Notan

Notan is a Japanese design concept that deals with lights and darks in a composition.  A good balance of these leads to a pleasing composition.  The trick is how to achieve it.

I learned about Notan last year when I started creating pen and ink illustrations for a webcomic/graphic novel that I am working on.  It occurred to me that I could use the concept in my garden.

Areas of lights and darks should be almost equal.  Also, lights should flow into other lights, and darks should flow into other darks.  Think of a stream with boulders in it.  The water flows around the boulders.  Both boulders and water make a patttern of light and dark.

Notan can help make a garden design work well, especially in the early spring, when a lot of perennials have not popped ujp through the soil yet.  I am lazy in the fall.  I intned to plant spring flowering bulbs, but something more important - like watching a football game or going apple picking - always comes up.  My gardens always have bare patches in the spring.  These will disappear in a few weeks, because the perennials will emerge.  Still, I want the garden to look good 12 months of the year.

This corner bed has a big bare patch in the spring, because one of my favorite plants, the brilliant orange asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed) doesn't pop through the soil until late April. 

This diagram is a bird-s eye view of the bed.    It suggests a possible solution (there are many, depending on my energy level).  I can make the plants that flank the wedge-shaped empty spot line up more severely so that it is very obvious that the empty, or dark area, is indeed a wedge shape.

I took this picture today - mid-May, to show how the garden is growing.  One of the asclepias tuberosa plants needs to be moved to the left so that the three plants line up into a triangle shape.  (There is some risk involved, as asclepias tuberosa do not like to be moved.)    I can then add a few annuals, perhaps heliotrope (deep purple flowers, perfect for a sunny spot), on either side of the most forward asclepias tuberosa.

Next post I will write about generosity in the garden.

Back in Business

Winter is finally over, and the Honest Gardener is back in business!

Before I work in my garden, I put on my gardening shoes - which have been sitting in the garage for 6 months.  Before I stick my feet into my shoes, I check for critters, especially spiders and/or their eggs.  I have encountered them in shoes in the past.

Once my shoes are on, and I have my gloves on, I get to work.  Today, I am going to discuss my long border that runs along Oakland St.  There is a corner bed that is dominated by a cut leaf maple tree.  I would not plant a maple tree in a flower bed again, because the roots are shallow.  Planting anything around the tree is really difficult (there are a few plants that have thrived around this tree - that will have to wait for a future post.)

In this particular bed I have two ornamental grasses.  I wanted to move one of them, because although  they are attractive, they take up a lot of valuable real estate.  After a few minutes of digging at one of the grasses, I gave up.  My original plan was to plant three Veronica (speedwell) where the grass had been.  When that didn't work out, I went to Plan B.

In the front of this bed I have three geum plants (not sure of the variety).  Geum has very pretty bright red-orange flowers, perfect for a sunny spot.  The problem is that after they have bloomed, they are less than blah.  I don't like "blah" in the front of my garden.

 The geum are in the front - the veronica are in pots to the left.  I moved the geum towards the back, in between and just in front of the ornamental grasses.  Once the geum are done blooming, the grasses should have grown quite a bit and will obscure the geum plants.  I planted the veronica where the geum were.  According to the label, they get up to 15" high - a little high for the front of a bed - I will see how I like it as the season progresses.

The next area I worked on was a section of border that is located in a sunny section.  It is flanked on one side by a dwarf alberta spruce (at the rate it is growing, it could end up at 30 feet), and an ornamental grass that gets really big.  I made a lot of changes to this section last summer.  I moved the lady's mantle to the back.  I moved some cranesbill geranium to the middle-right of the section.  The lady's mantle was moved because it is an early bloomer - it has striking chartreuse flowers.  After flowering, it is quite messy, and tends to spread.  I moved the pink cranesbill geranium to this section because the area had too much white in it.  The cranesbill geranium is gorgeous while it blooms, and it will bloom a second time if you shear it back after its first bloom.  It does tend to get messy, so, for me, it will not go in the front of the border.

I had some pink veronica (sorry, I forget the genus), which I moved to the center of the section.  It had been off to the right, near the gigantic ornamental grass.  The grass completely covered up the veronica, so it had to be moved.

In the back  I have three white phlox (again, I forget the genus).  The problem with phlox is that they get mildew right around when it is time for them to bloom.  Every year I cut off several of the stalks to promote air circulation, but I still get mildew.  I love the flowers, though.  My solution was to put three yarrow Achillea 'Moonshine' in front of them.  Yarrow is a fairly reliable plant with nice color (it comes in pinks and different shades of yellow - 'moonrise' is a bright , but not sulphurous yellow.)  It looks fine after it has bloomed, and the flowers dry nicely.

This section of the border has clear, but not overly birght, colors.  All of the colors have the same feel - lending the section a pleasing unity.  

Everything has been planted.  I am a stickler for maintaining my design - which is a straight row of plants in the front of the border, and groups of plants placed in alternating equilateral (roughly) triangles - apex up, then apex down, in the middle and back of the border.

When I had moved the pink veronica a few weeks ago, I had arranged the plants in a triangle; today, I put them in a straight line.

This picture shows how this section looks today.  I will chronicle how well it does this summer. 

Next post I will write about the concept of Notan - the arrangement of lights and darks in a design.

Green Beans

My husband specializes in growing fruits (peaches, plums, raspberries), and vegetables (green beans, cucumbers and eggplant this year).  We probably will not get any eggplant, but we had a bumper crop of beans and cukes.  I was disappointed a few weeks ago with the beans; we seemed to be at the end of their too short season.

The beans that I was picking were thick and barely edible.  I also noticed white beans in the pod.  Dummy, this is where beans that  vegetarians like me live on come from! 

 I threw a bunch of them into the crock pot with some dried white beans, soaked them and cooked them.  My daughter made a delicious soup with the white beans, vegetable stock, sweet potatoes, sauteed onions, and plum tomatoes.  Some day, perhaps next summer, I would like to make a soup with just the white beans from my garden and compare how they taste with the dried beans.  In this picture, I show a mature bean, opened up to reveal the white beans, and a young green bean, with no white beans yet.  They must grow quickly - for the green beans become inedible in just a few days.

Gardening is like child-rearing

Last night I gave some friends a garden tour.  As I walked, I  become uncomfortable with the state of things.  My garden is a mess!  Granted, it has been hot and humid (sweat was pouring off of my sunglasses as I worked outside yesterday), and I have been working full time, cutting out a lot of time for weeding.  Even the spots that I have been able to keep up look so so at best.

This picture shows a garden full of flaws - the asters in the center front need to be moved forward; the phlox is too dominant; the dianthus in front of the phlox are not blooming; the lavender just looks sad. 

If you can see beyond the flaws, there is tons of potential.  The lavender will grow and its silver-purple foliage will balance nicely with the blue-silver foliage of the festuca on the left.  The veronica on the right will most likely have a longer bloom time in its second year of residency, balancing the phlox.  Taller annuals can be placed in the middle back of the border, giving the border more color.

Raising kids can be like tending to a garden.  You can have a super-neat garden with lots of impatiens and hosta.  There is nothing wrong with that scheme; it can be quite soothing.

You can also think about kids the same way.  Like they were formed from a cookie press.  Once they are out, can walk and talk, you know who they are.  This one is gregarious; this one is serious; this one is an athlete.  The problem for me with this approach is that it ignores the big element of children growing, changing, evolving.  Somebody can be a klutz when they are young, and go on to become a decent tennis player when they are older.  They can work hard and conquer math.  The list goes on and on.

I do not despair when  I see the picture above.  I say to myself  "this doesn't look to good - it will look better next year."  That, for me, is the fun of gardening and the challenge and joy of  raising children to become happy, healthy, responsible adults.      

Perfection in the Garden

There is a garden that I drive by frequently that is almost perfect.  It has just the right amount of balance - tall grasses balance beautifully with shrubs; white clumps of impatiens are placed throughout the border, keeping your eye moving, not stuck.

There are two problems with this perfection, though.  One, it is static.  There has been no change for months, not even a stray weed appearing.  Second, I have never seen anyone in the garden, admiring it, or enjoying it, or working in it.  Its beauty and perfection are sad rather than joyful.

I much prefer a small garden that I often walk past. It is sometimes messy, but always boisterous.  Black eyed susan, purple coneflower, ornamental grasses co-exist with weeds.  I get the feeling that this owner sees something she loves and plants it -  whether it "goes" or not.  This is a happy, messy place - a place with  love.

I have included a picture of one of my own garden borders.  I have to move the Russian sage (that droopy, gray-purple flower in the center) to the back so that I can really see the deep green-blue herb with pink flowers in front of it (I wish I know the name - it might be a thyme).

You also see the white house behind the border, and often a car or two.

Clearly, this image is not magazine-ready.  It is a source of joy for me though - colorful, dynamic, full of life - the way a garden should be.  (We have planted three tiny arborvitae in the back - some day the white house won't be so obvious.)

Going on Vacation

My husband and I leave tomorrow for a much needed vacation to sizzling Washington, DC (to see our daughter), and the Jersey shore (Cape May, not Wildwood).  My computer is on my 3rd floor, which at 10 AM is a comfortable 90 degrees.  At 3 this afternoon, I plan to bake bread on the windowsill.

Before I leave, I want to show a gift from my husband.  We bought a cut-leaf maple several years ago and planted it in a shady part of the garden between two patios.  The tree was surrounded by a motley grouping of hosta and sweet woodruff.  A few years ago, my husband decided to re-arrange the hostas into groupings.  The yellow-green hostas are in the front of the tree - they were all over the place before he got to work.  The same with the sap green hostas to the left.  You could barely see the sweet woodruff.  What he achieved is an almost perfect design.  There is change of texture and color (from the maple down to the hostas, then finally down to the sweet woodruff).  There are big enough blocks of each plant or planting to satisfy the eye.  The beauty of the maple stands out because of this arrangement.  By the way, the sweet woodruff and hosta will spread.  However, the way this area is arranged it will not be a problem.  Each species is robust enough to stand up to its aggressive neighbor.

Here is another picture.  Unfortunately, my photographs do not do justice to the scene.

Finally, I need to add a few pictures of filipendula.  In my post on same, I blathered on and on about how gorgeous the pink of the flower is.  You may have been scratching your head at that one.  That photo was taken before the flower had really hit its stride.  Here are two more photos that do more justice to its glorious pink color.   

No Pictures Today, Folks

Here I go with my Losers.  I have no pictures, because these plants are no longer in my garden.  I had a beautiful watercolor of one of them, but I cannot find it.

My first loser is Hollyhock.  A truly old-fashioned flower - tall spikes with flowers that resemble roses - these flowers made me think of drinking lemonaid  while sitting on a wicker settee on my porch back in 1890.  They were a wonderfully evocative flower for me until they were beset by the inevitable RUST.  Even my internist at the time said "Hollyhock - oh yes, RUST."  Once the rust set in, they were awful (if my memory serves me right).

My second loser is perennial salvia.  Again, a very pretty flower, not unlike my favorite veronica  (only salvia is purple).  Once the flowers are gone, the plant degenerates into a lot of dead-looking stuff.  I suppose if you had a huge border you could tuck it in somewhere and let other plants grow over it - although nobody seems happy when crowded out.  If you really want a purple flower, go for the annual heliotrope.

Coreopsis is a good looking plant, and there are several different varieties with very different foliage - some needle-like (they aren't sharp, just look like needles), such as "moonbeam".  Others look more like daisies.  The problem with these plants is that grasses grow up easily around and through them.  This problem leads to my worst sin in gardening (besides symmetrical balance, not watering hydrangeas when it is really hot out,  an indiscriminate use of herbicides and pesticides, and of course, a willful ignorance of what works and doesn't work in the garden) - where was I?  Oh yes, the specific problem of grasses growing up through plants and the general problem of "confusing the eye".  Coreopsis is a really lovely plant, and it even looks OK after flowering - it has a good shape, it is well behaved (doesn't spread).  But, I have spent hours trying to yank all the grasses out from around these plants - never to succeed - even with people helping me.  Thus, the tragic problem of having a wonderful plant rejected because of its unruly neighbors.  I just cannot tolerate those grasses ruining my pleasure.  I actually get anxious when I see a messy garden - my eye cannot enjoy the flowers because it gets stuck on that part of the garden that it cannot figure out - "what the heck is going on over there?"

Monarda has a very pretty red or pink flower that butterflies love; once the flowers are gone, so are the butterflies, and the plant starts to mildew and look awful.  Plus, it spreads.  Just what everybody wants, spreading mildew.  (This is the plant that I have a watercolor of.  If I ever find it (probably when we move), I will post it.)