Art in the Garden: Henry Null of The Romantic Garden

Long time Eye of the Day customer Henry Null of The Romantic Garden Company recently installed three Italian terracotta Sako balls in a Santa Barbara garden. The three globes, provided by Eye of the Day,  were custom colored by the company’s Service department. Null describes the project: “The Italian terra cotta Sako balls were rolled into place at the terraced garden we built in Santa Barbara. We had Eye of the Day epoxy-paint them to my color instructions (I wanted something close to the sky color to represent the universe.) But I also wanted the globes to break up the linear pattern of the texanum hedge. At the same time I wanted the globes to repeat a pattern of 3’s that I was constructing vertically with plants of Thuja occidentalis. Sound complicated? Well, it was.

One further general point about artistic objects in the garden:  to be effective, they should be distinctive or displayed in some distinctive way.  It should be the customer’s option, as a matter of personal taste.”

On another garden from years before, Null relates an example of using unique objects in the garden: “Years ago I worked for the late Margaret Mallory on Ortega Ridge. She was an art collector and in her garden a five-foot pedestal supported a beat-up metal gyroscope which was maybe 18 inches in diameter. I asked her about it and her reply was, “that gyroscope was on the last British gunship in Palestine.’ You don’t get much more distinctive than that. We don’t have any spare, war-weary gyroscopes hanging around, but we have a selection of odd garden ornaments that can be used for focal points.”

Null’s recent venture The Avant Garden Company “offers a unique perspective to gardening by providing a philosophical and metaphorical approach. Each aspect of the garden is strategically designed and formed to create a celestial garden piece.”

To view more of Henry’s work, please visit The Avant Garden Company and The Romantic Garden Company.

Custom finishes are a specialty at Eye of the Day. Please visit our website for more information.

Brent’s Rogue Garden

People often ask me what my garden at home looks like.  I laugh and reply it looks like a psychedelic trip to a botanic garden gone rogue with cracked pots.  Then they laugh, not sure if I’m being honest or just outrageous, and they’re right, my garden is outrageous and honestly, it is a trip. While we sell volumes of the best and most authentic pottery and garden statuary around, we get our share of damage. Handling heavy pottery, moving it, merchandising it and delivering it involves some mistakes. So I have plenty of opportunities to take beautiful Italian terracotta pots home, albeit with chips and cracks (we epoxy the cracks so they will last just as long as the first quality ones). The problem is what to do with over twenty years’ worth of damaged pots.

Welcome to my test kitchen where I try different plants in different pots to learn what works. Just like a cook’s test kitchen, I have learned what works when potting different plants, hence my belief that the first thing to growing healthy container plants is the drainage.  No matter the plant, it must have freedom to drain continuously.

Second is the soil. If you match the plant’s root system with the proper soil mixture you will have a healthy plant growing in a beautiful pot. I am a strong believer that perlite added to any soil mixture helps to grow healthy container plants.  Why do I spend more on organic soil amendments? Because I’ve learned that chemical fertilizers work fast and make container plants grow and look healthy initially, but down the road, your container plants will suffer the toxicity of chemical salts which build up in the soil. Using products like “SuperThrive”, soap, Epsom salts, wood ash from my pizza oven and most of all, composted soils amendments from the great composter I got from .

I have pots everywhere, hence the “garden gone rogue.” I have created patio areas on all sides of my house to accommodate all of the pots and plants. If a planted pot at Eye of the Day begins to look shabby, I’ll will take the plant home and perform triage by restarting it in an appropriate looking pot. I learn from doing this what looks good from a design point of view and I can share what works in containers that clients may not have considered before. I have been able to grow and pair plants with our products to help market Eye of the Day while making my “test garden” a realistic place to prove that container gardening is the best way to create “Paradise at Home”!

The Making of a Greek Pot

This month I’m going to discuss a tool that has captured my imagination for nearly 40 years: THE POTTER’S WHEEL. It started for me in Orange County California in 1976 at Irvine High School. For my P.E. class I was taking surfing and the instructor also taught Ceramics. It didn’t take me long to figure out that all the cool kids not only took surfing, but took Ceramics for second period, so if the waves were particularly good, the surf class would just stay and surf all the way through second period!

Thirty years later, I am still doing ceramics, primarily because of my fascination with the potter’s wheel, which is a relatively new invention in the history of pottery making. Originally functional vessels made of clay were constructed using a coiling technique. The artist would roll out “ropes” of clay and slowly, methodically, hand turn a small form by placing the coils on top of each other and pinching each coil into the one beneath it. Although this time honored method can be very slow and tedious in terms of production, there are still many cultures in the world that use this technique to create functional ceramic containers.

The potter’s wheel was born out of necessity. There are many theories, but all agree it was a matter of industrialization that brought about its creation. Recently I found a few video clips in my inbox that Brent (owner of Eye of the Day) had shot on the Island of Crete. They are an intimate look at the processes used in the production of the authentic Greek vessels Eye of the Day sells. The pieces are wheel thrown but on a wheel that is hand cranked by a potter’s assistant. The clay is made into fat coils, and added to the clay beneath it by pinching. Then the assistant spins the wheel faster and the potter begins to lift the clay into a form. It is particularly fascinating that Greece employs both old and new world techniques. They start with a slab of clay for the bottom, and work their way up by coiling, and pinching, and finally throwing the clay into shape. In the videos you see that there are multiple wheels working at once with vessels on each, in different stages of completion. When the clay needs to rest on one wheel,, the potters move in succession to each wheel down the line, until returning to the beginning to continue working toward a finished piece. These pieces are then fired and shipped directly to Eye of the Day.

We are very lucky to have this direct connection to handmade vessels for our garden design needs. The next time you are at Eye of the Day, remember what it takes for the artisans who build these vessels to deliver such an authentic and timeless piece of history for our own daily aesthetic.

GARDEN DESIGN: QUICK! GRAB YOURSELF A COPY!

Eye of the Day has been involved with the publication Garden Design magazine for many years. The latest iteration  of this “magazine” is quarterly and feels more like a book than a periodical.  There is absolutely no advertising to interrupt the flow of articles and inspiring photographs.

My eye was first caught by the Editor’s Note  “Moonshot Thinking for a Low Water World” in which Thad Orr, Editor-in-Chief, discusses replacing lawn with water-wise alternatives involving collection systems and irrigation monitoring. On the facing page is Fresh: Inspiration and Innovations from the World of Garden Design.  This article addresses “Tough Questions about Drought” by asking four people: the Director of the Nature Gardens of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, the Director of the Landscape Architecture and Horticulture Gardening Programs at UCLA, a well-known Californa Landscape Architect and the Water Efficiency Manager of Irvine Ranch Water District, what can be done to conserve water this summer and in the future. Initially, this was all I needed to  continue reading; we all need to immerse ourselves in questions and answers about water usage.

Elise’s Gift showcases the historic Redford Gardens in Quebec, illustrating the article about one of the largest plant collections in North America and the story of its founder, Elsie Stephen Redford with photos of the abundant flora of the gardens that were once the family’s fishing camp. Reading about Elsie’s vision and involvement in her “garden” overlooking the St. Lawrence River has me wishing for an in-depth  biography of her life.

These are only a few of the gems between the covers of Garden Design. This impressive publication is just jammed with articles and photos that are so interesting, beautiful and thought provoking that even those of us not claiming to be gardeners  will just want to absorb.

Subscribe here.

A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT DESIGNS FOR THE DROUGHT

While landscape architect Sally Farnum of SE Farnum Associates has been taking the time to educate her clients about how to deal with their outdated, thirsty landscapes—especially rolling, green lawns—she has designed and implemented an outside environment for her own home that is water-considerate and still lush, inviting and peaceful.

The first task was to remove a large front lawn and some accompanying flower beds.

BEFORE: Water-thirsty lawn

DURING: Removing lawn and introducing granite

Next, grading, drainage and landscape plan was translated to the area. Decomposed granite was used as the base of the pathway from the driveway, culminating in a keyhole design, at the end of which a dry-stacked rock wall would serve as a retaining wall as well as the background for a Gladding McBean fountain conversion.

ALMOST FINISHED!
Flanking each side of the pathway are two Antique Green Gladding McBean Oil Jars, preparing the eye for the fountain.  Planting on the perimeter of the path area includes a variety of water-friendly plants and trees.

STAY TUNED
Check back next month on Sally’s design in progress for photos of the finished project.

FOUNTAIN AS MUSE

Sunday morning.  Outside the bank of our bedroom windows, the fountain’s splash and play completely encompass the peacefulness of home.  Our shy friend, a tiny iridescent green hummingbird is curiously eyeing the droplets arcing into the air. Especially while we are all thinking about water problems in California, enjoying a few moments with the sound, sight and spray of our fountain is almost intoxicating.

Throughout the years we have consistently added to Eye of the Day’s library of books pertaining to gardening, fountains, pottery, terracotta and European antiques. While I was mesmerized by the muse of my fountain, I remembered a book I found for Brent a few years ago:  Fountains Splash and spectacle: Water and Design from the Renaissance to the Present edited by Marilyn Symmes. The book traces the history of fountains throughout the world from the renovations of ancient Roman aqueducts to choreographed, computer controlled displays combining light, music, and fireworks.

Photographs, paintings, illustrations, etchings and drawings are so plentiful and varied that even if you only pick up the book to see them you’ll be drawn into reading a few paragraphs like this one:

Water possesses almost magical qualities.  A spraying fire hydrant can transform a sweltering city street into a temporary oasis, offering neighborhood children a showery playground as welcome relief—from the dry, hard pavement…the sound of moving water—sometimes a roar, at other times a whisper–breaks the stillness and can provide an aural refreshment on a warm day.

The last photo in the book is the best possible illustration of this paragraph.

Though our water problems have no foreseeable end and we may need to regulate the use of our fountains, the birds, bees and butterflies not only enjoy, but need water to survive and even a few hours a day provide a magical quality.  And that’s not just for animals, but for those of us staring out the window on a Sunday morning as well.

Fountains: Splash and Spectacle – Water and Design from the Renaissance to the Present. Edited by Marilyn Symmes. The Smithsonian Institution, 1998.