Image Courtesy of the Tacoma Art Museum

Painted around 1786, it’s a luminous, bucolic little scene- that holds its own next to J.M.W. Turner’s powerful and dramatic The Fifth Plague of Egypt from our permanent collection (recently returned from New Orleans Museum of Art). Having the Gainsborough from Tacoma to compare with paintings by Turner, Benjamin West, and Richard Wilson creates a new experience of the IMA’s holdings in late eighteenth-century English landscape painting. The painting will be here until June 2011.

The painting may look like it was painted directly from nature, but Gainsborough created his landscapes in the studio, working on them in the evenings after his portrait sitters had gone. He certainly used sketches made outdoors to help compose his paintings, but he also built little landscape tableaux in the studio to lay out his compositions. Discussing Gainsborough’s working practice, his rival Joshua Reynolds reported that “from the fields he brought into his painting-room stumps of trees, weeds, and animals of various kinds; and designed them, not from memory, but immediately from the objects. He even framed a kind of model from landscapes on his table; composed of broken stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking glass, which he magnified and improved into rocks, trees and water.” This process-oriented approach to landscape painting was typical of Gainsborough.  Another landscape by Gainsborough in the IMA’s permanent collection is an example of what the artist called a “varnished watercolor,” created in mixed media that includes white lead, ink, gouache, milk, and glue on several pieces of paper joined together and mounted on canvas.  The painting, on view in the balcony of the Clowes Pavilion, has the appearance of a drawing, thanks to the rapid execution and the flickering highlights.

Gainsborough may have made his name as a society portrait painter, but he found real joy in landscape painting. Because of his fame as a portraitist, it’s somewhat surprising to realize that Gainsborough could apparently be rather half-hearted about the business of portrait painting.  He himself admitted that he sometime found it tedious to crank out the portraits his clients demanded and wished that “the People with their damn’d Faces could but let me alone a little.”  In a letter he declared, “I’m sick of Portraits and wish very much to take my Viol de Gamba and walk off to some sweet Village when I can paint Landskips and enjoy the fag End of Life in quietness and ease.”

Gainsborough was a rather temperamental character who had very strong opinions about how his work should be displayed.  In fact, he eventually broke his ties with the Royal Academy after a dispute over how his paintings should be installed in their galleries—he preferred that they be hung higher on the wall so that the his broadly painted style could be fully appreciated. In a huff, he pulled his paintings from the Academy’s annual exhibition and began displaying his work in his studio, where he could hang his paintings as he pleased. The painting on loan from Tacoma is one of seven landscapes that Gainsborough exhibited in his London home, Schomberg House, in April of 1786.

As Irvin so beautifully illustrated last week, winter has arrived. I have had to break out my heavy coat and glove liners for working in the gardens.  At home, I’ve had to light the furnace and there have been “three-cat-nights.”  But if I see one more Snuggie or Dreamie commercial , I’ll scream.

Dreamie (via buydreamie.com)

Particularly as I am a traditionalist when it comes to warmth, sticking with moth-eaten wool blankets, like the all purpose flannel of one of my childhood heroes, Linus van Pelt.

Linus, by Charles M. Schulz (via fanpop)

"It just needs a little love!" (via JKönig)

He is of course correct, our gardens just want to be shown a little loving care.

There are several versions of horticultural “blankets” in the vegetable garden of the Tanner Orchard this winter.  The one I am most pleased with is our “cover crop” or “green manure.”  In mid September, after all the squash, carrots, beets, and onions were harvested, I spaded over those areas to more deeply incorporate the horse manure and compost applied in autumn 2008.  Then spread and lightly tilled a thin layer of new compost and did a dense broadcast seeding a mix of Austrian field peas and barley (Pisum sativum and Hordeum vulgare).  The pea will add nitrogen to the soil, and both help smother fall and spring sprouting weeds. Neither plant is hardy below 20F and will die down and be easy to till under  in spring, adding organic matter.

Green manure cover crop

The strawberries get about two inches of straw as a blanket against damage to buds and crowns by drying winds and temps below 20F.  The straw will be raked off in March, when nighttime temps are consistently out of the mid-20s.

To help the asparagus and rhubarb beds get pumped up during 2010, so that they will be ready for cuttings to eat – finally – in 2011, I’m following a recommendation form the ag extension office at Texas A&M University and applying 2 inches of rotted horse manure.  Rain and snowmelt will carry nutrients into the soil, and act as an insulating mulch protecting the shallow crowns of the rhubarb.

Rotted horse manure on asparagus and rhubarb

Finally, the remainder of the beds have been deeply spaded, to bury crop and weed debris.  Then 3 to 4 inches of leaf compost are being added, too be incorporated in the spring of 2010.

aaaaaaah! mmmm! all snug and comfy.

For more on green manure, check out Johnny’s Selected Seeds. No endorsement by the IMA Environmental and Historic Preservation Dept is implied.

Stone Mason, courtesy of old-picture.com

This fall the folks in Horticulture, led by Geoff Von Burg, proved once again they know more than plants by completing two important hardscape projects. The first came about when The Toby was renovated and the handicap emergency egress ramp had to be added into the existing landscape.  This left a 2-3 foot grade change along the path. To prevent erosion and save as many trees as possible a beautiful stacked limestone wall was installed. This project required Geoff’s considerable skills and the handy work of several other garden staff to cut and lay the stone.  The area will be planted in the spring and will make a nice transition between the building and the gardens.

The second project was in the historic Oldfields area of the IMA. When the Border Gardens were installed nearly 80 years ago the trees and shrubs were small and there was plenty of sun light thus allowing grass paths. As the gardens have matured the now large trees cast great amounts of shade – wonderful for strolling the gardens in summer but terrible for growing grass. Add to this mix some drainage problems and thankfully more foot traffic because of more visitors and things get worse. In the Southwest Border Garden some stones had been put in over 15 years ago. These were removed, a new sand base put down, and the stone re-laid. At the same time we extended the area covered by stone so nearly half the path is now paved.

Geoff's stone wall handywork

Lovely stone pathway

Where to get stone in this time of tight budgets? Do the green thing and recycle and reuse. The area on the backside of the museum known as Hilltop has been a depository for excess stone from past building expansions or construction projects. With an edict from above to get this area cleaned up it gave us a chance to use the limestone that once was clad to the outside of the building.  These large 3’x 6’slabs of limestone were cut done to various sizes and used for the path and the wall. We will also be improving paths in the Northeast Border Garden. Its paths are bluestone but again we are incorporating the reuse of materials when possible.

If you get a chance to wander the gardens take a look at the upgrades. It might even inspire you to add or improve an existing hardscape element to your garden. And you thought you would never use those pavers you pulled out of the neighbor’s trash. Here’s a little tribute to all those that helped on these two projects.

To be honest I am at a bit of a loss for ideas for this week’s blog. Well, not at a loss for ideas really, but at a loss for ideas that the muse can turn into a blog. The muse is being a rhymes-with-witch this week. Some weeks I can pound one of these out in a couple hours. Other weeks are like this one, three days off and on and I’m still not there. And the blog is hardly something I can afford to spend too many hours on. So it finally came to me to describe in a bit of detail this summer’s design for the circle bed in front of the Museum. I can’t let you into my head for the entire thought process however. It is a far too dangerous place. There are things in there that even I’m afraid of.

Each year as I begin designing my gardens I hope for some bit of inspiration from which to build a complete thought. There might be an individual plant that starts the design development. A desire to use a certain color might be the catalyst. I might even copy a design I have seen elsewhere. Probably not copy exactly but use many elements. A comment from someone may be the guide to a plant or plants that the idea forms around. Last year the truly fabulous Pam Stokes asked something and from that question came an entire design. The question? “Why don’t you ever plant those black elephant ears?” No reason. I just had not used them here at the IMA. They were a staple at home and in clients’ gardens.  So I decided there was my first plant.

Now, what would look hot with it? I had done containers and small designs using black and chartreuse foliage with red flowering plants. Ideally the flowering plants would also have black or chartreuse foliage. I had all the color elements needed for a design. Now all I had to do was decide which plants (making sure I had a mix of foliage textures) and how to arrange them.

For the black elephant ear I chose Colocasia esculenta ‘Black Runner’. It has a beautiful matte finish to the upper leaf surface (none of the green that often shows in other cultivars) and an equally beautiful silvery gray underside. Plus as the name suggests, it sends out lots of runners with new plants at the end. That sort of thing can kind of knot the whole look together. And the pups as we call them can be used to fill any unexpected gaps. What else could I use? Another plant with good black foliage is an ornamental hot pepper called ‘Black Pearl’ (Capsicum annuum). Even the fruit is jet black before it ripens to red. When the peppers turn red they appear to be lit from within. That adds some of the red I was wanting as well. The smaller leaves also give texture contrast to the large leaved plants in the design. Another good choice for black and red is Canna ‘Futurity Red’. This fairly short (3-4’) plant has good black color to the foliage and arrest-me-red flowers. Unfortunately there are a limited number of plants with true black foliage so for my other dark leaved plants I would have to accept some not quite true black leaves. A just introduced cockscomb (Celosia cristata) named ‘Chinatown’ had promise so I ordered seed. The foliage turned out to be more bronzy than ideal but had that look of stained glass with sun filtering through. The plants also had bright red plumes for flowers. For my tall center element the only plant I could think of was castor bean. They get huge and are available in a very deep burgundy. The palmate leaves would also contrast with the entire-margined plants.

What about my chartreuse elements? I had Xanthosoma ‘Lime Zinger’ and Colocasia ‘Elena’ both on hand. They would be the perfect color contrast and the perfect texture echo to the ‘Black Runner’. Salvia elegans ‘Golden Delicious’ would give me chartreuse foliage and red flowers come late summer. I used to want everything to start blooming as quickly as possible but over time have come to appreciate the later blooming plants. When the same plants have been blooming for months it’s nice to have a new element appear in the garden. What else? I had some variegated ginger. The Alpinia zerumbet ‘Variegata’ had long narrow pointed yellow and green striped leaves making it a texture echo and color contrast for the Canna ‘Futurity Red’.

I had all my major elements so I could start infilling. Some ‘Big Red’ coleus in red and yellow. Duranta ‘Lemon Leaf’ and Talinum ‘Kingwood Gold’ for chartreuse foliage. Musa zebrina with burgundy and green foliage. Alocasia plumbaea ‘Nigra’ with dark slate-green leaves and burgundy stems.  Some Colocasia macrorrhiza with plain green leaves but oh-so-tropical.  And then because my castor beans were so small I simply had to put something in the center to hold the space. I chose one my largest single stemmed bananas. It wasn’t what I had planned but it did the job. Adapt or die my little future designers.

Despite long weeks of slow growth I finally got a planting I really liked.

In fact one day I got so happy about the results I just felt like celebrating. First I checked to see if the coast was clear.

Sure enough, there went Chad on a death march to another exciting meeting in the big house. He’s so lucky he doesn’t have to work outside on sunny days with blue sky overhead and a breeze in the trees.  Then it was grab the pole and express myself. Gotta dance!

Personally I don’t think a date on the calendar brings bad luck. Frequently what appears to be bad luck is actually the result of bad judgment. When I rear ended the car in front of me many years ago it wasn’t bad luck. It was stupidity. Why did I take my foot off the brake at a red light? Maybe I was distracted by the Scotsman in the other bucket seat. When I don’t have a presentation ready and I have an article due and a blog to write – all on the same day, it isn’t bad luck. It’s procrastination (I almost said procastration. Entirely different. And as a general rule I am not but sometimes…..) We make much of our bad luck in my opinion. So on this day that is rife with superstition I’m looking at why this is a GOOD day.

I am alive. Therefore I can still change things that I don’t like about various aspects of my life and world. I have a job I love.

Part of the reason for that is I work with a group of people that in many ways are one of my many families. Which means moments of “Get out of my face or else!” and moments of “What would I do without you?” Just yesterday so many of them helped me get caught up with my own areas that I can take a breath now. And they are talented designers as well. I think Katie’s pots at the Lilly House with the beautiful foliage in coppers, bronzes, burgundies and golds accented with deep purple and orange flowers are going to be great. They are looking good already.

I’m anxious to see how everyone’s designs turnout as the season progresses. The tall plants in that image are Euphorbia cotinifolia, sometimes called tropical smokebush. Purple smokebush, Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’, can be found on the north side of the main parking lot.

The connection between the common and scientific names is simple. The Euphorbia cotinifolia has leaves similar to the leaves of the Cotinus. So we have the specific epithet of cotinifolia, cotini – cotinus and folia – foliage. Foliage like cotinus. See? Euphorbia foliage on the left, Cotinus on the right.

It’s so simple.

I have wonderful mix of friends. Freaks, geeks, and uniques.
I like my biological family. It’s easy to love family but harder to like them enough you actually are willing to spend time with them.

I am planting lots of plants that are new to me in one way or another. New cultivars of species I’ve grown before as well as species completely new to me. This is a new cultivar of Colocasia esculenta called ‘Elena’.

It’s the first chartreuse elephant ear from this species. I think it will be beautiful. It’s chartreuse, of course it will be beautiful. Learning feels sooooo good.

I can listen to 2008 album releases from Dolly Parton – Backwoods Barbie (Bless her, she is a Barbie doll!), Madonna – Hard Candy (Oh yea, I want some of your Turkish Delight), and Donna Summer – Crayons (The queen is back). Any Grammy winners there? I don’t give a crap. Music is about what touches your soul or makes your booty bounce.

And lastly but not leastly, this is my momma’s birthday. I’d be a no-account son if I didn’t mention her when my blog entry falls on the same day. She would have been 88. Now perhaps I would have been born regardless of her existence (some things are just meant to be you know) but no doubt my love of gardening was greatly influenced by her. I’m sure she thought I was crazy and going to hell at the very least. But she never said too much. All in all we did fine considering how differently we viewed so much in the world. And we could always talk plants. She and zinnias are forever connected in my mind.