Category: Uncategorized
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Animal Tracks in my Snow
As I wrote the headline, Shirley Temple’s voice singing “Animal Crackers in My Soup” rang in my head. Amazing. Where did that come from? Also amazing is Mark Wuredel’s photo from his Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) exhibition http://www.pem.org/exhibitions/117-imprints_photographs_by_mark_ruwedel “Imprints: Photographs by Mark Ruwedel” that I saw last week. Seeing it changed the way I look at landscape.…
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I’m looking forward to Spring
copyright 2010 Maria von Brincken The 60 degree weather yesterday was wonderful. In many years, a January or February thaw would be a great time to cut back large ornamental grasses. Not this year! The garden’s still buried under now snow mounds high above my head. This photo of the early blooming clematis ‘grandiflora’ helps me remember…
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Ice patterns
Ice pieces create amazing patterns. Especially, since the next day–there were none. And the day I arrived— the water area was solid white during that big snow storm last week.
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Walls of Snow cover my snow flowers!
When I took this photo, I could still see the low-growing foundation plants. Now walls of snow cover all the plants in the entry garden. However, you might have taller plants that capture and create snow flowers. So… Years ago, a passage in a novel described a snow festival in a Japanese village that celebrated “Snow Flowers”.…
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Snow, Snow, and more Snow
I’m glad I filled the feeders yesterday. Snow is falling thick and fast, but the birds are active. Thankfully, I can still be charmed by birds clustering and nudging each other at the bird seed dispensers! Meanwhile, inside I’m enjoying the newly opened–can you believe it–snow white!– Amarylis. Her name is ‘Alfresco’ . Beautiful isn’t it?
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Winter Patterns
Circular container, circular shaped plant (purple Kale), and a light layer of white crystals create this lovely pattern of light and dark. Even in winter, there a moments to enjoy along the journey from front door to car.
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Winter Bones
Painter Andrew Wyeth says “I prefer winter…when you feel the bone structure in the landscape–the loneliness of it–the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath –the whole story doesn’t show.” I snapped this photo before the last blizzard. It captures the many nuances of the word “bones”. We speak of the ‘bones of the landscape’ and we’re…
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snow enhancement
I didn’t have time to complete the winter theme for the deck containers. However, it’s amazing what a little “snow enhancement” does to an incomplete arrangement of rhododendron, winterberry, and magnolia branches. I had planned to gather some white pine and spruce to fill and finish the winter design. But alas….didn’t get done. Thank heavens for…
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Pattern and Texture found in Golden Gate Bridge Gardens
Golden Gate Bridge’s remarkably beautiful Southeast Side Gardens overlooking the bridge filled my eyes with plant combinations and filled my soul with textural details. (You know the phrase, “God is in the details”?) The leaf pattern of a plant unknown to me (it could native to South America, South Africa, or Europe’s Mediterranean Sea Area) fascinated and…
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Freezing here in New England while Roses in bloom in San Francisco
Visiting family in San Francisco over the weekend I took this image of the gorgeous park planting at the Golden Gate Bridge Park (not the official name–too jet lagged to look it up). Here in New England I return to making winter arrangements in containers, decorating for the holidays and trying to ignore the garden clean-up chores…