I am not a big fan of winter as those of you who are regular readers know. But I do appreciate it. I like snow for instance, when it is not on the roads. I wouldn’t mind it on the roads if there were fewer other drivers sharing those roads. And this winter hasn’t really been all that bad. Colder than normal but not bitter. Plenty of snow but not the 50 inches my friend Avonell got in one week in Maryland. Gray days but enough sunny ones in between that you don’t forget what that heat-making yellow orb in the sky is. Not bad.

The heavy wet snow of a couple weeks back did create some problems with our junipers in front of the Lilly House. The narrow Juniperus virginiana ‘Hillspire’ just couldn’t handle that much weight on them. Two of them went pretty much flat.

What do you do? Get the snow load off, push them back up, and tie them in place. Will they recover? Hopefully. But the root ball raised up pretty high on one.

They are near the end of their landscape lifetime having grown to the point they are near the eaves of the house. The plants are getting out of scale. We need a couple years ideally for their replacements growing in the nursery to reach their proper size. If the replacements are too short they look just as ridiculous as the originals being too tall.

Switch grass ( Panicum virgatum)is one of our best native grasses for the landscape. Most years they stay upright all winter even with snow, rain, and wind. Not so much this year. Here’s some of the ‘Dallas Blues’ along 38th street.

Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ ( feather reed grass) is one of the best landscape grasses period. I like its narrow upright form demonstrated by only a few of the plants in this bed inside the 38th street entrance.

But something interesting that happened in that same snow involved the hydrangeas, in particular H. paniculata and arborescens. I thought the dried flower heads would collect so much snow they would break off. Not true. Here is H. paniculata ‘Tardiva’ followed by H. arborescens ssp. radiata ‘Samantha’, both still holding their heads high.

Hardscapes look good in snow as a rule. Here the beautiful stonework of the Overlook is accented with a layer of soft white.

And these three containers on the Overlook patio make me think of store-bought cupcakes with a heavy layer of frosting or a collection of pies with a thick layer of fluffy meringue (everything goes back to food it seems).

This bright spot in the Northeast Border Garden is my favorite twig dogwood, Cornus sanguiniea ‘Midwinter Fire. I’m not bothered by winter at all when viewing something this beautiful.

So enjoy these winter days as best you can. They don’t actually last forever. We horticulturists and gardeners know spring will return and once again we will be flat out busy with our plants from dawn to dusk.

Happy New Year! 2010 is shaping up to be a year filled with greatness. As I’ve been working on all of the marketing plans over the last few months, I’ve gotten really fired up about the new year at the IMA. Here are some of the things that I’m most looking forward to (in no particular order):

1. So You Think You Can Blog? – Want to write for the IMA? We’re taking applications now. Deadline is January 15. Check it out.
2. @imamuseum – Yep, we’re on Twitter. We’re starting out slow, but I guarantee there will be some exciting stuff along the way. Around here, it’s all an experiment, so you never know what you’ll find if you follow us.
3. IMA-produced Content Starring YOU – From the makers of ArtBabble, TAP: Sacred Spain, and all things cool at the IMA, comes completely in-house produced television and radio advertising. And the best part – we want you to be in them. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for a call for participation in IMA-produced spots.
4. The launch of the new IMA Web site (coming soon!) – The IMA’s brilliant Web team has been working on this for a long time. It’s gonna be amazing!
5. Touch of Evil introduced by Peter Bogdanovich – I love old movies. I adore Orson Welles. Mark this on your calendar as  date night at The Toby.
6. Oldfields Picnics – When the weather gets warm this spring and the flowers begin to bloom on Oldfields estate, I’m looking forward to grabbing lunch at Nourish Café and heading to a bench for a mini break during the work day. I may even take the bocce ball set that I keep in my office and challenge a few passersby (true story).
7. Summer Nights – The schedule is still top secret, but I’ve seen the proposed movies, and let me tell you, this might be the best summer yet.
8. Body Unbound: Contemporary Couture from the IMA’s Collection – I love the IMA’s Textile and Fashion Arts Collection. This exhibition will feature some beautiful, sexy, and iconic pieces created from 1960-2007. Jean-Paul Gaultier and Gianni Versace? Yes, please!
9. 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park – We’ve been working and talking about it for years and now it is only 6 months away. Mark your calendar for June 20 when 100 Acres will open to the public. I’m pretty sure this is going to blow you away.
10. Unexpected Discoveries in the Galleries – Every time I go into the galleries, I discover something new. This is partly due to the fact that the collections often rotate on display and partly due to the fact that every day I have a different perspective that helps me to see new things. Whatever the reason, I’ll be spending a lot of time in the permanent collection in 2010 searching for new favorites.

Ooooo, the blog is getting a little too deep and self-consciously artsy.

Who said something about art being either plagiarism or genius?  In the horticulture trade, one of the first things a gardener learns is to borrow and adapt what others do. A good gardener  gives proper credit when told, “That is a nice plant combination.”  So, John Teramoto, Marty Krause, Annette Schlagenhauff (am I forgetting anyone?) – thank you for the exhibit Lay of the Land.

The exhibit combining Asian and Western art prints and poetry, set me to thinking about how often images in the galleries, or music and poetry cause me to recall some beautiful place I’ve experienced.  Nice memories and feelings …. trying to capture the bliss of the moment.

So as Autumn brings another season to a close, I offer some images and poems, with apologies to the artists,  that reminded this gardener of the promise and beauty of Spring as compensation for labors…

Work
The corn is baking in blue smoke,
Pickled tomato is piled ready on my plate,
And the chrysocolla of a young cedar branch is close.
Yet the breakfast that should be calm and enjoyable
makes me uneasy.
I’m worried about the manure I threw yesterday
From the horsecart and left on the slope.
Kenji Miyazawa 1896-1933

Manure and compost on vegetable garden at Oldfields

“Peasants Going to Work, by Jean F. Millet (IMA 40.65)”

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Ah. It is spring,
Great spring it is now.
Great, great spring.
Ah, great –
Matsuo Basho 1644-1694

Apple blossom in April 2009, Gene and Rosemary Tanner Orchard, Oldfields at the IMA. Photograph by Sue Arnold

Check out the IMA’s searchable database of the art collection any time.

Check out the flowers, and maybe some leftover
manure,  dawn to dusk on our 152 acres, or right where you live.

Lilly House at the IMA

Interior view of Lilly House

The Miller House and Garden crept into my awareness at some time while Oldfields had my full attention.  I don’t remember when I first learned of it, but I remember distinctly two things about the impression I had.  It was an extraordinarily beautiful and important property, and it was difficult to gain access to it.  Visiting lecturers or groups might sometimes make requests to see the property, but it was rare that we could accommodate them.  The Miller House and Garden seemed remote and mysterious.  In the meantime, I still had plenty to occupy me with Oldfields.  I rarely thought about the home in Columbus.

When I first saw the Miller House and Garden in April of 2007, the situation was entirely different from seeing Oldfields in 2000.  The Lilly family had been gone from Oldfields for over 30 years, during which the IMA changed and adapted its use of the house, the interiors drifting away from their domestic appearance all the while.  By 2000, it conveyed little impression of being a home.  By contrast, Mrs. Miller was still living in her home when I visited for the first time.  Having been the Millers’ home for almost exactly 50 years at that time, it possessed all the communicative power that came from being the undisturbed repository of family possessions.  A sizeable group made the visit that day, so the conditions for viewing were less than ideal.  Even with the distractions of people milling about and chattering, the house’s impact was striking.  Striking for the qualities of light and space, for the luxurious materials modestly used, for the kinds of objects in the house, but perhaps most of all for the owners’ personalities that the objects hinted at.

At Miller House, looking over floor plans

The landscape, designed by Dan Kiley, was another revelation.   Nothing I had seen prepared me for it, for its beautifully direct use of formal design elements – line, mass, and color – and for its elegant contrasts between the most basic of landscape elements:  light and shade, stone and turf, enclosure and openness, higher and lower elevation, close and distant perspectives.

Miller House in Columbus, IN

Two years later, I am still processing my response the property.  I’m not sure how much the property is continuing to reveal itself to me and how much may be due to a growing ability to apprehend and appreciate.  Now we are planning for the approach we will take to interpret the Miller House and Garden.  Once again, an experience to savor.

It’s always a bit of a mad dash to do the change-outs. As soon as that is done the dahlias and other summer blooming bulbs need to get in the ground and then we just wait for the 80+ degree temperatures (though I prefer 72 with a gentle breeze).

In my areas it was not a great spring for pansies. I think perhaps it was a bit too wet. They just refused to grow much so never filled in completely and produced fewer blooms. From a distance they looked fine. Up close they looked puny. The little birds that have nested in the pansies around the Sutphin Fountain for the last two years never even bothered to show up this year.

Everything else Spring-inclined had a good season – perennials, shrubs, trees, bulbs. Sorry about those little tulips in the Formal garden Patty. Damn squirrels. The white fringetree, Chionanthus virginicus, looked great this week.

This is why they are called white fringetree.

Not sure what they will be by the week-end with all the rain. This native makes a great small tree with year round interest – flowers now followed by bold leaves that turn yellow in the fall, then a nice shape to the branching structure for winter. These in the Southwest Border Garden are part of the original plantings at Oldfields.

Also looking great this week was the double-file viburnum, Viburnum plicatum forma tomentosum. This plant has great horizontal branching all the more evident when in full bloom.

I think it could be pruned into a super patio tree. You can see how the double row of blossoms, accompanied by a double row of leaves and followed by a double row of berries gave it the name double-file.

The double flowered form of this plant is the Japanese snowball viburnum or Viburnum plicatum forma plicatum. It was one of those rare instances where the sterile form of the plant was found first so when they found the fertile form the species already had a name so… I can’t go into the explanation right now. I also won’t go into the details of the difference between forma, variety, and subspecies today. But all the same there will be a test next Thursday so you better look it up on your own.

We will be hosting the Region III meeting of the Garden Writers Association (GWA) this Friday and Saturday with tours here, plus Garfield Park and local private gardens. Our publication Seasons won a Silver Award of Achievement for Overall Product – Newsletter  which makes us eligible for the Gold Award for Best Product to be given at the national GWA meeting in September. Our very own Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp, IMA Horticulture Society director and the Hoosier Gardener, is a National Director of GWA.  I’m sure you have read her articles in the Indy Star and many know she is editor of Indiana Living Green magazine.

Speaking of green, have you checked out Isabella Rosellini and Green Porno on the Sundance channel? The beautiful and funny Isabella presented first rate scientific information on the sex lives of insects last season and this season is covering marine animals. I absolutely love the costumes and sets. Incredible. And Isabella. What can I say? Maybe she will do the plants next? Come on Isabella, let’s do it.

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.

Their reasoning was sound. At the time, country estates were all the rage among wealthy Americans, who yearned to escape the noise and pollution of the cities—noise and pollution often created by the very manufacturing plants that had made them wealthy in the first place. And Landon and Boyd’s property at the intersection of Michigan and Maple Roads was both remote enough to qualify as countryside, yet near enough to the city to make commuting easy. (The Interurban rail line ran past on the western edge of the property.) Maple Road, which we know today as 38th St., ended at the White River—there was no bridge at that time.

While Boyd subdivided his half of the property into parcels fit for multiple mini-estates, Landon turned his half into a single estate he dubbed Oldfields. (At the time, wheat fields surrounded the property, which itself had been partially used as farmland before Landon and Boyd bought it.) The two partners then incorporated their new development as an actual town, which they named Woodstock, the same name they gave to the country club they created on the other side of Maple Road (now 38th St.) as an inducement to prospective residents. The Town of Woodstock, as the community was formally known, took awhile to develop; by the time Landon and Boyd moved into their newly built mansions, only one other person had done the same—Dr. Lafayette Page. Most of the other lots remained undeveloped until the 1940s and early ‘50s—at its peak, the town consisted of only nine houses.

In 1932, J.K. Lilly, Jr. bought Oldfields from Landon and extensively remodeled the mansion. Six years later, he built a separate residence called Newfield for his son J.K. Lilly III and his new wife, as well as building a recreation building known as The Playhouse, which had indoor and outdoor swimming pools and a tennis court.

By all accounts, in its heyday the town was a lively place to live, with town meetings and annual Christmas party taking place at Boyd’s former residence, which his daughter Helen and her husband, Judge William Higgins occupied. But the town came to an end in the early 1960s, when J.K. Lilly, Jr. started buying out his neighbors, offering much more than market prices to convince them to sell. Lilly then tore down all of the houses he bought, expanding his estate to encompass the entire Landon-Boyd property.

With one exception. In 1942, Dr. Wayne and Dorothy Ritter bought half a lot from Judge Higgins (who owned two lots in addition to the one his home was on) and built a two-story brick house facing 38th Street. When Lilly began buying the houses in Woodstock, the Ritters refused to sell. Today their former residence is the only Woodstock home left standing aside from the Lilly house and Newfield.

Speaking of which, after the IMA moved to the former Lilly estate—erecting its first building, Krannert Pavilion, on the site of the Boyd-Higgins home—Newfield housed the Museum Alliance’s Better Than New Shop (which closed in 2007), while The Playhouse became the Garden on the Green restaurant. Today, Newfield awaits its next incarnation, while the former recreation building is home to the Horticultural Society’s library. Ironically, the most lasting aspect of the former Town of Woodstock is the country club with which it shared a name—it’s still across the street, as it has been since Landon and Boyd were developing their town on the outskirts of town.

You can learn much more about what happened before and since the IMA’s move to Oldfields when Every Way Possible, a newly published history of the Museum, hits the shelves of The IMA Store in December in celebration of the IMA’s 125th anniversary.

It is certainly a bit hard to believe I am writing for the IMA Blog. My more technology savvy friends are slightly shocked. I read Meg’s entry about email. Junior high? Lord have mercy. When I was in junior high I don’t think our school owned a computer. So let’s just say I am not up on cutting edge technology. And that’s okay. My purpose is to bring you info on the horticulture side of the IMA, the truly green side, the natural world. I hope to keep you updated on happenings in our own backyard, occasionally the world’s backyard, and once in awhile my backyard. So here we go, one giant blog leap for horticulturekind.

Spring is such a fickle wench. On a Sunday she’s all pouty lips and swaying hips with warm moist breezes blowing sweet promises of swelling buds and rising sap. By Tuesday she’s throwing ice water on my horticultural genitals. Such is our relationship. I’ve been disappointed before. I’ve been hurt much more before – sometimes instead of ice water you get an army boot. Lucky me. Last year we had 80 degree days followed by a week in the 20’s. Didn’t the plants just love that? All those tender soft green tree leaves turned to brown crispy dust like you find in the bottom of the toaster. Perennials, awake early from the long Indiana winter, were all turgid from the heat-accelerated lusty growth. Then they were a flaccid brown heap on the ground in a chlorophyll cesspool. Such is the life of a Horticulturist or gardener. You better learn to roll with the punches. Fortunately there are many plants that tolerate Spring’s erratic weather swings and provide some much needed bloom in late winter and early spring. I am amazed some times how coming across some little bloom at this time of year thrills me so. All these years and the multiple times the same plant has flowered and still it gets me. I want to mention just a few of the ones you are likely to come across. And fair warning, I use scientific names.

The witchhazels (Hamamelis sp.) start in February, sometimes January. Their spidery yellow, orange, and red flowers are often fragrant as well. They do a bit of performance art based on the weather. On cold cloudy days the petals remain curled tightly. On a sunny or warm day they unfurl like miniature strips of crepe paper. It’s a delight to find them on a cold sunny winter day when walking through the gardens.

Strolling through Oldfields will allow one to chance upon the Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis).

I remember one February afternoon lying on the dried gray and tan leaves studying the small emerald tipped petals when much to my surprise a bee come to visit it as well. It was one of those “Where the hell did that come from?” moments. The hellebores likewise bloom this time of year. Helleborus x hybridus blooms white and multiple shades of pink most of the time.

However, reds, yellows, apricots and even blacks are available. Helleborus foetidus (stinking or bear’s foot hellebore) has stalks of chartreuse blooms a foot high and more.

Striking foliage makes it a great year round plant but I love the way some blooms wear a touch of red lipstick.

All of these are easy to grow in our little corner of mid-America.

As I finish this posting the trees and shrubs are encased in a truly beautiful coating of ice. They are not hurt. Fortunately we didn’t get too much here. It won’t be long before they start pushing new growth. I hope Mother Nature doesn’t bitch-slap them back to January.