The Soft Dimension

About a year ago I started making these small sculptures out of tooth picks, super glue, dark red gesso, and gold leaf. I’ve always been a believer in quality materials. With the right materials, things always seem to turn out… well.

Even if you don’t know what that looks like to begin with… I didn’t have a grand design I just thought that the sculpture would somehow come to life if these pieces came together, and maybe if I tried it with something small then I’d know if I could build something bigger.

Details… The box of toothpicks and container of super glue came from my favorite little store Harwick’s (a family owned tools and hardware store that’s been around for more than 75 years) and the gold leaf from Daniel Smith. A few of these supplies had been bumping around in a drawers for a while, as well as in my head, while others I had to go hunting for like… gold.

As I built the triangles they started needing each other to go anywhere. So I wove and layerd the angles and points together. In my mind they were spreading or reaching, bridging and arcing.  Eventually they expressed a certain completeness, they had a certain character and the follies, or so sculptures are called in landscapes, made their way to my container garden indoors.

There they seemed to find their home, of all places, on top of plants… Rather than referring to jewel encrusted crowns these are singing in silent sylvan tongues about harmonies and resonances, about how things are built or mended.

Have any favorite memories of school?

Haha! Sometimes it’s hard to get back into the frame of mind of being a young student… I loved the walks my middle school teacher Bill would take us on in parks to identify plants around Seattle. In art I had the freedom to draw what I wanted and gravitated towards the quite and observant world of botanical illustration. Yet the time outside of school often felt the most electric, because I did what I really wanted! Drama classes and choir camps… I think at an early age we know where our talents and sympathies lie. But often schools give such a broad over view of subjects and in such an abstract context that it can’t help but loose the spark of self initiation and personal relevance. Maybe partly because of this I’ve always thought it would be great fun to develop programs outside of school for students that love the same subjects. The kids have all chosen to be there, and you have freedom to be wildly interdisciplinary, while encouraging critical thinking skills. This year at the Volunteer Park Conservatory I’ve created a back door for kids to see into the inner workings of our greenhouses and learn more about where all our plants come from and why botany and environmental science are so important and fascinating.

We had two sessions for our day camp that we called “Around the World in Four Days” one at the beginning and another at the end of summer. Many students enrolled with friends, and some parents asked to be involved too. It was a community effort. I involved botany students from the University of Washington, gardeners from the Conservatory, and various specialists from the Friends of the Conservatory. It was a good group. We explored our way through the plant kingdom by visiting the collections, doing scavenger hunts, and building terrariums for deserts and rainforests. Kids could learn what belonged to a particular region, could curate the piece themselves labeling all the plants, and learned to care for them and took their terrariums home at the end of the four days.

Almost everyone came in having particular plants they gravitated towards, yet there was a much bigger picture those plants were a part of. We started class by looking at the regions the plants came from. We looked at how the wind, weather, and topography all work together to create the unique environments that plants grow out of and respond to as we pondered words like evolution…

Most of our students had been to the Conservatory before but many had never seen or touched a globe that didn’t divide down national boundaries. The globe I painted described regions where plants and animal communities share a common environment. This opened up a whole host of questions… Why are some spots warmer than others? What is weather? How does it move around the earth? We experimented making clouds in glass jars as well as saw how dew drops and rain forms with a little help from water and ice cubes inside metal cups. We even talked about how we make the climates in the various greenhouses at the Conservatory to reproduce the conditions nearer the equator the best we can. Throughout all this students each kept a detailed journal that they decorated and wrote their notes in.

We didn’t just talk about evolution as a concept we looked at how it happened over generations of plants living in a climate and successfully reproducing. We looked at orchids as an example of an incredibly diverse species of plants that has made a life most often in the canopy of trees, just where certain insects and birds can pollinate them. These orchids form bonds with their pollinator not only through offering it nectar but also mimicking how they look or creating the perfect landing pad for them.

Kids got to look at some of the many orchids in our collection, draw and label their parts,

and even pollinate their own flowers toothpicks in hand!

Then the orchids that they learned to pollinate went in their journals with a number of other pressed plant parts. It was cool to see students first botanical drawings next to the real plants. Their journals were full of drawings and keep sakes to remember all they learned.

After exploring the many things that shaped a plant above ground we also looked below at roots and soil. With collections of dirt from all over the state students saw how combining sand, clay, and humus in varying amounts formed very different soils for each region, and thus very different communities of plants. Some were hard and repelled water, while others were like big sponges. Everyone got to guess which soil belonged to which location.

Then we set up the microscopes and looked a little deeper…

even on the smallest level we could see life in the soil. Bacteria that formed beneficial relationships with plants actually helped roots absorb nutrients from the soil. Of course if there was more plant debris in the soil then there was likely to be more microorganisms, and more beneficial relationships. Maybe this next year we can test that theory, and find out if these cultures can be introduced to poorer soils for bioremediation projects. Or perhaps even better have some friends from EarthCorp teach us about how places like Gas Works Park have been cleaned up through introducing a network of the right microorganisms.

We wrapped camp up by looking again at these many relationships on a large scale. Students drew the plants and animals they’d learned about and placed them where they would normally live on a giant mural. And every student got to tell their own story about how that being was special and an important part of the woven tapestry of life. Parents arrived for the presentation and for pictures. And after the students had packed up all their drawings, terrariums, and other goodies we got to hear from parents and guardians how much the kids were talking about class every day over dinner. When you’re growing corn from a kernel, measuring it’s growth, studying it’s structure, making tortillas from ground corn fried in a skillet with melted cheese on top, you’re gonna have a lot to say, right? After such a successful class and such great students I’m happy to see summer around the corner and kids already signing up to explore the Conservatory and some of our worlds many treasures.

Starting the year I keep wanting to extend the celebration… So happy New Year! It’s only the first few weeks and I’ve been spending this time giving away the things that aren’t essential, and figuring out what is so that I can amplify it. In that spirit a little garden renovation 101!

About three years ago I built this garden for some clients in Kirkland. Marty and Sue wanted to be a part of some of the building too! So Marty and I moved about 20 yards of topsoil and mulch over the course of a week to cover their lawn and begin to build the architecture of the landscape. It was a monumental amounts of dirt! Yet Marty perservered, you could even say remained cheerful as we moved load after load off the driveway. I’m not sure who got the better workout, but after we established that he could handle the heavy lifting, the landscape had the winter to settle into place and compost the lawn, making for rich planting material later.

In the spring we looked at the plans again and started a new and different part of the work. Planting what we’d talked about through the fall and winter. Some changes had to be made based on availability in the nurseries, but the main challenge was to keep within the budget we’d discussed while purchasing enough mature trees and shrubs to soften the large rockeries and fencing that contained the garden. Sue wanted color and cut flowers while Marty wanted wildlife and water features. And just as important as being in the garden in the summer was looking out on it during the the other seasons. I wanted that kitchen nook view to be as inviting year round as picking up a good book, full of the drama of life. Even the stones were placed so that they could fill with water and serve as bird baths in just the right spot.

This fall I made it back to the garden to visit and chat about what had grown after the installation about two years before. It was great to see what had been successful, and informative to see what needed some changes. One plant was imposing on the walk way while another was breaking up the rythm of the grasses. It took about four hours to pick up and move plants to new locations. But you really can’t do this work unless you’ve given the garden a chance to grow and mature on its own. The sun, rain, soil all work together to create a unique microclimate in each garden, and this affects the plants in turn. Probably what I love most about gardening is this part of the work, it’s a conversation between what you thought and what came to fruition. And then making the careful adjustments that serve the purpose of discovering again that feeling that you were looking for when you first made your design.

This process can be a little humbling, but more often than not it’s totally delightful to see what has happened while you were away. What was just a dream to begin with has taken on life. Humming birds visit and build nests, children pick blueberries, lavender is gathered and enjoyed, parties are held for friends and everyone gets to hang out in the garden and find their favorite spots.

For me, after stepping away from the work,  hearing about how much my clients and their guests have enjoyed the space together, is the biggest reward.

This next year I’m looking forward to diving into another year of design…

As I reflect on what I want most in life, my mind flickers over these gardens and the moments that I’ve helped to create. I just want to thank all my clients for being a part of making something beautiful and meaningful together!

When Clarrisa Pinkola Estes wrote that the garden is a kind of religion, I’d never heard anything like that before… I mean I’ve been gardening for over a decade, spent many seasons watching things grow and return to the earth.  Clearly I had taken much of what I learned and also applied it to life. I would also walk into a cathedral, with it’s collums, its windows, and it’s lights and shadows and think of how much it reminded me of a forest. But for some reason I’d never thought of the garden as a temple to go to and a teacher from which to learn about the world. Even having been exposed to so much Shamanism over the years the cultivated garden, so present in my every day life, had escaped notice. Estes said that:

“Sometimes, in order to bring a woman closer to this nature, I ask her to keep a garden. Let this be a psychic one or one with mud, dirt, green, and all the things that surround and help and assail. Let it represent the wild psyche. The garden is a concrete connection to life and death… Whatever can happen to a garden can happen to a soul and psyche — too much water, too little water, infestations, heat, storm, blossoming, bounty, beauty.”

When I read this I had to reread it again, just to make sure that someone had actually put it there. It felt like a deep affirmation as well as an embarrassment. The fact that there was something so true that I hadn’t learned to recognize or given words to. Over the years at times if I haven’t had a close friend to nurture me I’ve gone to my garden, checked on what was happening there and found solus, self recognition, and learning. Estes suggests that:

“During the life of the garden, women keep a diary, recording the signs of life-giving and life-taking. Each entry cooks up a psychic soup. In the garden we practice letting thoughts, ideas, preferences, desires, even loves, both live and die. We plant, we pull we bury. We dry seed, sow it, moisten it, support it, harvest.

The garden is a meditation practice, allowing the eye to see when it is time for something to die. In the garden one can see the time coming for both fruition and for dying back. In the garden one is moving with rather than against the inhalations and the exhalations of greater wild Nature.

Through this meditation, we acknowledge that the Life… cycle is a natural one. Both life-giving and death-dealing natures are waiting to be befriended, forever loved. In this process, we become like the cyclical wild. We have the ability to infuse energy and strengthen life, and to stand out of the way of what dies.”

Big changes in our lives can make it feel like the world is falling apart around us, yet having a garden to go to can remind and help know and feel deep down all the good that can come of death and rebirth. When we see something like a hurricane devastate a landscape we can’t take for granted what the earth gives us or how we relate to her. Our surroundings and our place are the essence of our being and we find our reflection there.

After enjoying the Chrysanthemum display in all it’s glory this fall it’s also been time to put the mums to rest for the winter, and refresh the display with the next season of plants we’ve prepared. We get to take part in this cycle… I’ve recently had some time free up so that I could do more volunteer work at the Conservatory. I was able to say to David our head gardener, “You want me to go ahead and cut back all the Mums and Cannas?” He smiled that kind of humble grateful surprised smile that comes across a face that is often too busy to ask for help. Having done this all before I pulled the plants into the back greenhouse and got to take part in preparing the plants for winter. A lot of thoughts moved through me. I felt wistful… maybe even a touch melancholy, and also full of wonder at a season where so much is coming to an end and so much is about to begin. Holding the pruners in hand felt invigorating, and reassuring. A perfect ritual for the season.

Spider Chrysanthemums

Chinese lanterns and Kermit Chysanthemums

Coleus and Mums

Purple fountain grass and Canas

Purple fountain grass and Phormium

Bronze bell and gazing ball

Maidenhair fern and red coleus

Purple fountain grass and Chrysanthemum

Coleus and Canas

Fatsia and Iris

Calathea and light…

This gorgeous display will be available for viewing, at the Volunteer Park Conservatory until Thanksgiving weekend. Don’t miss it!

Today I was lamenting, after spending a few hours in the giftshop volunteering, that I hadn’t brought my camera with me to snap some photos of the gorgeous seasonal displays. When I arrived home I realized I had these photos of the Conservatory from last fall (you can see the mopish heads of the chrysanthemums on the right like some disheveled hair do)…

Where does the time go? I promised myself to do a little catch up at that moment. After a summer that was so full of surprises I rather felt like I’d lost myself in translation. I was ready to do a pat down and see if I was all there!

And now here fall is reminding me that I have all winter to sort through photos, write stories, and wonder about things. That is the gift of this season, how it evokes a wonder filled reflexivity. After being outside all summer you get to go inside. The warmth of the summer sun and it’s memories haven’t faded, an inherent thankfulness for what’s been given, as well as a sadness over loosing parts of yourself that won’t be expressed in the seasons to come.

These light filled photos with the bold cannas, the purple fountain grass, and the chrysanthemums, evoke something of this spiritual season. The windows, the shadows, the space for imagination. I find myself looking at these shadows wanting something from within them to take on dimension. Shape shift through hues of blue and purple.

This summer I took some time off from other projects to create an index for Sarah Chapmans’ book of photos from the Volunteer Park Conservatory. It’s not only a book full of pretty pictures. If you read carefully this slim volume can guide you through the collections at the Conservatory, and teach you how to create outstanding plant combinations from the designs of David Hegelson. A bit of a treasure hunt as you search for the information your looking for… And a great way to identify and learn more about interesting tropical plants.

Exclusively available through the Conservatory gift shop.

It’s nice to visit a site you’ve designed after a year or two and get to observe and learn from its growth, what has worked and what hasn’t… Plant choices really have a mind of their own when interacting with the soil, sun, wind, and rain on the site. It’s pure alchemy and I never get tired of seeing what from my plan has flourished or floundered. Even if initially its made me wonder what I was thinking, or question my skills…

This bent towards experimentation has forced me to be a bit of a scientist, which requires that repetion be practiced. As a designer, I’ve learned the fewer materials the stronger the design. Co-commitant with that is to leave the plan open enough to allow for additions year after year based on what you learned about the site and what you’re clients have enjoyed most. These have been hard won lessons, after almost tweleve years into my carrier, I’ve been looking forward to subtle additions to the designs I’ve installed, rather than more dramatic revisions and disappointments.

Even with years of training as a master gardener, owning my own business, and helping to run other businesses, the lesson I’ve learned is to keep it simple, and build on what works, which often seems antithetical to knowing a lot. The key is to keep the feeling you have in mind for you’re garden and then select only six or seven plants (three to four ground cover and three to four shrubs) that embody this combination.  Keep the spacing wide and under plant with ground cover for weed prevention, but know that the spacing will allow the plants to seed themselves and create their own drifts. This sense of space will translate into a garden that feels strong and unfussy, with a kind of power behind it from having allowed the plants to express themselves upon the landscape.

Step back and make space for things to unfold as they will.

Once you’ve accomplished that then you’re ready to break it down with something surprising or unnatural that is all about you or your client, their sense of humor or morbidity. We get too attached to our gardens sometimes. Craftman houses are no exception since there is so much expectation and history there.

“There is a crack in everything, that’s where the light get’s in.” – Leonard Cohen

Just be judicious about how you apply your own hammer, it can easily over power of what makes sense. On this project we wanted to keep the story of the Craftman house strong so we used local stone for the rockery in front. And in back we integrated sheet metal box steps for raised terraces folding stone into the design, which allowed for a bridge for the old and new things in all our lives. Every new project is an opportunity for creative problem solving!

Dig in, with a few simple rules to follow, and a willingness to get a little dirty, you are bound to have a garden that surprises and delights!

Inspiration? You never know what will touch you enough to reinterpret your own work, or see things anew. I was reading through Vogue about a year ago and came across an article about a makeup artist based in New York that has been leaving her mark on the run way and in fashion magazines with her bold color choices and beautiful collaborations with hairstylists. In the article she was generous enough to share one of her favorite books, Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa. A few photos from this book were included, and in a moment I was bewitched by the floral decorations that were sprouting like trumpets from children’s mouths, sitting atop heads like crowns, and cascading over shoulders like capes.

I wanted that book.

Now that I’ve had it in my possession for more than a few months I’ve started posting a few photos to Facebook for friends just so they can be really appreciated. These kids play with the natural materials at hand to create new persona’s and characters that are real master pieces in design. It tears down the walls that we sometimes build between ourselves and the beautiful. It’s a testiment to the powerful combination of intuition and spontaneity inside each of us!  Thanks to Hans Sylvester for concocting such an incredible document.

The beautiful display of Winter wonder at the Volunteer Park Conservatory has now transitioned into Spring. There are little signs of growth everywhere outside but when you step into the seasonal display house Spring in all it’s glory is on display. The white Narcissus we potted up this fall and the pink Azaleas held in our temperature regulated greenhouses have been brought into bloom simultaneously. Something new is invariably being brought in and arranged every week. It’s a time of enormous change out in nature, and we get to experience a sneak peek into the seasons progress by stepping inside! Enjoy!