A visit to Duke Gardens, and their plant sale

Last weekend, I made a trip to dear old Duke Gardens, to scope out what looked to be a great oppurtunity to sell my Reptire Wares. Lo, they had decided to prune the crafts from their plant sale....Such a shame!

However, the plant sale was very well attended, inspite of the rain, and afterwards I took a little stroll through the gardens to see what was new, as well as old.

One thing that is new is a beautiful structure, which seemed to be made of Redwood, as some of its curved timbers were hewn, rather than bent, so it must have been a massive tree...
I was mostly held together with pegs, a real pleasure to behold, and 'be held' in.

Another beautiful object that has been there for a while was this seed pod inspired form, called into being by the delicate and masterful hand of Durham's own Sculptor, Andrew Price. Andrew, an old Durham friend, has always opened his studio to me for occaisional visits, which I always relish, am I remember seeing this seed pod germinating in his studio. Eventually I helped him to instal it there in the gardens (I had forgotten this until I saw it! what a nice surprise!).

I saw lots of other good stuff at the gardens, but my camera ran out of juice, and I know there are lots of pictures out there of the gardens.

One other thing I did come away with from the plant sale was Duke Gardens very own cultivar of Japanese Plum Yew!

Constructing a Rain Garden at Siler City's Courtyard

Well, as usual, something very cool and unusual is happening in the courtyard of Siler City's Courtyard Cafe and the NC Arts Incubator (ground zero of cool in Siler City, so far as I know!).

What's going down? A RAIN GARDEN, that's what!

Mitch Woodward from NC State Cooperative Extension is working with  Andrew Wright to install a really impressive catchment and dispersal system, to help water the various trees and shrubs that beautify that courtyard space so nicely.

It was only five or six years ago, when that courtyard, as I remember it, was a baking sheet of a parking lot, bright in the hot sun! Now is a vibrant and lush oasis, and soon to be 'much lusher'.

As Mitch explains, the plants were struggling (and Joan to feed them), because they had been planted, along with the dirt they were growing in, ON TOP of the concrete. This made for some tough feeding.

But when I arrived on the scene,  Mr Write (on his front end loader) was nudging open deep, cool troughs in the earth, and I could see those trees are going to LOVE it!

It was fun to watch Write at work, he had a noticably delicate touch with such a large piece of machinery. Building rain gardens and putting sway back into streams is Wright's business, and he seemed very attuned to what he was doing. As he put it, an artist with "a different kind of paint brush"!

The drainage channels they had cut in the concrete I was especially impressed with.

These will lead the water from the roof's downspouts straight over to the garden beds, where it will bubble it, and soak them nice and cool and soggy in the summer.

The fella's got held up by the rain (and all of my annoying questions) but they'll be back at it tomorrow, and I hope to drop by too!

Maybe next they can help us work on the little stream out back. Indeed, thanks to Ann Bass, it is on their radar....!

Our darling, in the back 1.4-ty

This wild Louisiana Iris is about to explode!

To who do we owe this glorious garden? Well, to many, one I believe being the glorious Amanda Sands, from Soil and Water.

Janice Rieve's Oasis

This past weekend, I got to visit the garden of my good friend, and often employer, Janice Reives.
I owed Janice a little bit of labor, and so she put me to work moving her clothes line to a drier patch of yard. It was a successful operation.
And while I was there, I got to snap some pictures of her very colorful gardens, which are colorful in more ways than one!

I've got some great pics, but I'd better clear it with the boss first, you know how it is..