1 August 2016 - Gardens of England Part 1

I had a bunch of firsts in July. First trip abroad, first trip to England, first group tour: three firsts in a single visit.  And I don't have enough superlatives in my vocabulary to tell you how amazing, incredibly beautiful, fascinating and fabulous it was. 

This trip was organized by two women who teach Master Gardening classes in Michigan. Since my friend Amy completed the twelve week training and the additional 40 hours of volunteer work, (although I think she came in closer to 80 hours) and is now a certified Master Gardener, I could not say YES fast enough when she asked if I'd like to go with her. 

I am finding this is one of the hardest adventures to write about. How do I winnow thousands of photos down to just a couple illustrations? How can I possibly describe the majesty, the eccentricities and individuality of each garden without boring you to tears?  How can I possibly provide just a taste when the banquet was so huge? 

This trip included amazing gardens, castles, gargoyles galore, wonderful metal work, birds and so much more. This post will begin to cover the gardens. 

I will say that I found the structure of the gardens more interesting than the posies themselves. So I'll be showing more structure than flowers. 

Day 2. Hampton Court Flower Show and Palace Gardens
We started in London at the Hampton Court Flower Show, the largest flower show in the world held on the grounds of the Hampton Court Palace. The show was great way to start the trip. Hundreds of vendors who all displayed beautiful gardens packed to the hilt with plants at the peak of bloom. Amy and I wanted to linger over each display, oohing and aahing over the combination of plants, the combination of colors used, not to mention the structures and ornamentation. 

Many of the displays concentrated on a single type of flower. Check out these foxtail lilies and pitcher plants. 

There were elaborate displays.

And inspirational displays of plants that really look beautiful together. 

I was absolutely charmed to find a Punch and Judy show in progress, but even more surprised to discover it was still funny. Punch was busy battling an alligator in the episode I watched. 

While the garden show displays were fun on a personal level, the Hampton Court Palace Gardens were spectacular. The grounds were manicured to perfection.

 It was only fitting that Henry VIII was presiding over the grounds. 

Check out the trees in the background--all trimmed to matching shapes. 

The Privy Garden at the palace was formal and lovely. One of my favorite things about all the gardens we saw were the walls. Brick walls, stone walls, hedge walls--they all worked to create intimate spaces.

Next to the Privy Garden were a series of smaller gardens, each walled in by hedges. The perspective is hard to see in this photo, but there are four levels in the garden below. 

The windows in the right hand side of the hedge above look into this next garden, which is only two levels. Still very formal and beautiful.

Here is Amy making good use of a window. Makes you wonder if they are part of the garden design, or made so guards could keep an eye on their royal charges. 

 

Day 3. Wisley Gardens
Wisley was started in 1878, the largest and one of the newer gardens we toured. It featured many kinds of gardens. 

Water gardens

 

Formal Rose Gardens: Here are climbing roses arching over the path into the rose gardens. Amy is for scale. You can see how she is dwarfed by the roses.

Rock Gardens

Mixed Borders--our tour leaders described England's flora as being flowers on steroids. Every plant was exponentially larger than you would find in the states.

Not only were there mixed borders there were long borders. This swath of lawn has a border on each side that is easily 25 feet wide. The long border itself is at least 200 yards long. 

Delphiniums were often seven to eight feet tall. And the blues were intense. 

In addition there were test gardens, vegetable gardens, orchards, wildflower meadows, two different kinds of forests and a gorgeous glass house that butted up to a lake. There was also a huge nursery where you could buy plants. 

The gardens varied from huge sprawling areas to tiny, personal spaces, and most of them had some kind of water feature at the center.

Day 4. Sissinghurst Castle and Gardens followed by Hever Castle.

Sissinghurst Garden is among my favorites. Poet Vita Sackville-West and her writer/politician husband Harold Nicolson fell in love with a ruined estate built in the mid-1700s. They restored some buildings added more and created gardens. Vita was part of the Bloomsbury Group that included Virginia Woolf, but in England she is better known for her garden design. 

Looking at the castle from the front you have no idea what is in store behind the walls. 

The first surprise? The tower you see in the center of the photo above was built by Vita to be her library and writing room. 

It is four stories high,  and not attached to the castle. The flat space between the two towers provides a wonderful birds-eye view of the estate. The tower has a very steep circular stairway that gets smaller the higher you climb. It is actually a little bit scary. 



Vita's library and writing room

Standing on the roof you can look down into the gardens. 

You can see how she used brick walls and hedges to create many little, okay, not so little, gardens of different types. Most of them are accessible by paths coming in on all four sides. 

One of my favorite elements in these gardens were the doorways from one garden into the next. Sometimes it was a door that opened revealing a surprise. Other doors let you see down a path into two more gardens. There were narrow paths, one person wide where hedges towered over you. There might be a dead-end with a statue, or what might look like a dead-end would have side entries not visible until you walked all the way to the end. 

 

 

 

Overall this garden was stunning. The structure, the design, the colors all worked together to make a truly remarkable experience. 

Hever Castle.
Built in the 1270, this castle was later the home where Anne Boleyn grew up. Her father is buried in Saint Peter's church next to the castle grounds. Such history!  

The castle was wonderful: complete with a moat, crenellated, and better yet, the gatehouse which is the only original part of the castle has the oldest working portcullis in England.  Better yet, it is said to be haunted. What more can you ask of a castle? 

Over the centuries the castle fell into disrepair and was purchased by disenfranchised American millionaire William Waldorf Astor. He restored the castle and added to and restored the gardens to house his collection of statuary. The gardens include topiary, a hedge maze, a water maze, several rose gardens and Astor's Italianate gardens. 

 Drawbridge and portcullis

Among the topiary in the garden is a chess set made from yew in the style of pieces used from the time of Henry VIII. This was created in 1904 by Astor. In front of the chess pieces is a sphere sundial dating from 1710. 

Entryway into Italianate gardens

Astor had this lake dug out of a marsh. The workers dug it out by hand, the dirt creating an island that is now a children's garden and water maze. 

This concludes the gardens we toured while based in London.  Next up, we move to Cheltenham and explore gardens in the Cotswolds

4 July 2016 - Patriotic decorations

It's that time of year again. Here's my fifth annual celebration of all things red, white and blue.  This year, I have compiled some patriotic decorations seen during my travels. Some sublime, some ridiculous, but since every one of these made me smile, I hoping they make you smile too. 

The Lady is one of my favorites. 

And this be-flagged barn is a close second. 

I found this life-sized metal cutout along the road in Wyoming. 

Out in a rural farm area, there is an abandoned, falling-down house with a ghoul in an upper window. What tickles me about this, is the ghoul gets decorated for each holiday. In March he was wearing a bright green hat and sported a necklace of shamrocks. 

While I have many photos of flags painted on barns, I tend to like the ones waving in the breeze. 

This year I noticed a new-to-me way of decorating, using painted pallets. This has probably been going on for a while, but this year there were so many of them that I realized it was a thing.  I particularly liked this one as the house is red, white and blue as well. 

As someone who grew up in an era when all the kids stood up and recited the Pledge of Allegiance each morning before class started, this one grabbed me by the heart. 

I found this painted on the side of fire station in Wendover. Can't remember if was the Utah side or the Nevada side of that city. 

As for the ridiculous, the following were all hanging on outbuildings and the fence surrounding a farm house. I'm thinking I will have to check it out for other holidays and see what they do. The next pictures are not even half of what was hanging around the house, but it gives you an idea of the fun this family must have had making all these. 

Back to the pallets. They come with different amounts of cross pieces, but they still make great flags. 

The seems to be a movement towards painting houses in red, white and blue as well. 

So get out there and hang up your own red, white and blue.  Happy Fourth of July everyone!  

25 June 2016 - Road trips and Utah roadside attractions

My bucket list of things to see is so long that some days I think I should sell my house and just wander about in an RV. It may happen, you never know. But today, I checked several things off my list. 

Lists are a good thing. I have lists of places I want to go birding and lists of places/things I want to see. Sometimes I can combine them into one trip. Today, for example, my plan was to drive up Butterfield Canyon and down the other side, which is Middle Canyon into Tooele. In order to get to Butterfield Canyon you have to go through Herriman, which has been on my list because that is where the Up house is.

Bangerter Homes got permission from Pixar to build a replica of the house from the movie, Up.  It was great fun to see this little house. It is so charming, not to mention true to the original house.

My only gripe is that such a cutie-pie house with all the lovely Victorian details is sitting smack dab in the middle of an absolutely boring subdivision of cookie-cutter houses all in the same beigy-tan stucco. Yetch. You'd think that someone with the vision to make this little gem come to life would or could create a neighborhood of interesting homes. No such luck. Nevertheless, it was great fun to see. 

After descending Middle Canyon on the west side of the Oquirrh mountains, I thought I could just drive out I-80 and see the Tree of Utah. So I did. 

Okay, I admit this is just odd: an 83 foot tall sculpture called Metaphor: The Tree of Utah. It is illegal to pull over on I-80, but I did anyway. And another car followed me off the road. Fortunately there was not a lot of traffic. It is huge and stands out against the blinding white salt flats. And it definitely is the closest thing to a tree for many many miles in all directions. 

The statue has four crescent shaped pieces that surround it. They remind me of a seed pot that has split open. Perhaps the seed sprouted and resulted in this tree. In the nearest crescent, if I were to stand by the high end, it would be several feet taller than I am. It is hard to imagine the scale from this photo. In the photo below, the fence surrounding the base is easily 12 feet high. 

Without the tree, this is what you would see in all directions. It is a good distraction against the unrelenting brightness. It helps that you can see the tree from 17 miles away. 

There is a lot of guerilla art on the salt flats along I-80. People stop and leave messages, hearts, flowers and other art work created from rocks. 

Since at this point I was so close to Wendover, on the Utah/Nevada state line I had to continue on. When I was a kid, one of my favorite places driving west on I-80 was Wendover's Stateline Casino. The Casino spanned the state line and inside there was a line painted between the restaurant and the casino. The casino was on the Nevada side so you could step over the line and gamble after eating on the Utah side. I always thought that was fascinating. Just step over the line and be in another state. 

In addition, the Stateline Casino had a monstrous sign that I was and still am enamored with. Wendover Will is 63 feet tall. At night he is all lit up with neon, even down to the glowing tip of his cigarette and his arms would wave. I also loved that his pedestal had messages on it. If you were traveling east towards Salt Lake City it said "This is the Place."  And if you were traveling west to Nevada it said "Where the West Begins." 

I haven't seen him for 40 years. Imagine my surprise to find there is no longer a Stateline Casino. But, the new owners of the Stateline (now called the Wendover Nugget I think) donated the cowboy to the city. The city then raised a lot of money for renovation and Wendover Will now stands in the middle of the road welcoming people to Wendover.  His arms don't wave anymore, but he is such an icon that I am thrilled he is still on display. Isn't he something?  Notice how small the car driving by is in comparison. When I last saw him, he was wearing a yellow and white checked shirt. Guess he got updated in the renovation. But he still has the Bull Durham tobacco in his pocket...see the little yellow tab hanging out?  All cowboys used to roll their own...

Oh, and now there is a Utah/Nevada state line painted on the road. This is funny. The Montego Bay parking lot is on the Utah side, but the casino is on the Nevada side. Guess it still works. 




It was a very long day, but wow, what a lot of fun! 

20 June 2016 - Summer Solstice and Summer Songs

First day of summer and it is hot. Currently it is 97 degrees and it looks to be continuing this way all week. 

I spent my day staying cool by getting wet. Thought I ought to clean out the fountain pool so even if it's hot I could at least hear falling water, which you have to admit is a very cooling sound. I got the stagnant water drained out of the upper and lower pools. By drained I mean me and a bucket. Then I took my fireman's nozzle to the concrete for a good cleaning and had to bucket all the water out again. I got soaked, but it felt great. Now I just need to hook up the pump but I'm not sure I remember which hose goes where. It's always something. 

I also celebrated with my family's favorite summer drink, a root beer float. It has to be A&W root beer with French Vanilla ice cream. And it just isn't right unless it is served in a frosty mug right out of the freezer.  

My father introduced me to another drink that has become a summer favorite as well. It's called a Blue Goose, but I can only drink it at home, or if there is someone else to drive.
  

One drink and I'm done in. It consists of Grey Goose Vodka, Hypnotiq, Blue Curacao and a bit of lemonade. Shake it over ice and serve in a chilled, ice-filled glass. Pretty, but oh so potent! My advice is don't drink this on an empty stomach. A paper umbrella might make you think you are on a beach, but it really doesn't need one. 

I have an internal soundtrack for my life. No matter where I am, or what the situation is, there is a song in my head that may or may not be apropos to what is happening.  Today though, summer songs were accompanying my every move. 
Jerry Mungo - In the Summertime
Donovan - Sunshine Superman
The Drifters - Under the Boardwalk
Sly and the Family Stone - Hot Fun in the Summertime
Moody Blues - Tuesday Afternoon
Otis Redding - The Dock of the Bay
Eric Burdon and War - Spill the Wine
Richard Harris - MacArthur Park
Beach Boys - Quite a few came in and out during the day. You have to admit they are the quintessential summer band. Not only that, but the first album I ever bought was Surfin' Safari. 
Lou Reed - Walk on the Wild Side
Joni Mitchell - Woodstock
Grateful Dead - Friend of the Devil, Truckin'
Martha and the Vandellas - Dancing in the Street

Speaking of summer drinks, there were quite a few Jimmy Buffett songs in there as well. Mind you, the entire songs did not go through my head. Just snippets drifting in and out reminding me that it's five o'clock somewhere. 

There were more, but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. As I write this I have The Beatles Here Comes the Sun flitting around behind my eyes. So much music. 

In retrospect, it surprises me how many of these are older songs. Were summer songs better in the 60s and 70s?  Could be. 

Meanwhile, if the effects of the goose wear off, I will end my first day of summer up the canyons.  First stop will be up Little Cottonwood to see if I can find the Black Swifts. Then over to East Canyon to see if any Poorwills or Flammulated Owls are out and about. 

And that's as perfect as a first day of summer can get. Happy Solstice, everyone! 

12 June 2016 - Citizen Science

My head is so full of new stuff that I think my brains are leaking out of my ears. There is an image for you! 

In February, I signed up with the Tracy Aviary to join their Citizen Science team to do breeding bird counts. Sounds simple? Hardly! The training is intense. We have field trips several times a week to learn the survey areas, learn how to use GPS devices to find the exact spots we will be doing the surveys from, learn how to use range finders, learn how to identify birds, and in addition to this we were sent ten or more bird songs a week to learn and get quizzed on. Did I mention my brain is on overload?  

I think we are up to 92 bird songs, most of which are so jumbled up in my head that I am now questioning the ones I know. But slowly, very slowly it is all coming together. 

The hardest part about the bird songs is that a bird does not have a single song. Take robins, for example. A robin might use the entire song, or the first part of the song, or the last part, or add a bit of its own to the song. A song is not static. Each bird might have its own slight variation. In addition to the songs they sing during breeding season, there are calls. Calls can be short chips, whits, buzzes, etc. There are notification calls and alarm calls. The whit call in the mountains will be a flycatcher, but if you hear something darned similar in the valley it will be a different kind of bird, so you need to think about the habitat when you are listening.  It is crazy hard. 

The very patient soul who is teaching us said he identifies over 90% of the birds by song. We'll be hiking up a trail, he will stop dead and say "Did you hear that? It's a Ruby-crowned Kinglet." Most of us never even heard it. Pretty funny. I am getting so I can hear or be aware of the tiny, high-pitched chirps, but I think there were too many Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, CCR and King Crimson concerts in my youth that have affected the high range of my hearing. 

I should tell you more about the Citizen Science program. For the last five years, Tracy Aviary has partnered with a variety of agencies such as  Salt Lake Public Utilities and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and through the Citizen Science program  conducts annual breeding bird surveys.

 The goal of this project is to generate science-based knowledge to provide support tools for managers of the canyons to help them in decisions that support bird and riparian habitat conservation. The hope is that over time a baseline of knowledge can be established to better understand how the abundance and distribution of birds relate to the quality of the habitat they live in.

The timelines are different for low, medium and high elevations. There are two weeks of surveys left in the low elevations which include many areas along the Jordan River, Parleys Canyon and City Creek Canyon.  Next week the surveys start in the high elevations such as Alta. 

The survey areas covered can be huge. The area is marked in grids and then points are dropped in. Since it is done by map, you may find a point where you standing in a marsh, calf deep in water and surrounded by mosquitoes. Or you may have to bushwhack your way through brush and tall grass. Many of the surveys have up to 16 points and take three to four hours to complete. 

We fill out a form for each point on the survey. Wind, sky, temperature and noise levels are noted, as well as any water or snow that is within 50 meters. For each bird we have to note whether it was detected by call, song or visually. We need to note which direction it was first seen, how many, and the distance in meters. 

Bird surveys start at sunrise, which means you have to be on your first point about 5:30 am. Getting up at 4 am is hard for this night owl. I am learning a lot and not getting much sleep. It is wonderful and frustrating at the same time. But little by little the information is beginning to sink in and even more importantly, it is becoming retrievable.

My part in this is coming to an end so I will be able to turn my attention to my much neglected garden. 

22 May 2016 - Late Spring

In my world view, the end of May into the first of June signals that spring is ending and the season is moving toward early summer.  A view validated by the fact that the I saw my first female hummingbirds today. The males have been here for several weeks, busily working out their territories. 

Even though I am recognizing the normal signs of seasonal change, this May has been anything but normal. We've had quite a bit of late snow in the high mountains, and down in the valley the weather has been unpredictable at best. Over the last two weeks we have had three damaging hail storms. Jim Cantore would have been in his glory with our Thunder Hail. Lots of thunder and lightning and huge hail. Hail as big as nickles and dimes. What you are looking at here is nickle-sized hail floating in three inches of water in my driveway. In addition to the hail we had an inch of rain in 25 minutes. 

The hail stripped leaves off the trees, shrubs and flowers, punched bullet-like holes in leaves that didn't get stripped off and absolutely shredded other plants. I had just planted a large Empress Wu hosta two days before this storm. After the storm? She was battered. 

Yesterday alone, we had an inch and a half of rain. All this is good, we need rain and snow, but hail? Could it just have been pea-sized? And that it had come before everything leafed out?  The weather continues to be unsettled. High winds, rain almost everyday for the last ten days: from light showers to quite heavy downpours, and more in the forecast for the upcoming week. 

But even with the wild ride Mother Nature has given us in May, migrant birds are coming through on schedule, plants are coming up, leafing out and blooming as they do every year. Amazing. Especially since my yard is full of normal. 

The May bloomers are happily doing their thing and I can see the June posies are pushing up bloom stalks and plumping up their buds. Here are just a few of the blooms that are coloring my garden now. 

It will be interesting to see what Mother Nature is planning for June. 

19 May 2016 - Angry Buoys

Every now and then when I'm out and about I'll run across something that stops me in my tracks. Today was one of those days.  

Back in the old days, when army/navy surplus salvage stores actually had good stuff, you could buy huge metal buoys. There is a house on the way to Antelope Island that has had three buoys positioned around their perimeter for as long as I can remember. They have been lackluster, the paint faded and chipping off. 

Today, I had to hit the brake, pull over, laugh my head off and take pictures. Definitely funny enough to share. It's wonderful what a good imagination and coat of paint can do. 

And yes, I did go through the Angry Bird phase, but haven't played in a couple of years.