A Visit to "Beyond the Edge: Artists' Gardens"

I finally had a chance to go and take a look at "Beyond the Edge: Artists' Gardens", an 'Agri-art' installation arranged by Canadensis, the Canadian Botanical Garden Society. I went Thursday afternoon and it was a lovely cool breezy day, perfect for a walk around a field.

I wasn't quite sure just where it was, but expected to find some sort of large sign. Unfortunately there wasn't one and I turned off Prince of Wales Drive into a lane that leads down to one of the Rideau Locks. Coming back out I spotted a sign about Beyond the Edge and pulled over. The large wire gate was closed and the fence was well peppered with 'No Parking' signs but I decided to risk it anyway. This is what I saw in front of me:

Going closer, I read the blurb about the project and inspected the map. I read it mostly to get my bearings, missing the significance of the large green rectangle in the middle of the map....  I headed off to the right along the mown 'gosh, this must be a path' strip.

I admired a number of picnic tables (very typical of the genre, all of them) and several huge bright blue garbage cans (statements about our modern culture, perhaps?) and eventually arrived at a small garden-like plot with a number of stick teepees.

This was "From Seeds to Soup: Meet the Cucurbita Family", by Deborah Margo. Having met them before, I moved on.

Far off on the horizon I spotted colour and headed over. I came to "Mood Clusters", by Glynis and Deirdre Logue.

This turned out to be a collection of 5-sided boxes with various colourful plants growing in them. I had to read the sign to learn that these are 'psychoactive' plants....hmmm. But they looked nice, the plants were healthy and the colours were agreeable. The layout apparently relates to the shape of a molecule that occurs in our brains and helps us feel happiness.

I would have felt more of that happiness if the grass and such around the bases of the planters had been trimmed.

The sign encouraged the visitor to 'take a seat to gently touch the leaves for scent'. Where, I don't know, because there were no seats, and many of the plants did not have aromatic leaves.

Onwards. I couldn't seem to pick up the mown path again, but headed over towards the Red Barn.

On my way there, I discovered the second part of the display called "From Seeds to Soup".

I was on the path again, but had clearly gotten a bit muddled. I altered course and made it to a little picket fence-edged garden stuck in the hay field called "Our Lady of Complete Protein" by cj fleury. At first glance, I thought it was a garden of corn and sunflowers, but closer inspection showed that the tall leaves

in certain of the beds inside the fence were not corn. I had to read the sign to learn that they were millet. I also learned that the garden was a reference to the book "Diet for a Small Planet" by Frances Moore Lappe. The large metal sculpture rising above the plot represents "Mother Earth's Fecundity". I stepped back and took the photo above.... . being so far separated from the other displays, the surrounding landscape necessarily became part of the art piece, but  perhaps not with quite the message the artist intended.

The next piece was Karl Ciesluk's "Mechanical Spiral" which I approached from the side away from its information sign:

Having just had the word 'Protein' planted in my forebrain, the hay bale put me in mind of another type of protein. Nothing in the piece itself made me dream that this was in any way a comment on the realities of farming, either 'over 175 years ago' or today.

I also couldn't see it very well. Being only 5 1/2feet tall, I couldn't look down on it, and as you can see above, the grasses and such pretty much hid the spiral. Perhaps if the grass strips had been narrower and the mown strips wider, it would have been clearer.

The last installation was "Red Oak Labyrinth":

Under a beautiful Red Oak, Barbara Brown had installed a walking labyrinth based on an ancient and mystical design using short pieces of split ash wood to delineate the path. At the centre there was a nice cool bench, with notebooks where you could leave a comment:

I sat there for a while and read some of the comments. Not being a labyrinth-ite, I couldn't really enter into the feelings expressed in some of the comments, but I was happy that some people seemed to find meaning in the project. I also enjoyed the cool breeze, the lack of mosquitoes, and the chance to sit for a bit.

It is very difficult to know what to say about "Beyond the Edge". Perhaps I should just mention some hopes for the future and leave it at that.

I hope they will move the intrusive and distracting garbage cans and water containers to where they won't be so visible. The picnic tables, also, could be grouped near the road or back near the Red Barn.

I hope next time they arrange the displays much closer together. Spreading them all around the edge of such a large expanse leaves them all lost in what is essentially a neglected field. I did go back and read the sign to check up on the significance of the green rectangle in the middle of the field, but there was little information beyond the fact that it was an Ag Canada research project; in other words, that the organizers couldn't get the use of the whole field. Given that situation, it would have been much better to place all the displays in the area near the road and around the Red Oak where the labyrinth was.

I hope they invest in some small signs with directional arrows so that those of us who come when the paths haven't been cut for a while won't get lost.

I hope that the OBG group will soon spend some money and make an actual entrance, with a large sign, at least some parking, and information about the group.  If they are serious about having a Botanical Garden, it is high time they started to act as if they are.

But more than anything else, I hope that next year they will invite area gardening groups, gardeners, and artists, to propose displays. Proposals should be carefully evaluated, both as to their intellectual content, and as to their visual (or aural or sensual) content. Intellectual content alone is not enough. Art that depends on a written explanation is only a written explanation.... a picture may be worth 1000 words, but 100 words are only 100 words.

July in the Garden of Delight

In many ways, July is a difficult month in the garden. The weather is of course one factor: if it isn't a drought, it is a monsoon. This year we've been lucky enough to escape both, at least so far, but we've still had some torrential rains.

But of course what is hard on one plant is good for another. The roses are totally bedraggled after yesterday's heavy rain, but the red Monarda are looking fine. I have some growing in front of the huge leaves of Ligularia dentata 'Desdemona' (which, by the way, is exactly the same as L. dentata 'Othello', hmmmm, did someone get their Shakespeare confused?) and the two harmonize wonderfully. Luckily, the Monarda is finished blooming long before the Ligularia throws up its harshly yellow-orange ragged daisies which clash dreadfully with the red-purple leaves. You can always cut them off, of course.

Both plants like damp soil, so in dry years they struggle.

A painted turtle seems to like the grouping too. She's been hanging around for a few days now. Probably laying eggs, but the darn chipmunks usually find those. I waited and she obligingly came out of the flowerbed and onto the gravel of the driveway, but I couldn't convince her to put out her front feet. Not sure what that is all about! Were her feet tired from digging?

She's pretty tame, comes out to see what I'm doing it seems. Turtles apparently like lettuce so I'm going to try her with a leaf or two.

Another plant that is pretty happy with all the rain we've had is Spigelia marilandica, or Indian Pink. I wasn't too sure it would be hardy here, but my plant has come through two winters so far and seems to be getting larger. It's not native here in the Ottawa area, but is south of us. The plant is about 18" tall. The flowers do have a very, well let's say, odd, shape. The bunched anthers could be a moon rocket....

Right near the Indian Pink are two plants that have me in a bit of a quandary. One, the Stephenandra, is a very determined, light-green-leaved, arching-stems shrub. It forms low but dense prickly mounds. In the right place it makes a useful green blob. The rose, Dortmund, was a tiny seedling, on its own roots, and was planted several feet away. Naturally the two are now hopelessly intertwined. My quandary? Every time I see the Stephenandra I remember the kind friend who gave it to me.... and every time I see the rose I remember the nasty person I bought it from. For no reason, this lady felt the need to criticize me for growing roses that were not on their own roots.... it left a bad taste and over time I've quite taken against poor Dortmund. In my previous garden it was a favourite as it climbed happily all over a cedar fence. Can I like a rose that keeps bad friends?

Speaking of friends, another one gave me this sedum and I love the way it has seeded itself in among the rocks in the rockery. It does need restraining sometimes, but then, Cecilia is a pretty high-energy person so it fits!

So many of July's flowers are yellow. I wonder how people who refuse to have yellow flowers in their gardens manage July? Or August?

These orange lilies, while not yellow, look great in with the grasses. I love the way the grasses sway in the wind, now hiding, now revealing, the sturdy lilies.

These lilies were a gift too, but not from a friend. They were a prize I won for something or other once and since I'm not that fond of lilies, I stuck them in the sandy area behind the Studio. They've done magnificently there! Fully 4' tall, and a dozen blooms per stem. The original three bulbs are now at least six, too. Maybe I need to like lilies better!

There are some orange lilies in the Crabapple garden, too, but they are redder, have dots on the inside of the petals, and are quite short. For the life of me I can't remember where they came from. I must have planted them, but the mind is blank....
As it is about this plant:

It came up in the middle of a patch of Hyssop. If you know what it is, please let me know! I should know, it looks familiar, but the name escapes me.

Last, but not least, I'm enjoying the Gaillardias and the Anthemises. Both self-seed and come up all over the place, but the variations in their colours are endlessly fascinating.

If your garden needs a smile, get some Gaillardias!