Month: June 2009

Sometimes not mowing works

bog grass

Sometimes it’s what you don’t do that counts.

The west edge of my water garden has subsided. That nice patch of lawn you see Jade standing on in my banner image has, for the past couple of years, been soggy right straight through the summer. So this summer, I decided not to fight it so hard and let a couple of patches go unmowed. Now I have a couple of nice drifts of not-too-shabby but unidentified grass growing there. One friend commented about how it enhanced the water garden from a distance by partly obscuring its rectilinear outline.

Shot a bunch of close-ups of the grass. (Can anyone ID it?) But I’m too lazy tonight to decide which I like best.

bog grass

bog grass

bog grass

bog grass

bog grass

bog grass

bog grass

Felder Rushing coming to Living Sculpture Conference

Felder RushingIt’s official. Felder Rushing is coming to the Living Sculpture Conference July 22 sponsored by Cornell’s Garden-Based Learning Program. (Full disclosure: I work in Cornell’s Dept. of Horticulture, the home of the Garden-Based Learning program.)

And he’ll be driving his pick-up truck garden up from Mississippi, too — complete with pink flamingos and bottle trees. (Image below.)

Felder is renowned for what some might call his offbeat garden designs. But the former Mississippi State Extension turf specialist is a respected author (Passalong Plants and other titles) and radio host (Mississippi Public Broadcasting’s Gestalt Gardener).

In addition to being a conference participant, Felder will park his pick-up somewhere near the Ag Quad (details to come) around noon on the 22nd for a short, impromptu talk that’s open to the public focusing on his “”slow, easy, cheap and green” approach to gardening.

That evening, Living Sculpture Conference participants and attendees of the New York State Master Gardener Conference will be treated to a presentation by Felder on Yard Art: The Good, the Bad, and the Unbelievable. (View some examples from Felder’s front yard.)

On the evening of the 23rd, he’ll reprise his pick-up truck talk in downtown Ithaca.

sod cowThe Living Sculpture Conference will feature an opening keynote will be by Dr. Frank Rossi, Extension Turfgrass Specialist and Associate Professor of Turfgrass Science at Cornell University, who will speak on The Thrill of the Grass: Engaging Earth’s Canvas. Hands-on workshops the rest of the day include:

* Build Sod Sculptures
* Fantastic Patterns in the Lawn
* Veggie Art
* Woven Branch Art
* Build a tree sculpture
* Table Top Herbal Topiary
* A Momentary Glimpse: Creating Ephemeral Earth Art
* A “Can Do” Attitude!
* Creating larger scale earth art
* How to capture it! A documentation workshop

felder's truck courtesy rurality
Felder’s truck, image courtesy Karen at Rurality.