In a Garden

Dome and Green Plants

Conservatory Dome © 2012 Bo Mackison

Whoever loves and understands a garden will find contentment within. ~ Chinese Proverb

While exploring the Conservatory at the New York Botanical Gardens, I could hardly watch where I was stepping, so enchanted was I with the intricate design of the golden struts that supported the glass ceiling of the garden.

August Break 2012

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She is working through a backlog of photos taken this summer, while enjoying a bit of an August Break.

Week One : New York City.

Wall Garden

NYBG

Vertical Gardening © 2012 Bo Mackison

Do not judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

When we visited the New York Botanical Gardens in early June, several vertical gardens decorated one of the seating areas. I was fascinated with the many textures and colors that the gardeners fit into such a small footprint. A wonderful example of the seeded earth, created with the gardeners’ vision and love of plants.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Bo is always happy to find wonderful examples of the seeded earth!

Red in the Rock Garden

Red in the Rock Garden

Red in the Rock Garden © 2011 Bo Mackison

A visit to one of my favorite urban gardens, Allen Centennial Garden in the heart of the University of Wisconsin campus, not only gives me the opportunity to photograph lovely spring flowers and blossoming trees, but also the gift of getting close to the earth and discovering small delights in an intricate series of rock gardens.

This is an example of hens and chicks in its red variety. One of my favorite (and most popular photographs at the art fairs I attend) is another photo I took of hens and chicks, the green variety.  I love both versions–they seem to play off each other. This red one has more composition, the red succulents playing off the light background of small pastel pebbles and large white rocks. The older photo has an overall pattern of the hens and chicks in varying sizes, and the rocky background has more blue tones. Together I think they make an attractive display.

I love the different stories associated with hens and chicks. I heard the first, a passed down family tale, from my great-grandmother, my Grandma Prudie. She was in her eighties when I was nearing ten and given the job of garden assistant by my grandfather. Prudie would often drag a yard chair out onto the lawn near the long strip of garden on the far side of the property and chat about a variety of topics as I hand pulled the weeds.

One day she told me the story of the hens and chicks plant, her version. The story made a big impression on me. I wrote the story in a black and white composition notebook–my diary–but that notebook long ago disappeared. This is the version that my memory remembers:

“Now these plants, the hens and chicks, these are a “sucky-lent” plant. The little plants “suck” all the life from the mother plants–those are the big center plants. The mothers send out roots and then the little chicks grow. The chicks grow and eventually take over the plant. Then eventually the mother plant dies and the chicks become the mothers. And the growing pattern gets repeated over and over, until the hens and chicks spread throughout the  rock garden.” ~Prudence Mackison Willliams

My great-grandmother wasn’t afraid to talk about any topic. I remember conversations about war, jealousy between siblings, religion, marriage and divorce, life and death. She wasn’t a judgmental woman. She thought people did the best they could with what life offered them, and often defended the under dogs of the world.

Grandma Prudie had a hard life, she did many things in her day that weren’t considered womanly things to do, but she was kind-hearted and she was giving; she was an optimist and she lived her life fully. She also loved flowers, and her favorite time of year was when it was flower blooming season.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. Bo is thankful to see the spring flowers blooming and the sun shining. She is also recalling the many garden talks she had with her grandparents when she was a child.

Green Places – Exploring Bolz Conservatory in Olbrich Botanica Gardens

Green is Beautiful

Green is Beautiful

The sun is shining, the snow is melting. I always think of mid-March as the teaser. Sunny days, almost touching the 50˚F mark. The a dip back into the teens or 20s and frosty again. There are bits of my yard where there are peeks of grass, though much of the yard is under 6 or more inches of crusty snow. But it’s melting. Yes, it truly will be Spring soon.

I still have to find my green in the Bolz Tropical Conservatory, but I’m practicing for when those first bits of green shoots pop out of the earth. Ahhhhhhh!