Tag: Beauty
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A Relaxed Human
Flowering Enkianthus ‘ Red Velvet’ frames the garden view Dwarf Iris in combination with Phlox subulata with Highbush Blueberry foliage behind Martha Beck reminds us that a relaxed human and a healthy human are one. (“The Easier Way to Diet” , The Oprah Magazine, June 2009). Further a healthy human stays trim effortlessly because the beastie brain doesn’t need…
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Enable Beauty
Muscari, dwarf iris, and dianthus budded foliage Found myself in waking consciousness muttering the words” enable beauty” one morning this week. The dream fragments that I woke with escape me now but do remember the words–a mantra of sorts. The mantra of one who gardens and designs landscapes professionally, I’m continually challenged to create gardens that delight, restore,and…
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The Theraputic Hour and a Memorable Visit to Central Park
Just in from gardening–I finally found time to do a little weeding, pruning dead stuff, and what ever. Just this last week I could actually distinguish live branches on the rose bushes and clematis. The heat wave dried up most of the early blooming daffodils and knocked out the dwarf tulips. So I found myself deadheading those. …
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Fairy Hang-out? Emerging Rodgersias (now named Astilboides tabularis) or Rodger’s Flowers
Emerging Rodgersia Its the round leaf variety that I grow and cherish in my garden–it will have very large round leaves as the photo taken last summer shows. I love it tucked into a shady damp corner of my garden. The flowers are enchanting aren’t they? I’d…
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Maples and Pulmonarias, Acers and Lungworts
The swamp maples red glow brighten our New England woodlands now–its Acer rubrum’s spring color reminiscent of autumn. But its the Acer japonicum ‘Folicifolium’ bud’s that hold my attention just now. Long a favorite tree I planted one in my garden last fall. I’d never seen it at this time of year and while I anticipate…
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Daily Tread, or better named, Daily Treat
Some days the trek through the garden is quick –a passing glance checking in everybody. (The garden and its plants feel like a community of friends so the reference to “everybody” seems accurate.) Something unexpected stops me in my tracks–often with an exclamation of joy! This morning’s discovery that yesterday’s 70 degree heat brought the dwarf…
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UCSC Student Garden, Alan Chadwick, the Organic Farm Movement and Me!
tour-chadwick-garden-may-07 Alan Chadwick with Students–That’s Me Hidden Behind the Two Girls Dawn’s light and shadow found me hunting for the place I remembered — one of wonder and inspiration—UCSC’s Student Garden. As an apprentice there I received a different kind of education, a corollary experience to my enrolled courses. Both educational experiences merged helping me…
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Connecting Deep Land Experiences and Planning to Daily Life
A recent conversation transported me to a forest landscape in Maine. An unique opportunity to advise a client during the pre-construction planning phase took me on a six hour car ride to deep woods and a barely passable road–it was late March and the snow a lingering shadow. The building site sloped to a noisy…
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Distant Sunrises
Ice Plant Blooming on Santa Cruz Coast (April) 2009 copyright Maria von Brincken Waking in darkness, the time of day some call the “hour of the wolf”– that time of legend when babies are born and people depart this world — my body programed to an east coast clock, I seized the gift of time offered before my scheduled meeting, and headed to the…
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Sunrise Musings
The dawn that woke me mid-week felt different. At some level of awareness I noticed that the sky’s color, the greener foliage of the distant white pine and hemlock, and the sound perception differed from the day before. Later I realized it was a relatively “warmer” morning than the twenty plus degrees today. The sun’s angle wakes…