A brief interlude

     I am back from my trip to New Zealand, one of the prettiest countries I have been to.  And in two days I travel to Ethiopia for another adventure.  So, again, I will not do a post for a while, until around Christmas.
     The first two photos were taken in Christchurch Botanic Garden.  If someone knows the name of the plant, please let me know.
     The third photo was taken in Queenstown Gardens.  They certainly have some beautiful azaleas there, in bloom as it was late spring.
     The fourth photo shows a common shrub with yellow flowers, appearing alongside roads in the South Island.  Again, if anyone knows its name, I would appreciate knowing it.
     Photo five shows some of the incredible moss found in New Zealand.
     Photo six shows one of the amazing number of ferns I saw.
     The last two photos shows the beautiful red lichens I saw in a few places, along with some very happy mosses attached, in full sun.

Top-ranked Japanese gardens

Note: I will be visiting New Zealand for several weeks, so there will not be a new post until December.

   In early October I visited Portland Japanese Garden, the top-ranked Japanese garden in North America.  I then went to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where I visited Nitobe Memorial Garden, the fourth-ranked Japanese garden.  I actually preferred Nitobe, mainly because I found their moss gardens to be the best in North America (next to my own, of course).
   The first six photos were from Portland Japanese Garden.  The last four were from Nitobe.  What appears to be grass in Nitobe is largely moss.

To improve the view

     With my new large picture window, I felt I needed to improve the view through it.  I planted some boxwoods, which I will eventually shear into a single mass, called a tamamono in Japanese.  I added a mound of ground, then placed some Anomodon rostratus moss on it.  So, in a year or two I should have the perfect view.

A whole new look

     I always loved the view from my kitchen out the dining room window, which overlooks my Japanese-style garden.  But I could never see as much as I wanted to, so in late August I had a large picture window installed.  Eight feet wide, so that is quite large.
     I could not be happier with my expanded view.  It is almost like being outside while still being inside.

It was time

Note: I will be in the Pacific Northwest until early October, so there will not be a new post for several weeks.

     The antique paving bricks in the Williamsburg Garden had shifted and sunken since their installation after reworking the garden about 15 years ago.  The bricks were originally used in the streets of Waukesha, Wisconsin in the early 1900s, and they were removed in the 1960s.

White oak aging

     Five years ago, I had three hanging light fixtures made by a cabinet shop, though the design was my own, way back in 1980.  One was made of white oak, the other two of red cedar and ipe.  I find the one out of white oak is aging the fastest.  The first photo was taken this year, the second three years ago.  The last photo is of the red cedar fixture, which is weathering much better. 

Thousand of chances...

     There is a flight of steps leading out my garage door and upper patio down to my main lower patio, built about 1973.  I estimate that I go down and back up those steps three times a day for 200 days a year.  So, since 1973, I negotiated those steps--without once falling on my face--about 54,000 times.  In early August, I was walking up them, carrying my tripod with my very good camera attached.  I stumbled on the top step, falling forward and trying to stay upright.  Finally, I reached the garage door and grabbed hold of the door jamb, face and camera remaining unbroken.  I said to myself, "That's it, I'm putting in a railing!"  So I did--as I did at nine other places around my gardens.  Why I did not do so in the most frequently used steps is beyond me.