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.

Round Two

(Note: I will be in Nicaragua and Honduras until December 17th, so there will be no post until then.

     These photos are of the second moss I garden I built this summer for a client.  There is a short path entering a large woods that leads to a nineteenth century wire pergola that came from England.  Inside of it is part of the first English parliament building, constructed in the 10th Century.
     I brought in several rocks, many with moss already growing on them.  To the rest I added moss, attaching it with 100% silicone caulk.  One very large rock, a weathered limestone, required three people to move into place.
     Along the path is a large animal feeding trough, also several hundred years old.  I first filled it with ground, then added moss on top of it.
     Most of the moss on the ground is Thuidium delacatulum.

Just so enjoyable

     This season I built three moss gardens for a private client who lives about an hour from my home.  He has a great deal of garden antiques in his gardens, many from Europe.
     These photos are of the first garden, started in March.  They show me building the outline of two mounds with mossy rocks I found nearby--over 300 in total.  Then I filled in the areas with mainly Thuidium delacatulum moss.  I added oak bark mulch between the two areas and around a fountain of two children holding a large fish.  This structure used to be an operating fountain in England, and it was built in Italy in the 1800s.  The tubing is still intact, so it might be operating again in the future.

Back from the desert

     I recently returned from an 18-day trip, spent mainly in Utah and Arizona.  I need to rest up, as I leave for another trip in two weeks, this time to Nicaragua and Honduras.  I will be gone a lot this winter, hoping to see lots of gardens and green stuff, in general, as not much is green here anymore--except for my moss.
     I spent three delightful hours visiting the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona.  As it is in the Sonora Desert, the gardens has a huge variety of cacti and succulents.  The most interesting plant I found was what looked like a power pole with spikes protruding from it.  It is Fouquieria columnaris, or Boojum Tree, in the Octillo family.  It is native to northern Mexico and Baja California.  It appears in photos four and five.

Just one more

(Note: I will be traveling to Utah and Arizona for three weeks, so there will not be a post until November 20th or so.)
     I thought I was done with garden projects by September.  However, when I come across a bunch of new stones with moss on them...well, I just can't help myself--somewhere, there must be a place for them.  And I found it, just inside the gate to my Japanese-style garden.

The "back 40"

     These photos are of the back left corner of the property, actually encroaching a bit onto my neighbor's property (including the shed).  For foreigner viewers, "back 40" refers to a 40-acre (25 hectares) parcel of farmland.  The rock with holes is from a cave, and I stuck Anomodon rostratus
moss into it a few years ago.