A welcome sight mid January are these lush, color-soaked still lifes by Laura Jones, an artist in Sydney, Australia.
Nice interview, too, via the design files.
still lifes with flowers; work by artist Laura Jones
UCBG Natural Discourse: Form and Function 1/11/13
The final event in the unique, year-long collaboration that the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley undertook with “artists, architects, scientists and poets in the garden,” Natural Discourse, was held Friday, January 11, 2013. As co-curator Shirley Watts explained at the beginning, “This is my dream symposium. So I just said, Who do I want to hear?”
What we heard was an extraordinary series of lectures, a “natural discourse” that drew from the disciplines of anthropology, art, botany, design, science, politics, engineering, including: The transformation of a sheep ranch in Sonoma County into a world-class, Richard Serra-containing, outdoor art installation (I must see this some day*); the inception of the International Garden Festival at Chaumont sur Loire (I must visit this some day); the making of The Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca, Mexico (I MUST go here some day); the role of cellular structure, its actual physical shape, in furthering understanding of stem cell biology (I may benefit from this some day). And, of course, the juicy back story behind the creation of and ensuing national controversy surrounding one of the Natural Discourse exhibits, SOL Grotto, which utilized the discarded cylindrical tubes from the bankrupt solar cell manufacturing company Solyndra (written about previously here.) My magpie brain happily gorged on the lectures, and I was able to dart into the garden, hummingbird-like, when opportunities presented. A dream symposium indeed.
In between lectures, the garden, which hasn’t experienced a frost yet, was ours to explore, so I’m interspersing some of the photos I took during the short breaks and lunch. I didn’t explore too far beyond the conference area. The one time I did, I was late for a lecture. Shades of college all over again.
Agave stricta
Euphorbia cooperi var. cooperi, South Africa
Aloe sabaea, Yemen
Bloom of Aloe sabaea
Agave species, Mexico
Depending on sound quality, I have ambitious plans to produce transcripts of most of the lectures — they are simply too wonderful not to share — but there may be unforeseen technical challenges ahead. For now, below are the opening remarks by Paul Licht, Director, UCBG:
“It’s a pleasure to see this many people interested in what I think are very important parts of our lives. I’m Paul Licht. I’m the director of the garden, and so I get the great pleasure of opening what’s going to be an exciting day.
“And I’m not supposed to say this, but if you get a little tired of sitting, there’s a lot of other things to see out here. In fact, there are 34 acres. We describe it as 34 glorious acres, which houses one of the biggest, most diverse plant collections in North America, and it’s unequaled in many ways.
Opuntia aff. prolifera, Beavertail cactus (note searchable database)
“I’m not going to give you the whole spiel, but you’re in a very special place for many things, one of which you’re going to hear about the rest of the day. But just to orient you, it is a 34-acre garden. It’s part of the University of California, but we are one of the few really public entities of the University of California. There are other museums, but they are not public. They are mostly research. We have a plant collection that’s unequaled not only in its diversity, that is, the number of different kinds of plants — we have roughly 12 thousand different kinds of plants growing here. They are from all over the world. But they are unusual in that they are almost all wild collected, and no other garden has this kind of collection. And it’s hard for people to believe that right here in this little town of Berkeley we have this incredible resource. That’s what it’s supposed to be, a resource for you. It’s a public garden. It’s your garden as much as anyone’s.
Puya venusta, Chile
“What we’ve tried to do over the past few years is to make people more appreciative or better able to discover the garden by appealing to a lot of different senses that I think should be part of the garden, and one of them is art. Art and music, I think, go together. Now, I’m very much of the belief that if you did nothing in this garden, it is still a piece of art. It’s an artwork. Any landscaper, any gardener, will tell you that no matter what it looks like, whether it’s just a bunch of flowers or very natural looking, it’s artificial. It’s created by people, landscapers and gardeners and people who love these living things. So I would argue that it’s all a piece of art that you’re sitting in the middle of right now. Everything is intentional. Well, not everything. We do have some weeds. But most of what you see here has been done intentionally. And if it doesn’t look like a formal garden to you, that you’re used to, like rows of beautiful plants, that’s intentional. We’ve tried to recreate nature in the middle of nature. But we’ve created it in the way that we think sends out a message.
Aloe capitata
“So we started from the point of view that we think we have a lot to offer to the art world, and then we began to explore more — I won’t say traditional, but things that I understood better. Simple things, like botanical illustration, was clearly related to the garden. So next week in this room, next Saturday, is the opening of a botanical illustration exhibit, where we’ll have a whole group of several dozen botanical illustrators that have worked here, displaying their things.
“And then when I thought I sort of had it all under control. Mary Anne Friel and Shirley Watts came with another idea, which kind of stretched my imagination a little bit. What they put together was an exhibit they called Natural Discourse. And to this day, it is so rich and varied that when people ask me what is it, it takes a long time for me to sort of articulate it. And I think it’s much better done by seeing it than talking about it. So I hope in the course of this talk you’ll have the opportunity to get out and really experience it firsthand. And if it’s brought in people who haven’t been to the garden before, then it really succeeded because that’s the whole goal of it.
Euphorbia grandialata, South Africa
(window shade coverings, very faint in this photo, are vellum-burned “spiderwebs” by Gail Wight, exhibit entitled “Under the Influence,” inspired by 1960 experiments of feeding psychotropic drugs to spiders.)
“And it’s very different from the traditional artwork in that it is very much part of the garden, an extension of the garden. The artists who created these pieces did a wonderful job of extending the garden into their artwork, and that’s I think what makes it so very, very special. A lot of these pieces might not look as exciting if they were just plunked in the middle of the MOMA or the DeYoung or something. They would look interesting, but they wouldn’t have the same meaning. And that’s what I hope you’ll all get out of this, that art can be just a transition into the garden. It doesn’t have to be a separate thing…So I hope that you’ll find this as exciting as I do. And I hope that it will present a doorway for you to get out into the garden and enjoy the art that’s part of the garden.”
List of speakers:
Dr. Paul Licht, Director, UC Botanical Garden, Welcome
Shirley Watts, Natural Discourse co-curator, Introduction to Symposium
Mary Ann Friel, Natural Discourse co-curator, Overview of exhibition
Ronald Rael, “Material Provenance” (SOL Grotto)
Steven Oliver, “Art That Ceases to be a Commodity”
Gerard Dosba, The International Garden Festival at Chaumont sur Loire
Dr. Marie Csete, “Structure and Function in Stem Cell Biology,” Division Director, AABB Center for Cellular Therapies, Bethesda, MD
Dr. Alejandro de Avila, “Blood on a Fountain,” founding director of The Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca
*Visits to the Oliver Ranch are arranged only through membership in non-profit organizations. For example, the UCBG is arranging a visit for its members in 2014.
Posted in agaves, woody lilies, garden travel, garden visit, science, succulents
Tagged Agave stricta, Aloe capitata, Aloe sabaea, Beavertail cactus, Berkeley Natural History Museums searchable database, Dr. Alejandro de Avila, Dr. Marie Csete, Euphorbia cooperi var. cooperi, Euphorbia grandialata, Gail Wight, Gerard Dosba, Mary Anne Friel, Oliver Ranch Sonoma County California, Opuntia aff. prolifera, Paul Licht, Puya venusta, Ronald Rael, Shirley Watts, Steven Oliver, The Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca, The International Garden Festival at Chaumont sur Loire, UCBG "Natural Discourse", UCBG's "Plants Illustrated" 1/19/13 - 2/8/13, University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley
2 Comments
no-burn day
On the drive to work this morning, my local public radio station advised that today is a no-burn day.
I had never heard that term before, though I’m familiar with the reasoning behind it:
“A ‘no burn’ alert is in effect through midnight Wednesday for parts of Los Angeles and Orange counties.
Sam Atwood, spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said this is the third time the agency has issued an alert this winter.
‘During the winter, we can get these low-level temperature inversions which trap the smoke from the fireplaces low to the ground and can contribute to unhealthy air quality,’ he said.
A ‘no burn’ alert means residents in affected areas cannot burn wood or manufactured logs in fireplaces or outdoor fire pits.”
I love to burn wood in an outdoor fireplace, but it’s becoming increasingly apparent that my outdoor fires are an unnecessary indulgence, an ill-advised luxury that contributes a shocking amount of particulates to a neighborhood, a city, a county, an inversion layer. So now it’s a rare occurrence, maybe once or twice a year, burning only the driest wood to keep the smoke down. I mostly keep potted plants on our old Ben Franklin stove now.
In late December we trialed a new flue we had built. Along with building the flue, the stove was sandblasted again, the second time since we’ve come to own it over a decade ago, after retrieving it from an outdoor dump site in Riverside County. Marty put a quick coat of silver paint on it after the sandblasting to protect it from the winter rain. Willie’s Tin Shop built the flue. Sometimes I think we invent projects just so we can work with a business that would choose a name like Willie’s Tin Shop. Plus, the original, decades-old shop had really cool signage. (Forget Yelp, we go by signage and heartfelt business names.)
We trialed the flue in a couple locations, moving the heavy monster around on a wheeled base, settling on a spot out of the wind.
I do miss the long-ago fires we had throughout the winter before I knew better. We all love a good fire here.
But this will most likely be the only outdoor fire I’ll enjoy this winter, the torches of aloes in bloom.
No tag, possibly Aloe africana, growing at the entrance to the 710 Freeway on Seventh Street.
My own Aloe capitata var. quartzicola’s bloom taking shape.
So the Ben Franklin remains dark for the foreseeable future, this no-burn winter.
Occasional Daily Weather Report 1/6/13
Nighttime temps haven’t dipped into the 30s yet, still the calamintha was somehow dusted with ice crystals yesterday morning
Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) always looks chilly
The daytime temps, anyway, make for perfect biking weather. My Christmas present to Marty was a bike bell, and his present to me was…a bike bell. The whole town seems to have bikes on the brain this year. Walking to a local coffee shop this morning, we found a confab of vintage bikes.
I highly approve of the containers outside the shop too, which were planted with shrubby stuff, a direction I’ve been drifting in also.
Not just for vines, this hand-made iron tuteur can also support lax shrubs like this knife-leaf acacia, A. pravissima
Mixed containers with Dodonaea viscosa ‘Purpurea’, Purple-leafed Hop-bush, variegated eleagnus and ginger/hedychium
From the garden, a NOID begonia, Saxifraga stolonifera ‘Maroon Beauty,’ Papaver commutatum, Echeveria ‘Opal Moon,’ Pelargonium ‘Crocodile,’ and that little dickens Ein.
Posted in Occasional Daily Photo, Occasional Daily Weather Report, pots and containers, succulents
Tagged Acacia pravissima, Calamintha nepeta, Echeveria 'Opal Moon', Ein, Papaver commutatum, Pelargonium 'Crocodile', Saxifraga stolonifera 'Maroon Beauty', Tillandsia usneoides, vintage bicycles
3 Comments
Natural Discourse; Form & Function 1/11/13
Some important dates. Natural Discourse, the multimedia exhibition installed in the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley, is closing January 20, 2013, so it’s now last-chance-Texaco time to get over there and have a look at its many wonders, such as “The Delight of Earthly Gardens” video installation by Nadia Hironaka and Mathew Suib.
“a video installation using footage shot in the garden with a heat-sensing camera revealing hidden aspects of plants in vibrant colors” artdaily.org
And “Botanica Recognita: Signage to Facilitate a Greeting,” by Hazel White and Denise Newman
(one of the boophanes from South Africa)
“Signs highlight the plant’s existence with the following information:
name of caretaker (gardener)
most important collaborator (bird, wind, etc.)
poetic name based on the plant’s uniqueness
location in relation to the viewer and surrounding topography
question posed to or by the plant”
The closing of Natural Discourse, like its inauguration, is book-ended by what promises to be another amazing symposium, “Form & Function” on January 11, 2013. There may be a few tickets left, but don’t hate me if it’s already sold out. Lineup includes these speakers:
Alejandro de Avila Blomberg, Founding Director of the Oaxaca Botanical Garden
Gerard Dosba, Head Gardener and project manager at the Festival International des Jardins at Chaumont, France
Marie Csete, MD, PhD. Division Director, Center for Cellular Therapies American Association of Blood Banks
Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, Architects, creators of SOL House in the Natural Discourse exhibit
Whether you come via Bay Area Rapid Transit or car, don’t miss the companion installation in the downtown Berkeley BART station.
O Music of Eyes, 2012, by Deborah O’Grady, Shirley Watts, and Shane Myrbeck.
Photography, sound, and printed silk
I wrote about the UCBG and a portion of the inaugural 2/10/12 Natural Discourse symposium here.
photos by MB Maher
2012’s end
What a beautiful, tragic, maddening, saddening, intoxicating, infuriating, sublime and silly year 2012 was.
While I indulge a bittersweet mood with Picasa’s collage editor, I’m wishing you the very, very best for 2013 — heavy on the sublime, light on the saddening.
Photos taken at the Huntington Botanical Gardens, the Desert Garden Conservatory, on June 30, 2012.
starting over with Kalanchoe ‘Pink Butterflies’
Its lifespan as fleeting and evanescent as a butterfly’s, the mother plant’s single stalk ultimately elongated to over 4 feet tall, bloomed, and dropped all but the topmost leaves. All in less than two years’ time. Seen here in better days.
One of the parents of this hybrid is excessively weedy, known by the cautionary name ‘Mother of Thousands,’ but true to ‘Pink Butterflies’ reputation it absolutely was not weedy. Quite the opposite. The kalanchoe shed the ruffly plantlets along the leaf margins seen in photos in the older post, but they did not take root in the potting soil, even though they covered the top of the container like mulch. I waited to see if the tall, leafless main stem would grow new leaves, but it didn’t. Tempted though I was to just toss it on the compost pile by this point, I instead chopped the long stalk into 2 to 3 inch pieces at leaf nodes, rooted them in sand, and after a hit-and-miss summer watering regimen now have just two cuttings slowly making size again.
I’m wondering how others have fared with this remarkable kalanchoe, but haven’t come across much information on its growth habits so far. I never expected it to behave like an annual and am frankly underwhelmed by its gangly performance. Should it be pinched back? Hopefully, more cultural reports will be coming in on this fairly new hybrid.
The agave on the table with the never-camera-shy Evie is ‘Kissho Kan.’
passionflower
Passiflora loefgrenii, also known as the garlic passionfruit vine from Brazil, is making an unlikely, late-December flowering debut in my garden. This December show is probably a one-time fluke for a summer bloomer that will settle down to a more predictable routine after its first year. Then again, it may actually prefer to bloom in a zone 10, cool, drizzly winter than during our long, hot, drought-scourged summers. It’s a rare passion flower, without much horticultural information available.
An architectural marvel, the structure of a passion flower was long ago co-opted as a kind of 3-D precursor to a theological Power Point presentation on Christianity: From Wikipedia: “In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Christian missionaries adopted the unique physical structures of this plant, particularly the numbers of its various flower parts, as symbols of the last days of Jesus and especially his crucifixion,” a rather funereal association for a vine that attracts and sustains so much life.
I share photographer Andrew Zuckerman’s assessment: “Then there is the purple passionflower, which is an incredibly beautiful, vibrant, flamboyant flower, but its narrative qualities are not that interesting to me.” (quoted from the Smithsonian’s blog Collage of Arts and Sciences, “Flower Power, Redefined.”)
Passiflora’s relationship with various butterflies is well known, but its attractions are manifold; the garlic passionfruit’s “Remarkable flowers…are thought to appeal to hummingbirds when first open then to bees later in the day as their shape changes.” (From Passiflora Online)
My plant is from Annie’s Annuals & Perennials. Logee’s has a good selection, as does Kartuz Greenhouses. In Southern California, some passion flowers are fast, rampant growers, so keep ultimate size in mind when making a selection. (Bear in mind that they are a frequent choice to quickly cover chain link fences.) Pollination is thought to be a job for large bees, which works out nicely since our wooden fence is loaded with carpenter bees.
Posted in plant nurseries, Plant Portraits
Tagged Andrew Zuckerman, Annie's Annuals & Perennials, carpenter bees, Garlic Passionfruit, Kartuz Greenhouses, Logee's Plants for Home & Garden, North Amercian Butterfly Association, Passiflora loefgrenii, passion flowers, Smithsonian Collage of Arts and Sciences, vines
3 Comments
gift-wrapped
Yesterday was the winter solstice, so one of the best holiday presents of all, the gift of lengthening days, has already been delivered.
I’ll take that over new socks any day. Huzzah!
I’ve gift-wrapped AGO in some images from 2012, a small attempt to thank the readers and bloggers who’ve made 2012 such a blast.
Wishing you all a wonderful holiday.
you are here
Don’t laugh, but it was cold, relatively speaking, in Los Angeles yesterday. Last night was down into the low 40’s. Marty and I took the Metro up to the ArcLight in Hollywood to see Hyde Park on Hudson, and the boots, scarves, sweaters, umbrellas and heavy coats were out in full force on train travelers. Which might be why I can’t stop looking at the portfolio of South African garden designer Franchesca Watson, and the light-flooded photos from one some of her gardens found at desiretoinspire.
The dome-shaped plants in the huge gray pots are intriguing and remind me of the bromeliad Abromeitiella brevifolia, (description via plantlust) but they just can’t be, right? Must be something shrubby clipped tight. Wonderful effect, whatever it is.
repeat as often as necessary:
you are here
Posted in design
Tagged Abromeitiella brevifolia, desiretoinspire, Franchesca Watson, garden design, Plantlust
6 Comments