A little bit of serenity

Note: I will be in southern Africa for the next three weeks, so there will not be a post until mid-April.

   On the north side of Oahu, there is a Buddhist temple, called Byodo-in.  It is a copy of one I visited of the same name in Kyoto, Japan.  As with most such temples, one experiences a feeling of peace and serenity while walking the grounds.

A real giant

     Raymond Burr was a large man, the star of "Perry Mason" and "Ironside" in TV series.  He loved orchids, and he loved the South Pacific island of Fiji.  So in 1977 he built a large garden there to grow thousands of orchids.    He called it Garden of the Sleeping Giant, as on a nearby mountain ridge, a formation suggests a large person in the supine position (see photo two).

Back from the beauty

     I recently returned from visiting eight island groups in the South Pacific, from Tahiti in the east to the Solomon Islands in the west.
     A very unusual and beautiful bush I came across several times is Arbre podode.  As can be seen in the photos, one can see where the species name came from, as the layering looks a bit like a Japanese pagoda.

Pretty, but I'll eat something else

    (Note: I will be in the South Pacific until early March, so there will be no new posts until then.)

      Lots of different mushrooms pop up throughout my moss gardens.  Some are pretty--and some are pretty ugly.  I am told I have what are called inky caps, waxy caps, and Bolete mushrooms.  All are supposedly safe to eat.  But I will never find out for sure.
     The last photo is of a small stone lying on Dicranum scoparium moss at the edge of snow.

Winter is here

     It has not been above freezing for 15 days now.  So, I am ready for a little warmth.
     And when it does get above freezing, mosses, if not snow covered, will begin to put on new growth, especially if it is sunny.
     The moss in the first photo is Brachythecium salebrosum.
     The moss in the last three photos is my favorite, Anomodon rostratus.  It spreads horizontally about an inch a season.  Eventually, it will often mound up, making it appear that the stems desire to extend upward, as do what are called pleurocarp mosses.  But it is a true acrocarp, which have horizontal stems.

An inspiration

     A couple of weeks ago I was walking through a museum in Leon, Nicaragua.  It was in a very old colonial house, and it had, as usual for such houses, a garden in the interior.  It had a lot of tropical plants.  Suddenly, it hit me--I have to build a tropical garden of my own.  And I have which I hope will be the perfect spot--in my present sunken garden.  The first photo shows one of many such gardens I saw in Nicaragua.  The other photos show my present sunken garden.

Round Three

     Here is the last of three moss gardens I am building for a private client in Wisconsin.  I will not be done with this one until next spring, as there is now snow on the ground.
     This garden is centered on a six-foot tall obelisk from the 1800s somewhere in Europe.  I hope to have some sort of reflecting pool surrounding the obelisk, using black dye in the water for increased reflecting capability.  But other plans might materialize by the spring.
    

     There was originally a wide path off the lawn into a large woods.  Heavy iron chairs and benches were placed around the obelisk, which is about 80 feet up the path.  The plants in the path were mainly sedges and weeds, with some moss among these.  Originally, I planned to kill the sedges and weeds, hoping to not harm the moss, letting it fill in.  Thinking that would take too long, I decided to add an inch of ground and add many pieces of the moss Climacium americanum into the ground.  This moss fills in fairly quickly, and it makes a good lawn-like surface to walk on occasionally.

     Next spring the path will be extended about 200 feet farther into the woods, up a hill and having  two long curves in it.
     The sides of the path are lined with cobblestones made of sandstone, which was quarried in western Wisconsin in the 1880s.  These stones were originally used for a loading dock alongside a railroad landing at a factory site in Milwaukee.