Wordless Wednesday: Garden Tour: Westwind Farm Studio

Cattails, (Typha). 

Beebalm, (Monarda).

Yoga studio. 

Lee Kelly sculpture. 

Fireweed, (Chemerion). 

Great way to end a garden tour... Thanks again!

Westwind Farm Studio

A Dream Garden: When I first met mine...

Antiquo jardín del Alcázar de Sevilla (Joaquín Sorolla), 1908.

Writers, dreamers, poets and artists have thought long and hard about gardens for centuries—and so have the more religious and practical among us. At least I imagine they have because I've studied such things, but I'm far from certain. So often nowadays I find that these real characters of history are just as real to me as any who are fictional. I guess I've grown and that fine line is no longer there. It all blends together. It's all a pastiche. 

I'm not religious myself, but I was raised in a Catholic family, went to Catholic school for 12 years, and I now consider myself Catholic by culture. That's how I ended up visiting España with my parents back in my early 20s. Dad wanted to go there for 10 days to take photos of churches and to visit the region of Estremadura. The three of us traveled south from Madrid during the month of December and I'd like to say that I remember a lot more than I do, but I spent most of my trip feeling unwell. 

At night my dreams were in Spanish. (Back then my Spanish-language fluency was much better, although that had never happened to me before and it felt strange—yes, foreign.) During the daytime, my mind wandered back-and-forth in the backseat. I felt between worlds.  

As we drove I thought a lot about what a cousin had recently told me concerning our Sicilian ancestry. He'd researched our family as part of his Master's thesis and had found that one of our earliest relatives was actually a Morisco from Spain. Fresh in my mind was the way my father had vehemently been unable to accept this discovery. Today he's softened and has accepted that it's likely true, but at that time, it dramatically altered how we saw ourselves.

Jardín de Carlos V en el Alcázar de Sevilla (Joaquín Sorolla), 1910.

Before I knew it we were in the beautiful city of Sevilla. We stayed there for a few nights and went to several museums, a Flamenco performance, we ate delicious food, and then one day, while walking around on my own, I stumbled upon the Alcázar of Seville. I went inside. 

The gardens of the Reales Alcázares de Sevilla changed me. I think I was transported there away from myself. They were—and still are—my dream gardens. It was there I felt so many new and wonderful things as I saw plants that seemed so unreal to me. I felt so alive and so awake. In many ways it felt more like home to me than my own home. I had never felt that way before and I haven't felt that way again.

To me that's what a dream garden is about and it's what we seek to make when we design gardens. We want what I can only describe as being a kind of religious experience. Like in meditation, we consciously count our breathing until we transcend and forget ourselves. We want gardens to give us that kind of rush too. It's deep. I know. It seems very much connected to something inside of us that's human. Many of us crave this feeling. It's spiritual whether we like to admit it or not. It's calming. It's soothing.

To Christians, it's a return to Eden, and to those who follow Islam, it's called Paradise. In Arabic the word is جنّة or Jannah—and that's short for garden. That day in Sevilla I felt like I'd visited Paradise. Ever since then, as a gardener, I've wanted to recreate that feeling.

That has been my dream.

(The Grow Write Guild is a creative writing club for people who garden. It's a series of bi-weekly writing prompts created by garden author and blogger Gayla Trail. I'm starting out late with the series but hope to catch up soon. It's just what this blogger needed for some summer fun.)

To Chelsea on Her 21st Birthday

Chelsea is my eldest niece and she loves nature. 

Me, well, I love this kid—and the other two girls too. 

Before I had a garden to help me bury the pains caused by a rare illness, I found a lot of happiness and joy in these three beautiful creatures. 

These 3 are a creative triple threat, but most of the time, they just "are".

We've seen many of the wonders of the Pacific Northwest together, and as a child, she and her younger sister Lindsey and their best friend Emily went all over the place with me—looking at plants, and other stuff. 

You know, just normal nature stuff like this.

If I never have a child, it's ok since I've always had Chelsea. 

And she likes to think she's my only child. 

 And when I see pictures like this I know we are related to one another.

 We've always got Emily too.

 Chelsea has taken our relationship quite seriously for many years. 

 Sometimes, she reminds me a lot of my dad. 

I guess that's where our quirks originated. 

My brother (her dad) is pretty goofy too. 

 She likes animation. I used to watch a lot of it with her. I guess I taught her to value certain things in life too. 

 I think she's a bit more colorful than I am at times, but that's not an issue. She is her own garden. 

At heart she loves animals and nature. 

When I graduated from college I was so proud she was there to see me succeed. 

My friend Brendan, the guy with his eyes shut, well he later acted as college art instructor to the young woman who became Chelsea's high school art instructor. 

I am happy she grew up around art. I sure wish I had! Although I wish Chelsea was making more art right now. She is a very talented artist. 

She grew up around plants too and this image is from a Seattle trip to attend the Northwest Flower & Garden Show. (Sorry about the quality of this photo. It was rescued.)

Here first tattoo was of the much more common orange California poppy. 

Taking the girls on road trips to CA was a great deal of fun for me. 

And here we have Emily and Chelsea again. They were helping me to load pavers into the wagon after a friend our family had passed away. We wanted to use the pavers in my garden. 

So often when I see the beauty in the small details of flowers I think of Chelsea. She sees even more beauty in the world than I. Too often my brain and words get in my way.

As girls, both Chelsea and her sister Lindsey liked to be a bit different.

Of course I encouraged this kind of thing.

When I worked at Frank Lloyd Wright's Gordon House it was wonderful to see them all during visits. They were just kids and they enjoyed the house and absorbed its design.

I am not so sure they liked his Marin County building as much, but they saw it. 

Chelsea loves her little sister Lindsey and I think this is one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken of her. 

Emily is a bird of a different feather. That's why we love her so much.

Like any aunt I prefer to think of them like this—tiptoeing through the tulips. 

Of course Chelsea had to shock us all a bit—especially her little sister. 

Not having had sisters it was a blessing to watch these little women grow.

They opened up a whole new world to me and I needed it. 

Chelsea will always be "so metal" when she rakes. 

She will always be a garden design sceptic. 

Happy Birthday Chelsea. 

Happy Birthday.

Happy. Happy.
Birthday.

Someday all three of you will be gardeners and I know it. It is in your blood on both sides. So get out there and keep doing what you do until you land and dig deeper to set down your own roots. Whatever you do, it will be beautiful like you. 

Garden Grief: Transitions

When we write we are always on the lookout for smooth transitions from one space on the page to another. We look for these movements in the writing of others, we look for these spaces in films, and we hear them in music. Transitions are all around us everyday and transitions are a way of life whether we like it or not.

PNCA: Pacific Northwest College of Art. 

This process appears over and over again throughout our lives: when we design our gardens, when we move across the country for a new job, or as in my current case, when we design our hopes and dreams into achievable goals. 

I've been moving more and more into re-designing my life again and I am looking at how to better transit in the days ahead to where I need to go. 

Floral Still (2012), Teresa Christiansen.

For me, I find that the space I return to again and again when I am in this frame of mind is the world of art. In it, I am able to find the peace and the calm I need to look deeper into my own grief. I am a happy person and art give me hope.

Enchanted Modernist (from the Botanical series), 2011, Kavin Buck. 

Since losing my garden is something I'm still grappling with, I have found that looking at works of floral art, or anything connected to the natural world in an artificial art gallery way, is enough to calm me down and this has helped me with my most recent decisions.

Together Forever (2012), Rachael Allen.

As I walked around the galleries at the art school, this piece was my favorite that evening. The idea of the clay mud and sticks appealed to me and it made me dig down deeper into myself and recall a time when I was inspired by love. 

Umatilla National Forest (2010), Melanie Potter.

Though not the best photo of this image, the forest being there surprised me a bit but I welcomed it. My lives overlapping on the walls of an art show made me feel the silence and warm sunshine on the bare shoulders I imagined having in my mind. Next summer I would be there.

It was nice to see artists returning to nature, and I know that this is always something that's done since it's between the city and the land that we find ourselves.

I'll be transiting soon, past my walls, past my garden, and I will be content to find myself. This journey I've been on will be coming full-circle and and within I think that the message will finally be that I am whole now, that I know myself better than I'd imagined, and that from hand will spring that which I will harvest in the future. 

Dear Gardeners; Happy 2013!

Here's to seeing more of the beauty in the world around us. 

Here's to creating more art and giving of ourselves to others. 

Here's to opening closed doors.

Here's to geminating the difficult seeds in our lives. 

Now get outside—even if it's only in your mind. 

Behold! An Artist's Studio has Grown in the Garden

For the last month I've been working very hard to make this studio possible for a good friend of mine. Years ago when I first moved into this house I'd wanted this space very badly to be a writing studio. After I went through that phase, I'd hoped to clean it out and use it for my Etsy businesses, but like many things in life, it just didn't quite work out as I'd hoped.

I can say now (with complete certainty) that cleaning out that space taught me a great deal about myself and my divorce. In each and every object I could see and feel a memory or two and I'd find myself taking mental steps backwards, revisiting these memories, going deeper into my former life, and this allowed me to review repeatedly both my own unhappiness and the many arguments which had occurred. 

This was an incredible experience to say the least, and in a strange way, I'm very happy it took place. 

Mona—the youngest of the 3 black cats—trying her hardest to remain as feral as possible until she can no longer take the wet cold. At that point she'll move into the basement to remain toasty warm all winter. 

The garage/studio is now free of all of those objects and I'm free of their bad memories. The process truly had me working through some intense emotions and for weeks I was physically exhausted by that process. I'm finished with that for now—except for some ongoing trash removal—but otherwise, I've found a great deal of closure. 

Begonia hemsleyana from Cistus Nursery.

For the first time in months, I finally feel like I'm getting closer to my new life and this is an exciting time for me. I've turned the corner and have finally moved past the chaos and am back outside again in the garden.

Rhododendron sinogrande amongst little friends.

I enter there and find that my garden sanctuary is now covered in mysterious autumn mists with a sprinkling of yellow and red leaves that are lifted and spun around by the crisp, sharp winds that punctuate the rays of tilted October sunbeams. 

.Aspidistra elatior.

Often these brisk breezes take me completely by surprise—especially when I am somewhere in the shade.

Great creeping Coleus that I hope to overwinter indoors as a houseplant. Why not!

It has always amazed me how differently I feel about the shade at this time of the year. Whereas it was my friend just a few weeks ago, now it's become the dark alley I don't want to be caught in for fear of some unknown impending danger. (OK, for me that might just be some foot cramps and purple fingers but those can be at least a tiny bit irritating.)

Hardy Cylamen. 

During the last few weeks of summer I allowed myself to fully enjoy my back garden with many friends—both new and old. I'd never done this before and will always remember the late night conversations drinking wine beneath the stars. Like many other gardeners I'd made the space to be lived in, to be enjoyed, to laugh in, and to grow in—that finally happened for me, so now, as I move on (and possibly away from here), I can do so knowing I grew in this place. 

That is what is important to me. I grew. They grew. My friends and I all grew together. It may take a village to raise a child, but I think that growing together as a group of individuals makes something much more vibrant and alive—much like a natural ecosystem. We all have our part to play and are necessary to one another.

I grew as a woman and as a person in my garden this year and it's thanks to the plants I planted which supported us all as people searching out in the dark for meaning and substance.

Lithops. 

Soon I will be posting more about the houseplants as they move indoors again.

As always, I'm returning more and more to my peacock sense of fashion.

Virginia Creeper, (Parthenocissus quinquefolia).

And this peacock gardener is enjoying the riot of autumn colors before they're gone. Sure, not everyone is a huge fan of Virginia Creeper but it does provide the most amazing fireworks-like finale in the garden.

I often sit out in the cold now with the little cat and she takes it all in with me.

The hummingbirds talk to us, and I am happy to have them since they also look at me through the back window in my music/plant/writing room on the mornings when I sit down to write.

More on my own creative indoor studio next time...

(And yes, more to come on indoor plant labor-i-tories soon!)