themed structure was built...

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Posted by on May 25, 2009 at 4:28 am   This post has 12 responses.

The Roses and Lollipops Experiment

Tree roses in containers (R.I.P.) and strawberries circa 1996 Though I am personally rather natural and unkempt, my taste in ornamental gardens runs to the super-formal and intensely artificial.  Filoli, which employs an army of smart young gardeners and has been the training ground for several Friends of Rant,...

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Posted by on April 15, 2009 at 1:46 am   This post has 3 responses.

John Updike on the Naked Queen of Tilth

 I've been on a bit of an Updike kick since he died.  These are the writers I admire the most: the ones who leave behind an astonishing assortment of novels, essays, poetry collections, New Yorker articles, and the like. So I picked up his 1997 novel Toward the End...

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Posted by on April 3, 2009 at 9:10 am   This post has 18 responses.

Wicked Plants: Working With the Artist

 I think Wicked Plants just went off to the printer, and in about six weeks I should have a copy.  That'll be cool, but what's even cooler is the spin-off project that has come out of this:  the artist, Briony Morrow-Cribbs, who created original copper etchings of 40 wicked...

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Posted by on March 16, 2009 at 10:25 am   This post has 9 responses.

Questioning beauty in the Berkshires

We turn our eyes … to the most characteristic examples of modern landscape, and, I believe, the first thing that will strike us, is their cloudiness. This 1846 John Ruskin quote was recently used not in connection with the paintings of J.M.W. Turner—daring for their time as they were—but...

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Posted by on February 18, 2009 at 4:45 am   This post has 11 responses.

Oh crap, the zombies got into the garden again

I hate it when that happens. Actually this garden sculpture has been around for a while, but it’s the first time I’ve come across it. The artist is Alan Dickinson. It’s in the Toscano catalog, a mail order design company that has quite a number of extraordinary items on...

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Posted by on October 29, 2008 at 5:00 am   This post has 10 responses.

For those who need to make a certain statement

This is the Flamingo-Away kit. Personally, I like flamingoes, in the abstract. Via Neatorama and Coolest Gadgets.

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Posted by on August 20, 2008 at 2:00 pm   This post has 6 responses.

I’ll Have What She’s Having

Sorry the photo’s not better.  The one sunny day we have in Eureka and I decide to go photograph a garden. Anyway.  She was lovely, and quite unexpected in this grandmother’s garden.

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Posted by on August 11, 2008 at 5:47 am   This post has 10 responses.

Edible Estates Art Exhibit Opens

I love this post! First, let me say that Fritz is an old friend – he was in my garden club, The Germinators, in the late 90′s. That club was made up of artists who’d become passionately radicalized by plants and gardening … many of them are now fairly...

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Posted by on July 13, 2008 at 2:39 pm   This post has 2 responses.

My Kind of Garden Art

A couple more photos from the gardens–a cool glass house with a door that swivels in the wind: and my kind of perennial border, all salvia, euphorbia, grasses–and a vineyard in the background!  How do I get me one of those?

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Posted by on June 12, 2008 at 5:15 am   This post has 5 responses.
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