Garden Gawk: Saxeville

Garden Gawk: Public Spaces in the City of Wautoma

Actually, this is the widest space pictured here and part of a commercial space pf a business which sells a few potted plans, pots, statues, antiques, etc. catering to tourists.

I'm always gawking at gardens.  Maybe I'm a garden stalker.  Sometimes I take pictures.  I usually don't even get out of the car.  Sometimes I don't even stop the car. Thought I'd share.  You might find some images inspiring, weird, or wonder, "what is going on there?".  I have THAT thought a lot.

Newspaper box as garden art?  I will qualify this as being the backside of a planting that is adjacent to a municipal parking lot.

Someday (?) this will look pulled together...

This hellstrip is the narrowest piece of "hell" I've ever seen.  It is a two foot wide space between two parking lots reclaimed by the Waushara County Master Gardeners.

The sign should say Wetlands "Parking", as the space around the sign is just about the whole park.

This rustic metal sculpture is a good value-added...

But they should have stopped right there.  The bo-dingly value-added butterfly on a wire just adds that trash garden aspect too prevalent here in Waushara County.

I suppose this was the best they could do, hiding these utilities on the back of a park sign, again it is more a "parking sign".

Another hellstrip

If the gardeners of the public space are lucky they have a fence as a backdrop...

...all too often it is an open space between parking space and street.

None of these spaces is ever watered.  The plants included tend to be drought tolerant perennials and natives.  I suppose it is better than expecting a tree to survive in the space allowed; something you see a lot of in larger cities in Wisconsin.  Did you know the life expectancy of a city street tree is just seven years?

Red Raspberries

Second colander from my tiny clump of raspberry brambles, just 6' by 6'.  Yay!

Cherry Picking

I had never done it, picked cherries in Door County. 

Tart cherries

So bucolic

These step ladders are great.  So stable!

We picked our cherries at Cherry Lane Orchard.  They didn't pay me to blog about it, though.  They have a website, but I doubt they know about blogging.  They kept sales records in a handwritten sales ledger.

Sorry out of focus!  I don't usually have any sort of vista at which to aim my camera, but you get the idea.  While I was driving, my mother kept referring to the Bay of Green Bay as the ocean,  we're very (pen)insular here!

I had a great aunt who died at 16, having contracted typhus in the 1920s cherry picking in Door County.  I brought my own water, just in case.  Her last sister, my great aunt Lucille, died just this last year.  I think Lucille was 105, lived on her own and kept a shot gun by the door.  Always advised me to get a dog rather than additional husbands; dogs are more "reliable", even if they don't last quite so long.  (I think she buried six-- husbands.  I think she was talking about dogs' lifespans, however.)

 
My mother and I had a great day in Door County, ate at a Kristi's Pub, picked cherries, saw the King of the Garden Gnomes and took in the Door Garden run by the Master gardeners of Door County, which is a very talented bunch of people.  I'll do a separate post on that, but the bench from this post was at the Door Garden on the Door County Agricultural Research Station.

Incredibly, Unbelieveably, Beautifully

 This garden bench dedicated to Emma at the Garden Door Agricultural Research Station in Door County was...

From the Garden: Pictures

Peacock gladiola

"Rejected" daylily

Phlox (not sure which, maybe Laura or Bright Eyes)

Liatris with that daylily bought in a drive-by sale

After last summer's drought and heat the arborvitae that survive are putting up the seed pods, as are the spruce and pine.  In my unofficial tally, from the Fox Valley to Madison, about half the established arborvitae, pines, and spruce died or are in the process.

Fuschia, amaranth 'Green Love', and a dark sport of 'Tilt A Whirl' coleus, back-lit

I continue to find out wonderful things about this pagoda dogwood 'Golden Shadows'. Who knew it had such beautifully colored fruit, similar to the invasive porcelain vine, but bird and native species friendly.  The ageratum is just photo-bombing the dogwood!

The long border gets better and better!

White four o' clock

Purple-tinged 'Summer Beauty' allium and False Japanese Red Cypress 'Boulevard'

Having a garden can bring a lot of things into your life.  The artistic impulse to "frame the shot" and capture a bit of its beauty is one. 

Please enjoy!

On Things Seen and Unseen

Shimmering, it seemed alive...

At first the erratic glow seemed other worldly...

Maybe a dimensional shift, a gap in the fabric of the universe...

The refraction of light in just such a way off my brimming bowl as I watered my potted plants...

...and the dapple of shade mixing with the light.  I had never experienced in quite this way in this location.  It was unexpected, unplanned, and treasured.  A few moments of the refracting light having journeyed over eight light minutes through space to the earth as it  reached a peculiar point in the summer sky, playing tag with the neighboring house's ridge line and leaves moving slightly in the wind.

 Maybe...the light is alive, and on a joy ride...