InSPIREd Sunday & Mosaic Monday - Back on the Grid!

Hello Blogger Friends - this is my first posting since August 23rd!  I'm actually a bit nervous composing this post.  Almost like I've forgotten how to blog it has been so long.  After months of internet problems, I decided to get a new computer and went with an all-in-one with touchscreen and Windows 8.  I was just getting started with learning to navigate everything when things in my family fell apart.

Those of you who know me through Summit Musings and Facebook know that I--as do most of you--have primary caregiving responsibilities for older family members.  In my case, Diva Sister fell, spent time in the hospital and rehab during late August - September.  I just got her settled back in her apartment the end of September.  At the same time, my older brother in Tennessee went into the hospital where he received a devastating diagnosis of Stage 4 cancer.  He too was in and out of hospital and rehab and finally went home under hospice care the last of September.  Of course, I wanted to be with him on his final journey--while dealing with Diva Sister-- so was driving back and forth between Kentucky and Tennessee to help with his care.  Sadly, he completed his journey last Tuesday--at home where he wanted to be.

So, now I'm trying to get some normalcy back in my own life and that includes blogging!

This is the Convent of San Francesco in Tuscany, Italy.  I took these photos on a garden tour of Tuscany in 2000.  Look closely in the center of the photo and you'll see the campanile, or bell tower. The Convent is now a hotel and rehabilitation center for troubled boys and young men.  (click on the photos to enlarge)

In this mosaic you see the old stone paths and walkways around the convent.  Terra cotta urns and planters made locally from the red Tuscan clay line the paths and this single red rose climbs the convent walls.  A common "hen and chicks" grows between the stones.

Here you have a view of the side garden and notice that each window has its own planter of red roses.  A proud bronze peacock perches on the wall overlooking the well-tended garden.  The boys and young men work in the gardens and the hotel as part of their rehabilitation.  The discipline and responsibility--and hard work--was believed to help many turn their lives around.

Linking to InSPIREd Sunday and Mosaic Monday .

Mosaic and Macro 2 Monday - Woodland Garden

This naturalistic woodland garden can be seen from Wolf Pen Branch Road, an historic tree lined corridor in eastern Jefferson County in Kentucky.  This is a private garden that can easily be seen--and photographed--from the main road.  I was able to get these photos with only a minimum of trespassing!  The garden's main features include a charming wooden foot bridge across a stream, a small pond with several pieces of garden art setting along the banks, and all these different trees and ground cover making a lush green setting at this time of the year.

Here are some different views of the garden (click on the mosaic to enlarge):

views of the foot bridge

sculpture by the pond

 garden whimsy - a tree stump "man"

Clockwise: pond, stump sculpture, tree stump "men", bridge, child and stump sculpture

Linking to: Macro Monday 2 and Mosaic Monday .

Friday Fences - Garden 6 on the Old Louisville Garden Tour

A vine and mirror covered fence, copied after formal gardens in Europe. Mirrors reflect garden features and the house, making the space appear much larger.

Over the next few Fridays I'll be sharing a garden from the Old Louisville Hidden Treasures Garden Tour held last weekend in the St. James and Belgravia Courts area of historic Louisville. Of the ten gardens featured, all had wonderful tall privacy fences around these small gardens. Each fence was decorated with plants and art pieces that reflects the gardener's style. Yesterday I wrote an intro to the tour if you want to scroll back one post. I especially highlighted the old architecture of this Victorian neighborhood.

The back landing for Garden 6 had a young wisteria vine climbing up and over the pergola that shelters the first of many old Victorian doors, many with stained glass and grille work.

Small rock waterfall beside the house provides cooling sounds of running water when seated out in the garden.

Eye level window on the side of the house features lace curtains and Victorian grille work, the design a variation of the fleur-de-lis, symbol of Louisville.

Rudbeckia Goldstrum--black eyed Susan--along with lavender and Russian sage. Metal pot was nestled by the back door.

Pink "pom poms"--perhaps bachelor buttons?--by the little rock waterfall.

Another view of the mirrored fence with carefully chosen trees that won't outgrow the small area for a long time.

Each garden on the tour was marked with a "gardener" who owns and tends the garden. Garden 6 is only two years old. Amazing!

For those of you who came back for this second Friday Fence post, thank you especially. There are so many unique gardens and fences in this area of Old Louisville. I hope you won't grow tired of them too soon. For the remainder of July I'll try to restrain my enthusiasm and still show you these treasures. And, as always, visit the other Friday Fencery participants by checking out Janis' place at Life According to Jan and Jer .

English Gardens Travelogue, cont. - Chelsea Flower Show and Physic Garden

Picking up where I left off with tales of visiting some of the great public and private gardens around London and into southern England. After two days of doing the typical tourist things in London, the horticultural part of the trip began in earnest with an early morning visit to the internationally famous Chelsea Flower Show sponsored annually by the Royal Horticultural Society. Our tour guide was Nan Sinton, a transplanted Irishwoman and garden designer/plants woman with Horticulture Magazine out of Boston, Massachusetts.

When we arrived at the Chelsea Flower Show the crowds were at a minimum because this was the day that Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were to take their traditional stroll through the exhibits. Most of the plant exhibits were under the Grand Pavilion. Garden designers, horticultural societies, nurseries painstakingly planted and maintained exhibits of the flowers, shrubs, perennials and annuals that they grew for use in private and public gardens. Here's the Grand Pavilion entrance with its glorious clematis tower:

This tour was in 1993 and, looking back at some of the exhibits, you can see a naturalistic trend like this collection of shade plants growing in mossy banks:

Or this planting of ferns edged by delicate spring flowers and anchored by this vine covered bench, painted the black-green common in England's gardens and exteriors:

Another example of a mixed fern bed included gunnera, a dinosaur-sized plant. Legend has it that farmers' wives planted gunnera so that their young chicks could hide under the huge leaves to escape hawks:
Of course, it being May, the show was a riot of blooms from the bulb bed in photo above to the new David Austen roses, including this Ambridge Rose:
to these lupine "soldiers':

After the hubbub and excitement of the Chelsea Show it was a great relief and surprise to be able to walk just a short distance and find ourselves in another time and place. Tucked behind high walls in southern London we found the Physic Garden, a collection of over 5,000 plants dedicated to the science of healing. Founded in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London, the garden has always been planted with rare medicinal plants and herbs that can be used to treat all manner of human illnesses. Back in the late 1600s the garden gained a benefactor,Sir Hans Sloane, who set an annual rent of 5 pounds (approximately $10 U.S.) for the Physic Garden so long as it maintained its pharmaceutical mission, payable from his estate even to modern times! Here he guards his investment:

Keeping in mind that there are over 5,000 plants growing in a small city space, the garden beds were laid out geometrically with narrow grass walking paths between the beds--narrow enough so that the visitor could see the precise labeling of each plant:

Invasive plants such as mint or those that grow from underground runners were cleverly planted in clay, bottomless pots and then sunk in the ground:
This is a white and pink variety of the Seven Sister's Rose, which is several hundred years old:
This ancient wooden greenhouse protects tropical and sub-tropical plants that are too tender for London winters. It also houses a tea shop where we enjoyed a good cup of English tea and scone with clotted cream:Every bit of space was planted, including a waterway for reeds and, look closely for the ducks:

If you look over the wall you can see the busy London traffic rushing by. Amazing that the Physic Garden exists in all its medieval glory in the middle of a modern city:
After a day of total plant absorption, a few members of the tour group and I enjoyed a Greek dinner of souvla (grilled lamb and potato), Greek salad, and baklava. We ended the evening with a late night stroll through Piccadilly. Tomorrow morning we're on the bus early, traveling into East Sussex to see grand castles and estate gardens and natural forests where azaleas and rhododendrons were in full bloom. Check back next week for leg three of the English Gardens tour.

Floral Friday - Dogwood Winter

This past week we've been experiencing what is known as dogwood winter in the South. Some time between mid-April and mid-May when the dogwood trees are in full bloom we'll have winter-like weather where you're turning the furnace back on and looking for socks. A welcome reprieve, because in just a couple of weeks we go from glorious spring to sultry summer. And I begin to complain about the weather. . .

This morning I walked through the yard gathering these flowers that are at their peak of bloom and loving the cool dogwood winter weather. Claiming center of attention is pink dogwood. Can you believe the size of these blooms? Along the edge of the vase you see the lovely--almost like lacecap hydrangea--blooms of the doublefile viburnum. I love the deeply ridged, bold leaves of this shrub as well. And to finish out the color scheme, there are a few reddish-purple leaved branches of the Japanese bloodgood maple. This tree is magical when the sunlight sparkles on the leaves.

To complete this floral arrangement, notice the watercolor lily postcard on the stand. It's an original painting of "Lilium Nutmegger" from a postcard exchange friend in Helsinki, Finland. It's clear why this lily is called the nutmeg lily, isn't it?

Well, I hope you have lovely flowers blooming in your yard and a free weekend to enjoy them.

Taxing Monday

If you're looking for a Fun Monday posting here, sorry. There will no joy on Summit Musings on April 5. Instead, it's going to be Tax Monday. By the time Dancing with the Stars gets in full swing at 8:00 p.m. tomorrow night, I am determined to complete both federal and state income tax returns--without the help of my long time CPA. This is a rather daunting decision to go it alone, but I figure the time has come add the TurboTax notch to my technology belt. Everyone says the program is simple enough that a chimpanzee could use it--we'll see. . .


I will leave you with this wonderful sign of spring--the most beautiful fuchsia and lime colored hydrangeas from Ilnacullen Garden on Garinish Island, County Cork, Ireland--1998 garden tour.

Wish me the luck of the Irish with Tax Monday.

Ballymaloe Cookery School & Garden - County Cork, Ireland

So many Irish gardens to share, so little time left in March when we're still in an Irish frame of mind. We're still on the gardening tour in 1998 and still in County Cork, southern Ireland. After leaving Brian Cross' Lakemount, we headed into the country to check out the Ballymaloe Cookery School and Gardens near the picturesque seaside fishing village of Ballycotton.

Before going to Ireland I knew about Darina Allen--chef, cookbook author, gardener and director of the Ballymaloe Cookery School. I had seen her on television and read articles about her efforts to get people to eat seasonally, locally, and organically. What I remembered mostly was her enthusiasm for the simple foods of Ireland--starting with home gardens, local farms and farmer's markets and fresh seafood from the waters near Ballycotton. In her cookery school students first go to the gardens and orchards on the school grounds and to local farms for dairy and meats before even getting in the kitchen.
















I'm having a hard time organizing this post because there are the school and the gardens and Darina to discuss, so I'll just let you follow the tour that we took. Darina was waiting for us outside the cookery school student quarters on a rainy Irish morning when the tour bus pulled up. Thankfully, it wasn't raining hard enough to keep us out of the garden. I loved the rosy red brick of the student quarters and the bright primary colors of the room where students gathered to watch demonstrations of specific cooking techniques and recipes. Note the overhead mirror so everyone had a great view of the prep area.












Next, Darina led our small group of gardening enthusiasts(about 15 ppl from all over the U.S.) through a series of garden rooms--vegetable, herb, flower borders, soft fruits, orchards. Each "room" was enclosed by tall, precisely trimmed beech hedges.


The first "room" that we entered was this formal herb garden. The garden was planted with all manner of culinary and medicinal plants. The herbs were enclosed by low box-edged beds laid out in geometric shapes. Gravel paths allowed you to get close enough to savor the fragrant scents and textures of the herbs. Each plant was identified to make it easier for the cookery students to find the exact herb that they needed for a particular dish:

Next stop on the tour was the vegetable garden, planted as a potager or French style garden on a strict geometric pattern. This garden contained many exotic vegetables that I had never seen growing--globe artichoke, fennel and all manner of salad greens like arugula and rocket. The vegetables were arranged as precisely as a bed of tulips--and just as beautiful. The vegetable garden had several structures, a gazebo seating area and the tower for growing climbing plants like the purple hyacinth bean. Darina is in the red coat in these photos:

Everything at Ballymaloe is grown organically which is why you see netting protecting many of the beds. And I can't believe we're this far along on the tour without giving you a glimpse of the resident garden pooch. Meet Buddy sitting in a bed of rocket salad greens. I hate to nitpick, but if you look closely the rocket has some damaged leaves. Buddy must not be trained in insect control. . .

After leaving the vegetable garden we went outside the hedge walls to enjoy the long flower border. One end of the border was anchored by the Shell House, a fantastic work of art by artist Blot Kerr-Wilson in 1995. The Shell House is special because the work was commissioned by Darina's husband Tim Allen for Darina using sea shells collected on the Celtic Sea beaches near their home. The floor of the house features traditional Celtic symbols created with the shells:

And now we get to the high point of the tour. After seeing the gardens and orchards we followed Darina back to the cookery school kitchen where she showed us how to make some traditional Irish dishes using the fresh ingredients from the estate gardens. First Darina made Irish Soda Bread which is simplicity in a loaf: flour, buttermilk, butter leavened with baking soda. The soft dough is turned out on a floured board

and shaped into loaves with the traditional X cut in the top of the loaf. I also got a first lesson in making scones. Herbs were added to the same dough and then the dough was cut out in diamond shaped rolls, brushed with butter and sprinkled with more herbs before baking. We had these warm with a knob of yellow Irish butter--heavenly! Darina also made a sweet version of the bread by adding raisins and currants. Aptly named Spotted Dog:

Next we got to the main course--Irish Colcannon. Darina boiled Irish potatoes, called"red roosters" and then lightly steamed some fresh shredded cabbage. Next she mashed the potatoes with some Irish cream and butter. The mashed potatoes and cabbage were gently combined and then spooned out in individual bowls, topped with another knob of butter and a sprinkle of fresh chives. Darina also prepared Irish bacon to eat with the colcannon. Irish bacon is meatier--more like our ham or Canadian bacon--because it comes from the back of the pig, not the belly.

Since learning to make colcannon, I enjoy it regularly, not just on St. Patrick's Day. It's comfort food at its best. Perhaps the Irish equivalent of mac 'n cheese?

We ate this delicious meal in the Ballymaloe student kitchen. Then back on the bus for a rainy drive--and maybe a wee nap--around part of the Ring of Kerry to our next stop Bantry Bay and Illnacullin, a magnificent Italian garden that could only be reached only by a boat ride across the choppy Bantry Bay. Come back in a few days for yet another unique kind of Irish gardening.