Out of the Box and into the Fire

Class completed and wonders never cease.....

Joanne the welder

Yes, I have a new medium; steel.

This summer I took the Introduction to Welding and Creative Metalwork class at South Puget Sound Community College. It was a hot summer intensified by time behind the torch, but what fun! The ten week class just ended and I will definitely miss the time spent under fire. I was allowed to dumpster dive in the scrap metal pile at a local company. The pieces I found said, "wings and then, dragonfly." So with the help of the class instructors, Ken, Mary, and Dave, I created this sculpture which now lives in my garden.

I found the eyes at a antique store at the Oregon Coast; they are painted knobs for cabinets.

Mary demonstrated how to use the forge and made a calle lily. I decided to make a few for yard art. It was not as easy as Mary made it look. I really like the way the leaves turned out.

I like the look of the steel, but am toying with painting the lillies white to make them stand out more. What do you think?

Sunday Sketches

We are so in the throws of summer and I am loving it! Thus, I am posting early as I am off on another hiking adventure this time in the Olympics.

My gardens are going wild. I have lots of beautiful flowers for painting subject matter. I keep going back and forth with watercolor and oil paint.....

Today's sketch is a gardener's still life.

View more Sunday Sketchers

Monet in New York

If you are not able to travel to Giverny, France to experience the world famous gardens of Claude Monet, you can visit New York. In the Bronx over the next several months, the New York Botanical Garden will offer a taste of Monet’s indisputably radiant living masterpiece — a riotous display of color, plant variety and landscape design.



The exhibition, which runs through Oct. 21, will feature a seasonally changing display of flora, currently a spring kaleidoscope of poppies, roses, foxgloves, irises and delphiniums inside the botanical garden’s Enid A. Haupt Conservancy. It also includes two scarcely seen garden-inspired paintings, Monet’s wooden palette, rare photos of Monet in his garden and 30 photographs of Giverny by Elizabeth Murray, who has recorded Monet’s flower oasis for 25 years. These are all located at the botanical garden’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library.

A facade of Monet’s pink stucco house with its bright green shutters — a historically accurate replica by Tony Award-winning set designer Scott Park — marks the start of the exhibition. From there, visitors are led down the Grand Allee, a shorter recreation of Monet’s rose-covered trellis pathway lined on both sides with thick beds of vibrant flowers. The path opens up to a replica of his famous Japanese footbridge arching over a water lily pool encircled by willow trees and flowering shrubs.

In the courtyard outside the Victorian greenhouse, two immense water basins contain a plethora of water lilies.

Claude Monet, artist and avid gardener, lead the Impressionist movement and revolutionized painting in the 1870s.

The story is that Claude Monet noticed the village of Giverny while looking out of a train window. He made up his mind to move there and rented a house and the area surrounding it. In 1890 he had enough money to buy the house and land outright and set out to create the magnificent gardens he wanted to paint.

Talk about the power of imagination!

Full of COLOR

I am absolutely enjoying the unfolding of color in my yard this year after three years of labor. Believe it or not, the Rhodies are the only remnants of what was a bare front yard.

Here are a few photos of what I get to see everyday!

Giant Dahlias

I will admit that I was a bit lost in Tacoma, Washington, when the Point Defiance Park sign appeared before me. Having taken a detour from the waterfront park, it was a welcome surprise.

Point Defiance Park is 702 acres of natural forest, saltwater beaches, awesome views and spectacular gardens. The rose garden caught my attention immediately upon entering the park.

After putting my nose in several roses, the huge dahlias in the Dahlia Trial Garden caught my eye.

I learned that the Dahlia Trial Garden at the Point Defiance Park is one of the largest official trial gardens in the US and Canada. The Dahlia Trial Garden is sponsored and maintained in cooperation with the Washington Dahlia Society. The garden is comprised of plants grown from tubers sent by dahlia growers from throughout America, Canada, England, New Zealand and Australia. Each year, the dahlias are scored by official judges of the American Dahlia Society. Dahlias receiving between 85 and 100 points are included in the annual classification book. They are then named and become available to the general public. Blooms begin in July, but August is the best time to view the garden in full bloom, when plants reach heights higher than 6 feet.

I took a few photos......










This one was the monster of the bunch

Leaf Trellis

When I decide to enter an art show, one criteria is that the show is located in a place I like to visit or would like to visit. The bonus when one of my paintings is accepted.....I get to plan an adventure.

In May one of my watercolor paintings was accepted into the Sequim Art Show. When I dropped off the watercolor painting, my friend Shelley and I hiked the Dungeoness Spit to the light house. On the return trip, my friend Janet and I stopped at the Whitney Gardens and Nursery, an art show, the Blue Whole Gallery, the Native Art Gallery, and my favorite place "Over The Fence".

"Over The Fence" is a unique garden store in the heart of Sequim, Washington. What a fun place to visit and get ideas for the home and garden. On this adventure, I saw two leaf trellises which would look outstanding as landscape art. They came home with me!


Closer view


With the dinosaur egg


Thinking about adding some flowers around the base....

Rhodys In Abundance

Sunday I traveled with my friend, Janet, to Sequim to catch the last day of the Sequim Art Show and to pick up my watercolor painting. Janet suggested we stop at the rhododendron garden on our way.

I had never been to Whitney Gardens & Nursery in Brinnon, Washington, and what a RARE TREAT. Whitney Gardens is at the foot of the Olympic Mountains and has the most beautiful array of rhododendron hybrids and species in the Northwest nestled among rare trees and ponds. Also in abundance are azaleas, magnolias, maples, conifers, kalmias, camellias, perennials, trees, shrubs and ground cover. It is definitely a breathtaking experience especially when the rhodys are in full bloom as we experienced.

My favorite was this Rhody tree whose name I have misplaced.


The small greenhouses of rhododendrons were organized by colors and one greenhouse had fragrant varieties.


I especially like the colors and rows of maples.

Tea Time

Last Saturday I went to the 4th annual Designing Devas Garden Tour. I was set to visit Cathy Johnson's Dandelion Gardens because I met her and saw her garden art creations at Olympia Country and Golf Club "Spring Fling".

No way is her garden filled with dandelions! She has acres of gorgeous landscaped gardens overlooking St. Clair Lake. I was so glad I made the journey out to see it and thankful that the day was sunny and beautiful, too.

At the art show, I fell in love with a tea cup planter but for some unknown reason did not purchase it at that time. I have been thinking about it ever since that day. After our initial greeting, I asked Cathy if she still had the tea cup. That is when she told me this story: The tea cup was in her car after the art show. She met a man who was looking for a gift for his wife for Mothers' Day. When Cathy showed him the tea cup, he bought it. Fortunately for me, his wife did not like the tea cup and returned it to Kathy in exchange for another planter. So, the tea cup was there waiting for me!

After a couple of days of moving it around my yard, I found the perfect spot where I can see it from my kitchen. I selected a hardy geranium to plant inside.

Here is how it looks......


I love it!!!

Time to make a cup of tea......

Landscape Art

Mother nature has been calling me and getting my hands in the soil feeds my soul. So instead of painting, I have been creating art outdoors which I call "Landscape Art."

I vowed not to own a lawn mower again. I planted an orchid and covered the ground with arbor chips.

I had one more patch of grass to terminate and one thing lead to another. First I used black edging material and was excited by the line. Next, I saw a path. I then bought some soil with compost and created beds for plantings. Last came a stone path. Ta Da!

Here is what it looks like:









Notice Ebony in the photos?

Color, YES!

Coming out of the winter doldrums any sign of color outdoors is exciting. Yes, a few crocus have been sighted, but what has made me really ecstatic are the hardy cyclamen plants I purchased in the fall from the Perennial Gardener, Olympia, Washington.

If you have never heard of cyclamen, chances are you have probably seen these Mediterranean members of the primrose family. Cyclamen are very popular flowering houseplants that are exceptionally beautiful and very striking. They are commonly sold in supermarkets, retail stores, and florist shops, and their immense popularity continues to grow.

Cyclamen are known for their beautiful deep green foliage adorned with interesting silver patterns and shading that resembles the finest marble. The foliage can be lobed, kidney-shaped, round, or heart-shaped, and it is just as lovely as the flowers perched above on long sturdy stems.

The flowers are a beautiful sight to behold. They look as if they have been turned inside out, and they boast various shades and intensities of red, pink, lavender, and white. It is no wonder why these beautiful houseplants are so popular.

The hardy cyclamens are just as lovely. Especially now when very little is blooming. Here are my lovelies:





I must admit to getting out the "sluggo" (slug and snail bait that will eliminate slugs and snails while posing no threat to pets or wildlife.) to allow these beauties to reach their full potential.

A FIRST!

Each year I grow something unusual in my vegetable garden.

This year it is eggplant.

Considering we have had rather pathetic weather for growing veggies this summer, all of a sudden my one eggplant is starting to develop. It was my token new item to grow and I was ready to call it a disaster along with the lettuce, spinach, (believe it or not, I could not get the seeds to germinate and when they did the peas over took the bed.) broccoli, cabbage.......just to name a few.

I was intrigued by the delicateness, shape and colors of the eggplant flowers which seemed to be popping out occasionally to please me.



Today, I was looking at the plant and thought a branch was dead because it was folded over. I examined the strange phenomena.
To my SURPRISE, there was a baby egg plant!

It is rather cute.....



A closer look....



I hope it has time to develop before the first frost. I think I am suppose to clip off other flowers to help this one mature.
Anyone know for sure?