A Garden Visit

Brenda feeding the goldfish

Back in August, I had the opportunity to visit my good friend Brenda Hershberger in Mason, Michigan. I had been planning a trip to the Lansing area in order to stop in at Wild Type Nursery, also in Mason, for one of the nursery's last public sale days of the season, hoping to fill some gaps in my garden and maybe discover some heretofore unknown botanical treasures.

Brenda and Allie, who has now
been joined by Dom P

Brenda is also very much a native plant enthusiast and, considering she's so close to the nursery, it was easy to put a trip together to visit her beautiful garden and home and stop in at the nursery. Brenda frequently posts images of her garden (and cats) on Facebook so I was really looking forward to visiting in person. Although the drive was rather frustrating, with
I-96 West down to one lane on the same weekend that students were making their annual migration to East Lansing for the start of the school year, the anticipation of visiting a good friend's garden and selecting plants at one of my favorite nurseries kept me going.

Feeder goldfish are less expensive and seem
less attractive to marauding Great Blue Herons

I made it into Mason late in the morning, just in time for lunch. After a brief tour through the front yard, especially a prized Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis) slated for major pruning by the local power company, Brenda invited me in and we had a delicious meal of gazpacho, brie and artisanal bread, with a fresh fruit salad for dessert. Her little gray kitty, Allie, was very friendly - and also very interested in helping us with lunch. Brenda has been very supportive of my pottery and has collected quit a few of my pieces, which she has integrated seamlessly into her beautiful home. It was a wonderful opportunity to see where some of my favorite pieces had come to roost.

In touring the gardens, the highlight is clearly Brenda's pond, stocked with feeder goldfish (Great Blue Herons were nabbing the more expensive Koi, so she opted for sustainable quantity), beautiful waterlilies and native and exotic plants by pond's edge. The pond - with a natural-looking stone waterfall and integrated plantings - has the lived-in look of the best designed larger garden features. Its "naturalness" is attested to by the abundance of native frogs, who bask on strategically-placed rocks and take cover in the lush plantings.

After our tour, we headed to the nursery separately (it was on the way home for me) and shopped the remaining native plants. I was able to purchase another Fragrant Sumac (Rhus aromatica) for the front yard and, especially, exciting, Orange-fruited Horse Gentian (Triosteum aurantiacum) and Pointed-leaf Ticktrefoil (Desmodium glutinosum), both of which went into a planting of Penn Sedge (Carex pensylvanica) in my tree lawn.

The drive home was less frustrating, as I took a detour to avoid the construction, which took me by a corn stand with the last of the season's harvest, which I enjoyed for dinner that night! What a great day!

Deluxe Sunflower: Spinning

In developing the various designs in the Deluxe Sunflower series, I had been able to come up with quite a few designs using a slip-filled pastry bag with various decorating tips. I had also found a couple of uses for Kemper Klay Kutters. I had created three designs - Pasta, String Theory and Starry Night - using the Kemper Klay Gun and various dies but wanted to explore the potential of this tool more fully.

In browsing through the dies which come with the Klay Gun, I thought I might be able to use one of the circle dies to make long coils, which I could then make into a spiral or spirals. I thought I would first try making a piece with a large spiral covering the entire center. The challenge was going to be marrying a series of long coils into one very long continuous coil to make the spiral.

I started out by fabricating the base of the sunflower, slumping a large slab over the ginormous sunflower mold, cutting it to size with a 1/2" flange at the base. I wanted to make sure the spiral would completely fill the center space so I opted to fabricate the center first and apply the petals afterwards. After scoring and slipping the entire surface, I attached the circle die to the Klay Gun and filled the barrel with clay and pushed out the first coil, forming it into the center of the spiral, starting at the center of the sunflower. It's important that the clay be fairly plastic for this process: if it's too stiff, you have to work really hard to get it to extrude and it will be more prone to cracking during fabrication. I added coils to the spiral until I felt fairly certain that the spiral would completely fill the desired space, carefully smoothing the joins between the coils.

Kemper Klay Gun and Dies

After the coil was finished, I applied two rows of petals to the sunflower, making sure the surface was slipped to guarantee optimal adhesion. I allowed the sunflower to dry to leather hard, removed it from the mold, applied a clay fitting to take a copper fitting so the sunflower can go on a stake and put holes in to take a wire for hanging. After drying completely, the piece is fired to Cone 06.

I glazed the sunflower with Amaco's Potter's Choice Temmoku in the center, as I do for all my Deluxe and Fancy Sunflowers. For the petals, I used Starfire Brown, a glaze recipe I was given by my first pottery teacher, Gene Pluhar, which breaks and pools in almost a jasper-like manner. The glaze is reminiscent of the surfaces preferred about 30 years ago, so it contributes a nostalgic quality to the piece.

Buttons: Lace

Assorted Lace Buttons in a Small Pearl Blue Lace Bowl

I ran into an old contact early this year at the Sidestreet Diner in Grosse Pointe. I was having brunch with an old friend and this individual (sitting in the booth behind me and so only able to see the back of my head) overheard our conversation and asked if I was a potter, indicating she owned a knit shop (she didn't recognize me) and was wondering if I'd be interested in making ceramic buttons and maybe some other things. We exchanged some e-mail correspondence, in which I sent her some pictures of my lace bowls; she thought the texture would be interesting for buttons for hand-knit goods.

Medium Diamonds
(Deep Firebrick)

I had inherited two sets - large and small - of canape cutters from my Mother some years ago. I set to work rolling out clay slabs, rolling in lace and cutting out shapes. I made about a dozen samples, in sets of three and five. Once cut out, I used the smallest-available hole punch (one-eighth inch) to add holes (using a small metal rod to clean out the clay between each hole). I let the pieces dry, cleaned them up with some synthetic steel wool, being careful to remove any and all "catchy"surfaces and edges, and then bisque fired. (If you're doing large quantities, throwing them into a greenware or bisqueware bowl for firing vastly simplifies loading and unloading.) I rinsed the pieces before glazing to remove any residual dust.

Medium Crescents
(Oil Spot)

Glazing and firing were both going to be challenging. The buttons had to glazed all around, back and front, so they were going to have to be on stilts as they dried and while being fired. Coming up with a way to dip them and get complete glaze coverage was perplexing, until I dug out an old pair of tweezers I used to "assist" in putting jute for price tags through too-small holes. By using a pair of long, pointed standard tweezers, I could poke each tweezer into a hole in the given button, dip it into the glaze and hold it flat to let the glaze pool, then lower it onto a stilt and release it. I fired them in a fairly fast kiln to Cone 6. After cooling and unloading, I used a Dremel with an eight-inch diamond grinder to smooth out the marks left by the stilts in the backs of the buttons.

Medium Squares
Albany Slip Brown

The client was delighted with the samples. So very delighted she bought them off of me right then and there (I had also brought some samples of my friend Don Schulte's yarn notecards; she purchased those outright as well) and asked me to make more. A lot more, in lots of different sizes and shapes. So I swung into major production, the first step of which was to call my friend Catherine and let her know what had happened.

Medium Trefoil
Vert Lustre

My friend Catherine is not a horder but she does hold onto some interesting things. Among others, she had held on to some of her mother's old (old) cookie cutters, as well as the animal-shaped cookie cutters from her childhood Easy-Bake Oven. All of which she offered to me. I made up eight of each shape, so I could have a set of three and a set of five (always odd numbers!) I followed the process, making some very large shapes (stars, circles, hearts, rosettes), some nice novelty shapes (terrier) and what I decided to all my "Animal Crackers" series from the Easy-Bake Oven cutters.

Small Triangles,
Crescents and
Six-Pointed Stars in
Palladium, Metallic
Black and Saturation
Metallic.

Although some of the larger sizes are difficult to keep flat throughout the process (this, along with the very clean edges and surfaces, is apparently very important to fiber people), I'm learning that drying them between sheets of drywall may help with this. Also, stilting the smallest shapes on small tripod stilts was not a good bet while straddling them across two bar stilts is much more successful. A Dremel with an eight-inch diamond grinder is indispensable for grinding out the small percentage of holes that seem inevitably fill with glaze during firing, regardless of how carefully I blow them out during glaze application. (Make sure to use the lubricating oil that comes with this special bit to speed up the process.)

In terms of packaging, I purchased a quantity of small zip-bags, into which go each set of buttons. I punched a hole at the top to one side, threaded through a piece of jute and attached a tag with a description including the size, shape and glaze. By putting them in the bag, the customer can see the back and the front of the button(s) and can see the quality of manufacture. The buttons are available a couple places around the state; we're waiting to see how they do in the wider market.

Deluxe Sunflower: Confetti

Owing to my ongoing obsessiveness, when I find a tool that really works for me, I tend to investigate all of its available variations. I had been working with the Kemper Klay Kutters for a long time, primarily with the various sizes of the "Basic Set", which consists of a circle, teardrop, five-petaled floret and heart. These had been useful for me with some ladybugs I made, as well as both Original (floret-spotted) and Deluxe (round-spotted) Toadstools, and some of the sunflowers. I didn't even think they might have other shapes available until one day, while teaching a class at the Anton Art Center in Mt. Clemens, Michigan, I came across a triangle cutter and realized I needed to dig a little deeper.

Boy, did I strike gold! Triangle sets, square sets, Lilac (four-petaled florets)sets and oval sets. And, in researching for this post, I just now discovered they have a set of star-shaped cutters - I may have to get those, too!

The mechanism is simple - a shaped tube which is closed at the end with a plunger assembly to push (in my case) the clay out. What I've learned with using these is that a bit of clay gradually builds up on the cutter, making it difficult to release the clay; cleaning out with a cutting tool or fettling knife usually does the trick; also, the wetter and more plastic the clay, the more likely it is to adhere to the cutter. Also, it's important to keep them clean and dry - part of the assembly is steel which will rust. A shot of WD-40 has been helpful for me when things start to "lock up". Another key issue is that the plunger will make a circular mark in one side of the cut-out. This looks pretty cool on a floret but doesn't always work for some of the other things I use these for; I resolve this by making sure the side with the circular impression is the side I attach to whatever it is I'm making.

With this design, I wanted to evoke something of the cascade of confetti at a parade or other celebration. I assembled the sunflower as usual, draping the clay over the hump mold and applying the three layers of petals. I then rolled out a thinner slab of clay and, using the three largest cutters (as I was making a ginormous sunflower - I scale the elements to fit the size of the flower I'm making), cut out a bunch of squares. I slipped the surface of the center of the sunflower (don't score - because you're not covering the entire surface, those scoring marks that are not covered by the squares will even after glazing) and then scored and slipped the back side of each square and applied in what I hoped would look like a random pattern. When finished, I let it dry to leather hard, flip it off the mold (this gets easier and easier - I've gone from only doing these big pieces on spec to fabricating them quite routinely), put in the holes for the hanging wire and apply a clay receptacle to take a copper fitting and let it dry.

Once bisque fired to Cone 06, I glazed the center with my go-to glaze, Amaco's Potters Choice Temmoku. For the petals, I used a glaze I was given by my first pottery instructor, Gene Pluhar, called Albrecht Sand, a subtle matte glaze with a genuinely sandy appearance. This is a design that might still require some tweaking. I'm going to live with for a while and see how I feel about; then we'll see!

From Exotic to Native in Just a Few Easy Steps....

After removal of the Astilbes and Hostas, from the North.

The part of my property I see least is the strip along the foundation which abuts my neighbor's driveway to the northwest. Just as with my neighbor on the other side, whose property abuts my driveway, the only folks who really see it are the folks who don't own it. That doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile to make it pretty - cultivating a beautiful garden for someone else's enjoyment is a great way to grow a good, neighborly relationship. I managed to secure permission from my former neighbors to plant on their property, using extra plants from my existing collection, creating a beautiful composition of Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta 'Goldsturm'), Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus' and Echinacea pallida), Spiderwort (Tradescantia cultivars) and Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium), now complemented by wandering Virgin's Bower (Clematis virginiana). It is still my favorite garden, having cost not a penny and despite the fact it is neither on my property nor was I paid for the work; the yearly pleasure I derive from it and the creatures who visit - especially Eastern Goldfinches (Spinus tristis), Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) and, in the winter, Dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) - not to mention the varied pollinators - is more than adequate compensation.

After removal of the Astilbes and Hostas, from the West.

Back in the "olden days", when I knew nothing about native plants, I had installed a collection of white-flowering Astilbe chinensis, including 'Bridal Veil' and 'Deutschland', and various Hostas, both solid green and variegated, that I had "adopted" from my Mother's garden, along with four Clematis varieties, along the strip on the other side of my house. (Contrary to popular belief, Astilbe doesn't really like shade; what it wants is moist sun conditions - which is why folks think it likes shade, because it burns up if it isn't watered enough.) With the northwest exposure, the plants did fairly well - enough light to keep the Astilbe relatively happy but little enough that the Hostas didn't burn up. Was it an "inspired" garden? Certainly not. And anyone who knows me at all knows that, along with Daylilies and Rose of Sharon (among other heavily-used exotics), Hostas are not one of my favorites. (Frankly, the very idea of a Hosta Garden leaves me... positively catatonic.) Furthermore, I had to face the fact that none of those plants was doing anything to make the environment friendlier to the native faunal population - they were not particularly attractive to pollinators, they were of no use to any other herbivorous native insects and there was nothing to attract the native birds (and they looked absolutely miserable all winter long). I knew someday I would do something different with the space; until I decided "what", this would do.

Finally, this year, I decided to renovate that area. With several years of native plant experience under my belt, I had determined to install a planting of native perennials to provide four-season interest. With that decision, I dug out all of the now-undesirable plants and hied myself off to American Roots Native Plants in Ortonville, MI, to consult with my friend Trish Hacker-Henig about species selection and to purchase plants.

The new planting, from the North.

I knew I wanted a warmish palette of yellows, oranges, pinks and purples - something that would pop against the red of my home's common brick. I also wanted there to be things to look at as much of the year as possible, especially through the lean winter months. I had posted about the upcoming project on my Facebook page and received good some good feedback from various folks which helped me narrow the field.

I finally ended up with a collection including Golden Ragwort (Senecio aureus, now Packera aurea thanks to renaming conventions, from my garden - golden yellow flowers) and Eastern Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis from my garden - red and pale yellow) which will bloom in Spring; Sand Tickseed (Coreopsis lanceolata - warm yellow), Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa - orange, winter interest with seed heads), Wild Petunia (Ruellia humilis - pale lavender) and Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum - lavender, non-native - but the pollinators love it) for early to mid-Summer; and Showy Tick Trefoil (Desmodium canadense from my garden - pink, winter interest with seed heads), Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea - pink, winter interest and forage for birds), Rough Blazingstar (Liatris aspera - pinkish purple) and Bluestem Goldenrod (Solidago caesia - yellow) for late Summer/Early Fall color. I also chose some late blooming Flowering Spurge (Euphorbia corollata - small, brilliant white flowers) to tuck in front of the larger plants.

Interestingly, as I finished selecting the plants I intended to buy and discussing the other plants I was going to dig from my own garden, Trish observed that I was using almost exactly the same grouping of plants as she had used for a demonstration garden on her property near the nursery!

The new planting, from the West.

In installing the plants, I paid attention to the rhythm I was creating in terms of color, bloom time and structure. The two Spring-blooming species are spaced fairly far apart, with later-season performers similarly spaced out to embace the entire composition; taller plants bracket the composition and are dotted throughout to complement shorter species. The bed isn't very deep, so issues of "taller in back" or "warmer in back" (warmer colors advance visually, while cooler colors recede) weren't really a consideration. The pre-existing Clematis selections (Clematis spooneri - Spring, white; Clematis alpina 'Willy' - Spring, pink; Clematis texensis 'Pagoda' - Summer, pink; Clematis tangutica 'Gravetye Variety' - late Summer, yellow) were worked into the composition (although I may switch two of them, as the two Spring-blooming varieties are adjacent to one another). Texture and form were also important in selection and composition, with textures ranging from relatively coarse (Echinacea) to quite fine (Euphorbia); none of the plants are very coarse in texture (think 'Blue Angel' Hosta coarse) because I felt the space too small to handle that gracefully.

Although the "peak" season has passed for many of the plants, the Liatris and Solidago are coming along and next year my neighbors and I - as well as all the pollinators and birds - will be able to enjoy the entire seasonal show.

Deluxe Sunflower: Ribbon

Anyone who knows me will tell you: I definitely have my obsessive side. (OK, don't get all snarky on me; at least I admit it - freely!) When an idea grabs hold, I tend to keep pushing on it until I either get sick of it or can't think of one more thing to do with it.

The Deluxe Sunflower series has been no exception. When I first returned to these designs a couple years ago, I went from three initial concepts to a total of ten. (Now twelve.) I had a lot of fun with the pastry-bag/slip combo, visiting Michael's to find new pastry tips that might make for another interesting design. I had already used a star or scalloped tip, as well as small and large round tips. I found a ribbon tip that reminded me of the tips I had used while decorating cakes at Baskin Robbins and decided to see what I could do with it.

I fabricated the sunflower in the same manner as I had the Bubbles and Cake sunflowers, draping the slab over the hump mold and applying the three layers of petals. My plan was to use the ribbon tip with slip for a new effect for the center.

The ribbon tip I used was scalloped on one side and plain on the other, like those illustrated here. (I honestly don't know why I didn't get the one that was scalloped on both sides, except that maybe, subconsciously, I was thinking I could do more things with the two different sides. Haven't. Yet.) I used a technique I learned for decorating the edges of the ice cream cakes I used to work with - but only doing one arabesque instead of a continuous line of them. I worked, as previously, from the outside toward the center, making a row of arabesques, then making another and another, working concentrically inward. for the center, I just made a little "pillow" with the tip - but I think it might look better (but be a bit more work) to use a star tip for that final "touch".

The sunflower is finished as are the others, with holes in the back for hanging wire and a receptacle for a copper fitting for a stem, once it is leather hard. Once bone dry, the greenware is fired to cone 06.

I glazed this piece with Amaco's Potters Choice Temmoku for the center and Iron Lustre for the petals. I really like the subtle satiny quality of the latter glaze, plus the fact that it is the same color as my cat Doni's coat - the best recommendation I can think of for just about anything!

Front Yard Renovation

You know how you can be living with something in your garden for years and years until, one day, you suddenly realize that that thing is downright enormous, completely out of control and no longer fits the space you've allotted to it?

The birds-nest spruce - before.

When I bought my house in 1995, it had the requisite yews in the front foundation - six of the darned things. Using a shovel and an axe my brother-in-law had gotten at a Handy Andy closeout, I dug them out but wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Then, in 1996 while I was between jobs, I did some foundation plantings - a 'Snow Fountains' white weeping cherry, some holly, azaleas, potentilla, a rhododendron, a Koren-spice viburnum and two birds-nest spruces. The potentilla, for whatever reason, were the first to bite the dust. I actually replaced the rhodie once after the first one died. The cherry bit the dust a couple years ago for a native Sambucus. Then, one day last month, shortly before my Annual Summer Garden Tour, I glanced at one of the birds-nest spruces and realized, "That thing is huge! It's gotta go - now!"

Spruce-be-gone.

Luckily, I had already decided to do some changes nearby in the front - I had purchased a Fragrant Sumac (Rhus aromatica) while in Paw Paw from my friend Mary Ann Menck. I decided I would cut down the spruce, put in three Fragrant Sumac and some kind of grass, which, I wasn't sure. The Fragrant Sumac would provide excellent Fall color and I hoped to find a grass (or grassy thing) that would further enhance the Sumac's seasonal interest. I was going up to see my native plant grower friend Trish Hacker-Henig mid-week to pick up wetland pants, so I decided to get as much of the rest of the plants for this new project as I could from her.

Trish only had one Fragrant Sumac, which I snapped up right away. We spent a lot of time debating the grass species, considering a number of candidates, including Penn Sedge (Carex pensylvanica) - which I've decided to use in another part of the front yard for a later project. We finally agreed on Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), for its clumping habit, overall size (which would not overwhelm the other plants in the area) and its fantastic Fall display; I got five pots.

The final design, pending the third Sumac and the Hosta's deletion.

First thing when I got home, I cut down the spruce. This was a lot of work but, on the up side, spruces are pretty easy to kill - unlike yews, for example, if you cut them back to unproductive wood, they will not send out new growth (which is what makes them a challenge to renovate). I cut the shrub down as far as I could and left a bit of the stump, which I covered with mulch. Then I took a break.

I then placed the two Sumacs and five pots of Little Bluestem and planted them in. The design calls for a third Fragrant Sumac, which I purchased just over a week ago from yet another native plant grower and will put in... soon. There's still a lot of work to do - not only putting in the remaining shrub and keeping it all watered, but pruning all three Sumacs to be about the same size so they'll grow nicely together, as well as digging out a few more things, including a 'Blue Angel' hosta and some (get this) aggressive Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana). There's still a gap to fill - but I'll figure that out - eventually!