The MGS Forum
Miscellaneous => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: Alisdair on December 14, 2011, 01:42:06 PM
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What examples of art - statuary, ceramics, gnomes, artfully reused old pumps or millwheels etc - do people have in mediterranean gardens?
Our own offering is limited to humble found objects, such as this little dog that I found among our olive prunings.
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Nice dog, Alisdair.
I have no art in my garden, but I found a piece of driftwood on the beach a couple of years ago and I keep it on the terrace, Maybe not so pretty, it looks more like a large monster-fish, but I like it.
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It does look like something from the greatest depths of the ocean, Jorun! Nice....
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Well that's a different sort of dogwood!
How about one that got away...?
Up in the hills, I found this large stone with a basin carved into it. But it was way too heavy to lift, and it was perched on the edge of a cliff and difficult of access on the non-cliff side, so no chance of getting a JCB to it. There it remains, teasing, like excalibur - within reach but beyond my grasp :(
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My wife is into mosaics and 2 of the photos show a large area leading to the front entrance that she worked for months on. The table in the other 2 used to be our front door. When we had it replaced she saw the potential for filling the recessed panels with mosaics and having it mounted on metal legs for use as an outdoor table on a covered patio.
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Those mosaics are fantastic, John! Interesting to think of archaeologists marvelling over them in a couple of thousand years' time, much as we were doing in Cyprus the year before last.
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Are you allowed to walk on them?
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Great John, tell your wife I am very envious. I was inspired when we were in Cyprus as well; when we visited the archeological site in Kourion two years ago, I saw an mosaic floor inscription in the House of Eustolios welcoming visitors which I really liked, I have copied this text and tried to transfer it to a small piece of marble we have attached to the gate, the workmanship is not so great, but the greeting is, the translation is approximately this:
Enter to thy
good fortune
And may thy coming
bless this house
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John's wife: clever idea about the door
Jorun: nice
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Yes, Hilary, in fact you have to walk on them in order to get from the drive to the front door. The thing is trying to stop people from parking their cars on them! My main contribution was painting the sealant/varnish on them.
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Mike, I see why you would like to have that rock in your garden.
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I love coming across unusual things in a garden and more formal "art" work as long as it is not overdone.
Like Mike I sometimes find things that I covet are logistically impossible to transfer!
In hot Mediterranean areas the sound of running water is always welcome and I bought an old stone trough to fill with water, installed a small submersible pump to recycle the water and then had to find a suitable outlet spout. Not liking the commercial ones purpose made for such things I was pleased to find a potter who had been given permission to reproduce certain old statues and masques from a villa near to Lucca, this when we visited the annual plant fair held on the old city walls. I commissioned one of the masques but minus some rather large ears that made it look rather too sinister in my eyes. I had it set into the wall of our old tobacco drying tower, (more of which in a later posting) and it has worked very successfully I think.
The green bottle to the right of the trough is one of several I have dotted about the garden. The local contadini (country dwellers) who have traditionally always made their own wine, are disposing of these old glass containers and either giving up making their own wine or changing to more modern containers. It is not unusual to find the old ones dumped by the refuse collection bins that are placed strategically along the roads and when I see some when out in the car I screech to a halt to rescue them. Traditionally they are surrounded by a woven protective covering with handles for ease of lifting but often these are missing or rotting away. Not only do they look attractive in the garden but are also part of the culture of our area. They come in a variety of different greens and the older ones have a rough cut top whilst the later ones have a rimmed top.
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Umbrian,
Nicely done, on both counts.
Those big glass jars are very like the carboys we used to get in the UK. My Granny and Grandad used to get battery acid in them. They used to live in 'The Turrets', Ewell, Surrey (since demolished), which was a peripheral building to the big house, Bourne Hall (the stately home now a replaced by a dull modernish building). They were market gardeners, and Grandad was a contracting nurseryman and gardener. One of their jobs was to manage the generator and rack of big batteries in rectangular glass jars. I used one of the carboys to make a terrarium; very 1970s! Eventually it succumbed to an accident. But by careful cutting, I was able to slice off the top, making a giant funnel - which was useful as a winter shield for alpines (the weight helped secure it against winter winds). If you have a lot of your jars, perhaps you could consider slicing them in interesting ways (Google 'bottle chopping'). Or maybe you couldn't bring yourself to do so!
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Very interesting Mike especially the bits about your childhood memories,if Alisdair does not think it too far from the purpose of this Forum it would be interesting to know how many members came to be passionate gardeners because of the kind of families they were raised in or whether it was completely by chance or from other influences such as teachers etc,
I will certainly look into the possibility of cutting some of the jars but whilst some of the later ones are quite thick, the really old ones are often very thin and easily shattered if not handled and placed carefully. On Fiday night we had terrible winds that managed to blow some over but fortunately none were broken. I too remember the craze for terrariums and bought several as Christmas presents one year (First seasonal comment on the Forum!)
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Umbrian,
You make a good point about fragility. Not only are the old ones likely to have thin glass in places (difficult to tell until they break), but they may well have air bubbles as well, which play havoc with glass cutting unless done by a diamond saw).
You could also fill them with coloured items to change the effect. I'd suggest coloured liquids, but they would be prone to decay one way or another. Small coloured gravel or crushed glass could be used. Heavier materials would make the jars more stable against winds (assuming not top heavy).
Always worth paying attention to what they rest on. In the grass/wicker/etc coverings, they are naturally protected, but if they are bare, there is a chance their weight could be borne on just a few points (of underlying stones, eg.), which could cause cracks or breakage.
Nice to have the artistic raw material to ponder the possibilities of and experiment with.
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Good idea for a new topic, Carole, on what makes people start gardening - so see here (http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=608.0).
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When we bought our old farmhouse in Umbria we also inherited a decaying tobacco drying tower. Tobacco still is grown extensively in our area but is now a very modern ,mechanised business with central drying facilities and most of the old towers have either been converted to other uses or left to fall into disrepair. Apparently we could have left it to fall down or actually demolished it without the need for any kind of permission but we decided to restore it to a degree because they are a part of the heritage of this area. The cultivation of tobacco brought some work and prosperity to the contidini who previously had suffered very harsh lives. Ours is home to all my gardening requisites and also used to store wood for our wood burning stoves - in other words a bit of a "glory hole". When embarking on the restoration work we found a large iron "ring" a bit like you might have found on an old cartwheel but much more substantial and with an "S" form across it - part of the simple machinery connected to the drying of the tobacco leaves that were hung from wooden poles and suspended within the tower we assumed.
At that time my grandchildren were quite small and I made them a "secret garden" within mine, somewhere they could go and get away from us. I placed the iron ring in on the ground and filled each side of the two areas formed by the "S" with different coloured gravel. Here they placed their "treasures". The gravel all looks the same colour now but some of the "treasures" remain.
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When we walked down from the Bahà 'i Garden in Haifa this spring, I saw this rather special little garden, I have never seen anything like it. I would have liked to see what the owner was like.
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When this topic was started I posted a photo of our old front door that my wife had converted into a table top. This photo is of an old table top she has converted into a wall decoration. One day I'll have to get a shot of the area under the clothes drying carousel where she has made a mosaic of washing hanging on a line. I'm not sure what archeologists might make of that in future millenia.
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Does she take commissions, John? ;) Really lovely!
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Yes,really lovely John, she has captured the feeling of movement perfectly!
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Hi,
Not sure if this is truly "art in the garden" but here are two examples of art... both useful and purely ornamental.
We saw an old garden support in a neighbour's garden and had a craftsman create a near replica for us.. as it's something every garden needs .. amusingly since we've had the new... but rusted supports in our garden.. our neighbour has "rescued" their neglected support, sand blasted it and painted it a glossy black (losing some it's charm in m.h.o.).
My better half has also made some of our garden ornaments.. there are are millions of kilometres of rusty barbed wire lying around Australian farms so friends of ours were mystified when we asked if we could have some of their old wire for garden ornaments... they were most amused on a recent visit to see them turned into "garden art" in the form of three balls.. A practical aspect of the balls is that they are light enough to move when the lawn requires mowing and transparent enough that they don't shadow the lawn.
Anita
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They work really well! Thanks for showing us, Anita.
They remind me of a rusted iron "tree" that we saw in a California private garden:
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Hello Anita, I very much enjoyed your barbed wire balls. It must have been a difficult task persuading the wire to take the form you wanted. They make me think of huge Blowey Grass seed heads that are blown in from the dry interior plains. Do you experience the hot north wind which debilitates Melbourne?
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Hi Joanna,
Adelaide is a little hotter than Melbourne so we frequently suffer hot northerlies which can drive the temperature into the 40sC for days in summer. Most unpleasant and tough on the garden.
I hadn't really thought about the balls as stylised plants... I had some vision of them being laid by a passing dinosaur.. but now that you've mentioned it they do look like tumbleweeds which blow about sunburnt agricultural paddocks in summer. I'm looking at them from a completely different perspective now. Thankyou! Anita
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For those of you with a larger garden and who are interested in cars, I have seen the perfect garden ornament. Just below the little town Taxiarchis in the Holomonda mountains) I have seen this old car gradually being buried under a mound of Clematis vitalba, it is almost nicer in the autumn with the fluffy cloud of seedheads (bottom photo).
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Excellent observation, J Th. As ever, nature does it so well, whether it be art or gardening.
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Natural art in the garden! This lovely grouping of "toadstools" sprang up in a crack in the top of one of the wooden risers of the steps leading down to our pool.
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While searching through some old photos I came across this chap taken a couple of years ago in the gardens at Heligan. Does this come under the heading of art?
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Definitely garden art, John - thanks for showing us such a cheery naughty-looking chap!
On the MGS trip to South Australia last year we were struck by how so many of the gardens we saw there featured artworks, often witty. One of the most unusual was this life-size ceramic-tile "chaise longue" commissioned by Di Wark from her fellow-artists Kate Jenkins and Kristin Wohlers. It's called Don't Get Too Comfortable!, because the local plants, birds and animals featured on it are all ones which don't have a guaranteed future unless people take care of their needs. It's on the far side of a paddock beyond the garden of Di's Stonewell Farm - in this other picture from the Euphorbia thread (http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=498.msg7827#msg7827) you get the same sort of tantalising glimpse of it as you do in the garden itself.
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Just thought I'd send in a pic of my wife's latest project. Not quite finished yet but she's rushing to complete it so that we can take it to Athens next week. She's hoping that Sally might like it for Sparoza. Not obvious from the photo but it's 50cm x 50cm.
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Wow, John; Sally will be thrilled!
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A brilliant idea. I'd been hoping to get a view of one of Thea's mosaics and now I will.
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Really nice, John, and such a fine gift
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Beautiful! I hope we might get to view it as well next week.
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Very nice!
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A quick update on the MGS logo plaque. It went down well with Sally and she has promised to find a suitable spot for it in the garden at Sparoza.
The photo below is the first step, almost literally, on a new path my wife (Charithea) is creating in the garden. It's the first of 14 slabs that will make up the finished walkway. I'll try to remember to post the rest as they are completed.
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Ref the above posting, slabs 2 & 3.
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That is going to be quite some pathway. Lovely (especially like slab no.2)
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A walkway to cheer the soul!
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Slab no 4.
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Slab no 5. HAPPY NEW YEAR to all Forum readers.
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Charithea, you seem to be churning them out at a rate of knots!
I really like the latest one (no 5). Perhaps we should vote on our favourite slab when photos of all 14 have be posted...
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Hi Alice, thanks for the comments. The tempo of production will fall dramatically by the week end as my "holiday time" will be over. Last family party gathering for the festive season is Monday 6th and then schools reopen and back to my DUTIES. All my good wishes for the new year. CJ
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I love the mosaics you make.
Do you have a proper tidy workroom or are there bits of mosaic all over the house?
Also where do you get your ideas?
Do you make up the designs or go looking at ancient mosaics?
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Hello Hilary. Yes, I have a workroom but do not use it as it has other projects to be completed. I work on the front verandah If I want the light and the sunshine or the back verandah for easy access to the kitchen and garage for my materials. Sometimes I create a lot of mess depending on what I am cutting. I am by nature Untidy! My cats keep me company as they sit on the bench or even on the work in progress. I look at books for ideas and at plants and flowers. I also use photographs which I copy on to graph paper and then draw on to the slabs or on wood. Deciding on colours depends on what materials are available. My fingers are not nimble any more so very fine work is out of the question. By the way I love all the photos you have been posting. I am a terrible photographer even with an iPad. Happy epiphany Day. Charithea
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Continuing the mosaic theme.... no prizes for guessing where!
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Charithea,
I was going through photos last night looking for a suitable photo depicting a floral mosaic to send you then remembered we have some mosaic here in the house.
Here is a mosaic of pomegranates and another of a bird.
They are both 10cm by 10 cm .
The bird is a wall plaque and on the front balcony.
The pomegranates are on the lid of a jewellery box.
Both were bought in Madaba, Jordan, where you look at Byzantine mosaics, buy modern mosaic and look at the Promised Land
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Hi Hilary. I like your mosaics very much. Simple but very effective. If you don't mind I would like to copy them and have them somewhere on the wall outside. In the mean time I am trying to cut and grind some glass to represent cyclamen. My fingers and nails suffer. I hope the final product will be worthy. Charithea.
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Slab No 6.
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I like slab number six and note that apart from cutting little squares you also cut different shapes.
Here is a photo of a tiny box 4cm x 5cm my daughter brought from a trip to Agra, India
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Slab No 7. A representation of the Cyprus endemic, Arum sintenisii, with a photo of the actual plant.
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Hi Hilary, the pattern on the tiny box is lovely. I think the stone pieces were cut with a rotary cutter and then ground to fit. I limit myself to a hand cutter and then grind the class. IF I had a rotary one I could clear up the tiles I saved in two large bins besides the shed and the place would look tidier.
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Your slabs are getting better and better, Charithea.
The arum is stunning.
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This morning we visited a sculpture park that I had only recently discovered existed. It is actually the private garden of the sculptor's own house, a house that he built himself. He created all of the exhibits on display, large and small, including the little church. Many of them can only be described as impressively majestic. The planting in the garden was done by his now, unfortunately, late wife.
The first 3 photos are general shots of plantings. The rest are, in order;
Petreos - ruler and guardian of the area.
Grigoris Afxentiou - freedom fighter from the 1950s EOKA era.
Wisdom presiding over a gathering of philosophers.
Representation of the Equality of Man & Woman.
Pavlos Liasides - a folk poet from Lysi village.
The last one is entitled Group Burials and, to quote from the sculptor's info leaflet: Group burials of the Greek and Turkish Cypriots from the period 1958 to 1974 that can be found scattered throughout the island. It captures the casualness with which the victims where buried and the aggressiveness caused by fanaticism.
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Fascinating John - one man's thought provoking tribute to the troubled history of the island where you live. I would imagine it had a very special atmosphere?
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Carole, my feelings at the time were of amazement at the sheer size of some of the works and of the fact that I had only just heard about its existence. If you would like to see more there is a web-site, although it doesn't appear to have been kept up to date as the lady of the house passed away 16 months ago. It is www.petreonsculptures.com.
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No 8. Another Cyprus endemic, Onosma fruticosa (Cyprus Golden Drop).
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Hilary, last month you asked if Charithea had a tidy workroom for her mosaics. Here's your answer.
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Impressive! Tidier than my house when the lure of the garden is strong - which is most of the time :)
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No 9.
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Impressive indeed, especially as Charithea is actually working there.
An inspiration to us all.
Lovely work on display also
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I should wish I had been able to make mosaics like Charitea, I am really impressed.
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Thank you all for your kind comments. Of course if it was raining I would have been inside getting on with other unfinished jobs. I find the forum so informative and the pictures very exciting that I forgo my sudokus and look at the forum first. When I finish my path I shall attempt to put photos on using my iPad using Jorun's instructions. Thanks you all for the information. Charithea
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No 10.
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I loved the iris mosaics hanging up in your "workroom", Charithea.
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Hi Alice I am always days behind in my replies. The irises were one of the earliest of my mosaics about 15 years ago. I was learning how to define the edges and combine the colours. Had the Forum existed then I would have been able to take inspiration from Fermi's wonderful iris collection and produced a freize.
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The SA branch is proposing to run a mosaics workshop later this year. It will be led by a professional artist/ mosaicist. I will post photos.
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Nos 11 & 12.
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Now I have to rethink my favourite
Will you be able to put all 14 on one post when they are finished?
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That might be a bit of a tall order, Hilary, as they are stepping stones across an area of the garden. Even if I stand on top of a stepladder I doubt if my camera will have a wide enough angle to take them all in. We'll have to see what can be done when the last 2 are finished.
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It almost looks like the flower on slab 11 is growing upwards. And no 12 is pretty good too!
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Certainly makes a return visit to Sparoza high on the list of priorities for the near future. The last two are stunning and I can't wait to see the final two. :)
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11 and 12 are superb (as are all the others, but these two !!)
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Nos 13 & 14, the last 2.
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Having a friend who does mosaic work I know how many hours these stepping stones will have taken you Charithea. A wonderful gift for Sparoza that I am sure will be much appreciated and admired. As to a favourite, well that is very difficult........I wonder do you have a favourite?
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Looking back at all the mosaics I see that I have made a huge blunder!!! The path stones are obviously for your garden Charithea.......the logo one for Sparoza! Old age creeping up faster than I thought -many apologies but my admiration remains undimmed. :)
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Taking the logo on the aircraft was bad enough, Carole, but I think 14 paving slabs might put us a bit over the weight limit! As you rightly say it took her many hours of work to complete them but when she sets her mind to something there's no stopping her. I had the easy bit of setting them into the ground and taking photos.
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Hi Carole,thank you once more for your kind comments. My favourite is no 13 a representation of a celandine.Now that I have finished the paving stones there in not excuse to avoid house work. I enjoy gardening more than dusting etc..I love reading the forum and getting informed about different plants and their needs. I make notes about the ones that are likely to survive and then set about to acquire them. I shall never have roses like Daisy's but Rosa banksiae '[. 'Lutea and Alba Plena are in bloom now and so are Rosa damascena.I cannot send photos as I have not yet learnt how to minimise them to meet the forum's requirements. My next project perhaps!?
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Oh Dear! As my granddaughter would say. Lost control of the italics. Sorry!
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It would be lovely to have a photo of the path, even if we can't see the individual slabs in detail.
I found it difficult to decide on my favourite. I loved Nos 7, 11, 12 and 13 but think No 7 won.
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Alice, it's difficult to get a shot of the whole path, I might have to try a composite. My own personal favourite is also No 7, maybe because I'm biased towards the actual plant it represents, also one of my favourites.
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As requested, Alice, not brilliant but the best I can do with my limited equipment and expertise. The plants need to regrow to cover the bare areas around the slabs and blend them in more: Phylla filiformis; Wedelia trilobata; Falkia repens; etc. The green structure to the right is the grandchildren's swing so plants struggle to get a hold in that area.
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Lovely path of mosaic slabs.
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Very nice, Charithea and John.
There were some obscure plants you mentioned, John, (at least unknown to me).
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Alice, do you mean the Phyla, Wedelia and Falkia? They are creeping, ground-cover plants used as a grass substitute to green up an area of limited foot traffic.
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Thanks, John. Yes, those were the ones I meant.
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Alice, this is Wedelia trilobata (though I believe it should officially be called Sphagneticolla trilobata). One of its common names is Singapore Daisy but I have no idea why as it comes from the Americas.
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Thanks John. So you would recommend it as ground cover?
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Yes, we use it, along with others, like Phyla filiformis, Falkia repens, Frankenia laevis, to green up an open area that gets very limited foot traffic. The area isn't irrigated so they survive the summer months with very little water without turning brown as turf would.
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Charithea's latest projects, inspired by patterns seen during the MGS trip to Morocco in March.
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These are lovely John. Such talent 8)
Daisy :)
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Do any members have interesting old garden and horticultural tools on display in their gardens, houses, patios? I am particularly interested to know if anyone has an example of local traditional tools and bits of equipment such as the wooden threshing sleds with small sharp stones embedded in one side so that when dragged across a threshing floor by men, women or donkey the grain was separated from the seed heads. Or perhaps a shoulder yoke as used to carry buckets of water, baskets of veg etc.
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Trevor, you have probably read the articles and seen the video on Vimeo by John Whittaker. It is a fascinating, if slow process for gathering grain. It was always an excitement, when working in an archaeological team, to find traces of silicon on the flints which were embedded into the base of the sledge. The silicon accumulated from the cut grass stems and formed a glassy layer on the flint, often visible without a microscope.
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So beautiful, Charithea. I am speechless!
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Hi Trevor, we don' t have artifacts from our arable farming days but we do have a large copper cauldron we used to cook our Halloumia ( Cyprus sheep cheese) which would look wonderful on the verandah but do't dare exhibited it as thieves will easily remove it. All the farm equipment was given away by my sister long ago. However! We have a wooden bread frame which will hold 10 circular loaves, on the kitchen wall. It was inherited from my uncles' bakery several years ago.
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Hi Daisy I have been admiring your roses and your other flowers. I read the Forum daily and wish to put on some of the photos I have taken. I still ca n't make them small enough. I have taken a photo of a rose in a garden in Malia. The owner calls it EROTAS(love ) and I would like to have one but difficult to find as the plantsman that sold it to her is not around any more. As soon as I get some computer lessons I shall post it for identification.Thank you for the lovely pics Charitheaj
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Photo of Thea's uncle's bread board (he was the village baker) hanging on our kitchen wall.
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Thanks for your replies. We've been off-line for a week so I couldn't reply earlier.
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Latest items off the production line. Attached to the wall this morning. The artist is going through a cyclamen phase.
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I was looking back at some of the great photos of the ceramics from Charithea (posted by John)and I saw this question from Trevor Australis "Do any members have interesting old garden and horticultural tools on display in their gardens, houses, patios?"
I know it isn't exactly what Trevor was looking for in posting his question but it brought to mind an event in Gary Jo Gardenhire's garden in Italy entitled "Art in the Garden". I'm sure Gary won't mind me drawing attention to his work. A lot of it uses old tools, scrap and a host of other things to create original art. You can see some of it in the photos of the event I refer to above on the MGS Italy facebook photos page. Don't worry, to see the photos you don't need to register on Facebook. They start about halfway through the "2014" section. You'll recognize them easily, a couple sitting in the garden, faces made from old spades etc. Take a look ... :-)
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:) Thanks I will follow it up.
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The cyclamen are just gorgeous, Charithea!
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Thank you Alice. I decided on the subject to "rendere omaggio ai ciclamini" which grow near by at Currium and also to celebrate the fact that we have different cyclamens growing in our garden. They started off with a rescued Cyclamen cypria and then with plants
gifted to us by Yiannos Orphanos and seeds from Helena Wiesner.
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Hello David, sorry for taking so long to send a message. My grandmotherly duties take up a lot of my time. I have looked at the art work of Gary Jo Gardenhire. Very nice and wish I had that type of creative ability. I have also being reading the articles on the Italian website since it has started because I am trying to improve my Italian. I have recommended it to my friend, a fellow Italian learner. Have you manage to find the name of the beautiful blue Salvia in Cindy's garden.? I have decided since I can not source the salvias here in Cyprus the next best thing was to buy the seeds from Chilterns. I have Salvia pattern, nemorosa horminum,lyrata, prantensis and farinacea. All of them are now seedlings either in the shed or under the myrtle bush. Some took only four days to germinate. Now the battle begins to keep them alive as the weather is warming up.I will post my progress.Charithea
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I love your cyclamen plaques. They will brighten up the dull winter days.
What size are they?
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Hi Hilary, I am glad you like my cyclamen. The size is 39cmx36cm. I am currently trying to make a table top for a friend. She likes Gaudi, I chose one of his window patterns. She will have the final say on colour combination.
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I love your ceramics Charitea, maybe you could give a demonstration/short course at an AGM in the future? I'll come!
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Charithea, going back to your mid-March message - Cindy's salvia is Salvia 'Anthony Parker'. (David Dickinson did mention this in the Salvia thread, so you may have seen it there by now... I'm using a very rainy day to catch up with all the interesting things that have been happening in the forum as I'm very behing with it all, I'm afraid)
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Thank you Alisdair, I have also seen the new link gliaromi that you and David supplied. I still don't have an Anthony Parker but I won't give up. I bought £70 worth of seeds, £40 was just for salvias at the end of last year. On the salvia side I had great success with Salvia horminum. The seedling were big enough to put in the ground and they are thriving, two other salvias germinated but are extremely weak specimens. I have found that cuttings of salvias do really well here. Thanks to Fleur we have some flowering in our garden now.
I looked at gliaromi site but they don't seem to post to Cyprus. I may be wrong as my Italian is still at the A level stage. We are going to England at the end of July and I know a few nurseries in London and I intend to look for them there if not I shall beg friends in Italy to get them for me for October again thanks for all the hard work.
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Hi Charithea,
I suppose this reply really belongs on the Salvia pages, mail order pages and a previous discussion on cutting exchanges all at the same time. Sorry to give you a headache Alisdair :-(
I have just looked up Salvia "Anthony Parker" on the Royal Horticultural Society plant finder and they only list one supplier in the UK. They do mail to Europe and there is no minimum order size. They don't have a website so you would have to call them.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/2184/Out-of-the-Common-Way/Nursery
When I was trying to get suppliers for Alisdair's list I asked a lot of Italian nurseries if they did overseas deliveries. Many of them said that they did in theory but they often had problems with Italian couriers unwilling to deliver across country borders.
There was some discussion on this forum about the feasibility of members having a cuttings exchange similar to Chantal's seed bank. I believe it could work. I have successfully sent rooted cuttings to my sisters in the UK. If you would like me to get some cuttings going, let me know. This may not be the time of year but I could try. If not, I could try again in Autumn. John J was looking for Cytisus battandieri. I have one small plant of that and, once it has got going, could try to get a couple of cuttings started.
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Hi David,
My wife (Charithea) says thanks for the info. We will be paying a visit to UK in July, staying with my sister in Derbyshire, so maybe we could get the nursery you mention to mail some to there and we'll pick them up then.
The offer of a C. battandieri cutting is much appreciated. I first came across it at Capel Manor College in Enfield, north London, several years ago. When it was in blossom I used to take a detour on the way to the car park just to pass by it, the scent was like opening a tin of Del Monte.
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Going right back to the original posting in this thread we have a dog carved by nature. The sea at Ostia, just outside Rome, washed up this ready made fish (whale?). I think it is a species new to science. Can any latin experts come up with a suitable name? Perhaps that's one for you John. You might think that ready made art is a dream come true. But there are always doubts in the artist's mind. Which side should be visible, for example? As you can see from the pic of the, so far, unnamed fish swimming through a sea of a badly wilting Cassia corymbosa , I went for the paler side. Who knows which way he'll be swimming tomorrow? Hanging up on nylon thread as he is, he adds movement to the balcony as he bobs around in the breeze. Hope he is happy in his new home. He seems to be.
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Thinking about an Italian name for the fish, the most obvious would have been "occhione legnosissimo" - literally the "extremely wooden big-eye". However, the Stone Curlew already has the name Occhione for good reason http://www.cattidecarlo.eu/Animali/Prove%20018.jpg . I need to think again ???
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I realise that this is a bit of a personal quirk, but if I could afford it I'd really like some top-class lettering in the garden. And I know just the person I'd like to commission: Caroline Webb. She did this:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v141/PaulineM/Art/byleaaveswelive_zpshb5mbanp.jpg)
You can see more on her website: http://www.carolinewebblettering.com/
Such a pity to reserve inscriptions for tombstones, isn't it?
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Funny you should mention that Pauline. I have printed out some poetry which I intend to cut into a stencil and then spray onto some old tiles that I have had around for far too long. The plan is to hang them around the balcony in various places. If the idea comes to fruition, of course.
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If his smile is anything to go by he is very happy David :)
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David, Have been out of contact for a while so only saw your fish yesterday. All I can come up with at short notice is Xylofagus psarii. I'll leave it to others to suggest a, very, rough translation!
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Thanks for the suggestion which, I think, (with a little help from an etymology dictionary) literally reads "wood beech fish". I presume beech/beach was a deliberate pun :)
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Actually, David, I'm not sure I'm smart enough to have thought up that pun. It was meant to be closer to 'wood-eating fish'.
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Another possible name: Xyloichtyus decorativus, alternatively Xyloichtyus davidius ?
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Hi John,
Thanks for the clarification. I know zero Greek but looking up "Phagos" gives a definition connected to eating, I suppose that is where the word "oesophagus" comes from. "Fagos" gives me beech in Latin. Is there a difference in Greek between "F" and "ph"? Fascinating to see how the ancient languages are the root of so much of modern European languages. Thanks to you I now know that "Xylo" means wood and hence the xylophone with its wooden bars.
My natural modesty gives me a few qualms about "davidius" Alisdair. But, if you really insist.... As a long-time naturalist to finally have something named after me would be very tempting :-\
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David, as you are aware the Greek alphabet is different and the traditional way of transliterating the f sound was to use ph. I'm not sure if it is general but certainly here in Cyprus several years ago the powers that be decided that for non-native English speakers that would be confusing and so they changed all the spellings replacing the ph with f. So the town of Paphos became Pafos, and so on. They didn't leave it at that but messed around with others too, such as Larnaca becoming Larnaka, Yermosoyia became Germasogia though how that helped with the pronunciation is anyone's guess.
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Oh dear. Well intentioned meddling rarely (never?) does work, does it? Just like when objections were raised to terms such as "manual work" etc on the grounds of sexism. The average woman does 10 times more manual work in day than the average man does in a week!
Enforced change in language rarely sticks. I remember my first time in Naples on several occasions looking for a meeting place on the map and having to ring up the person I was meeting because the meeting point didn't exist. I was invariably told "Oh don't worry about the names on the map, those are just the official street names. Nobody uses those!"
Some Neapolitan readers (and others) might be interested in this article on the matter http://www.naplesldm.com/doria.html and here is a little quote: His (Gino Doria's) criticism is at its keenest when dealing with name-changes carried out to existing roads that carried names of historical importance for the city, as in the case of Via Roma/Toledo. He also shows obvious delight in demonstrating how traditional names persist, often for centuries, after the powers-that-be have decided it is time for a change.
I'd better close now or Alisdair will tick me off for posting topics irrelevant to mediterranean gardening!
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David, one last post on this topic, I promise. I have just received an email advertising the 17th Annual Pafos Aphrodite Festival. Nuff said!?
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Here in Cyprus the MGS is on very amicable terms with the Cyprus Cactus & Succulent Society (CCSS). In fact we have members in common, such as the President of the CCSS being a member of the MGS and my wife being a member of the CCSS and so on. On the strength of that we attended a CCSS meeting this morning at the home of one of their members. I think the following photos qualify as art in the garden, although No 2 might provoke a little discussion! ;D
The wording translates as 'Our garden' by the way.
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Latest mosaic project, representations of our 4 cats, along with the subjects in the flesh!
Sammy (short for Salmon as that was the colour he reminded us of when he arrived as a kitten).
Banderas (named after an Inca guide in Peru and NOT the film star).
Norgay (named after the sherpa who conquered Everest with Sir Edmund as he was always climbing everything as a kitten).
Haircut (Kourema in Greek as he arrived on our property on the day the banks announced that all accounts would be subject to a haircut, due to the desperate financial situation the country was in, and refused to go away).
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Is this art or advertising? ???
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Either everybody is too modest about their creations or winter and spring have caused natural suppression of our artistic bent. I am no artist in the sense of original creations but sometimes I see something and think "something could be done with that". Here is a case in point. It was dumped by the rubbish bins in the street. I thought about using it to grow some plant up. But then again I quite like just the bare outline against the plants. Or attach a garden light to make a face? Bird feeders and bird bath attached instead? Cats would have difficulty climbing the metal structure. It is life-size, by the way and is not yet in its final position. Any other ideas welcome.
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David I like your shape as it is. You could try it in different positions and see where it looks its best. You could of course hang some 'mobiles' made from different colour glass which will reflect the light. I have been busy doing my grandmotherly duties to be creative mosaic wise, but I have repaired my clothes line. It is clear that I like the colour blue.
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I think it would look great at the back of a border peeking through the undergrowth. Chelsea Show gardens eat your heart out!
Roy
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Hi Charithea,
Seems almost a shame to walk on your mosaic. I wonder what archaeologists will make of it in a couple of thousand of years' time? Will they need to analyse the dyes in the ceramic to date it or will this electronic dialogue still exist in some archives somewhere which will be all they will need. As always your mosaics are wonderful :-)
I think I agree with both yourself and royscot re just leaving the shape unadorned. Loitering behind the lemon tree, maybe.
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The latest additions to my wife's personal Art in the Garden collection.
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Always make me smile :D, so clever!
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Hilary, it has taken rather a long time but Thea has asked me to post a photo of her copy of the bird mosaic that you put on this thread. This is her second attempt as she didn't put a border around the first one and it just didn't look right.
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That's great
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Another very nice mosaic, Charithea, you have a great collection.
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Thank you both. I garden during the cooler hours of the day, read and make mosaics when it gets too hot until I am called to my grandmotherly duties.
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The following were seen in a garden we visited today. Quite obviously the property of an artist.
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From Art in the Garden to Sculpture in the Landscape? The attached photo shows one of the pieces selected for the biennial exhibition of landscape sculpture held here on Waiheke Island, New Zealand. This year some 34 sculptures were chosen; they are displayed along a spectacular coastal walkway and can be seen on the website <www.sculptureonthegulf.co.nz>. This is called "the fungi tower", and is made out of old grapevines which had been dug out and were waiting in a pile to be burnt. There is no wire involved; the artist, Chris Booth, has carefully interwoven grape vines and prunings around a telegraph pole to create this amazing structure. It is called a "fungi tower" because the idea is that over the years the grapevines will decay and sink into the landscape unless topped up. We were one of the vineyards that answered the call and saved stuff from burning (over the protests of our vineyard manager!), so I feel a particular affinity with this piece.
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I hope the Moderators will forgive my slight deviation here as this post should more readily be labelled 'Art for a Garden'. For many years several public areas in our village have been badly neglected and allowed to run wild, something that can be blamed on the previous administration. The new administration are attempting to rectify this but it is not easy with the limited resources at their disposal, also the fault of the last incumbents. The latest project is aimed at a large tract of land adjacent to the main village church of Apostolos Loukas. Long time MGS member and landscaper, Yiannos Orphanos is in line to draw up a planting plan and to assist with sourcing the necessary plants. All that is needed is the cash and to that end a number of villagers have been working hard to produce a selection of items to be used as prizes in a raffle. Below are just a few of the items they have produced that it is hoped will attract enough money so that they can be considered to be 'Art that created a Garden'.
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Good luck with the raffle, It will be interesting to see how the planting of the large area near the church gets on.
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I wouldn't mind being the owner of one of those mosaic works, the one with the cyclamen is fantastic, I believe I can guess who made it. Good luck with the raffle!
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I went for the cyclamen one too - so realistic. Hope the sales go well.
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Though the cyclamen's lovely, my own favourite is the tall rectangular mirror. Good luck!
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Jorun, I'm sure your guess is right. The cyclamen mosaic as shown is incomplete, hence the tile cutters. I will post a photo of the completed article once it is finished.
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Below is the completed cyclamen mosaic. The tickets are 3 euros each though how we would get any prizes to you should you win could present a problem!! :-\
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An update on the above raffle that took place over the weekend. It made a profit of 1,200 euros with a promise of a further 500 euros from a local businessman. This to go towards the early work on preparing the area, hard landscaping, etc.
Incidentally the cyclamen mosaic was won by MGS member, Maria Themistocleous.
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Congratulations! (From Papigo)
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Well done! :-)
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Wow - well done indeed.
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Brilliant, John - and Thea!
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I have to point out that all the credit belongs to my wife (Charithea) and the other members of the village Environmental Committee, I am merely the messenger.
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Again not Art in the garden but the village Committee asked my wife to make a mosaic to display at one of the entrances to the village. Below is the finished product.
The lady who owns the workshop where Charithea put it together said that if she was to sell it in her shop it would be priced at 1,500 euros minimum. Needless to say my wife charged the village only the cost of the materials and nothing for her time, which was quite considerable. I didn't keep track of the hours but I can say that for at least 2 weeks I have been a mosaic widower, with her disappearing between 8 and 9 every morning and not reappearing until 4 or 5 in the afternoon.
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Congratulations
I love the choice of colours
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Terrific work Charithea - wondered why you have been absent from the Forum for some time! Hope John kept watchful eye on all your treasures in the garden.........
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Hi Charithea
Must add my name to the list of admirers of your work. The colours of the "welcome" sign are simply perfect, capturing Mediterranean light to a T.
I think there should a sister category to "Art in the Garden" and that is "Kitsch in the Garden". I can't decide if what I made recently is so kitsch that it should be dismantled and consigned to the bin or allowed to stay on the grounds that the sound of the trickling water redeems it sufficiently.
Years ago I found some colourful pebbles but they only show their colours when wet. So I put them away until I could think of something to do with them that would involve water. To cut a long story short, finding first a couple of hollow stone fish and later a copper dish that looks a little like a lotus flower gave with idea of making a little water feature for the courtyard. A simple solar-powered fountain provides the water movement and getting the fish to spurt water into the glass jar provides the trickling sound as the jar acts as an amplifier.
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Hello and thank you for your kind words. Hilary, as usual, your postings have been informative. Quoting William Shakespeare raises the Forum to a higher level. Carole, I used to get up around 5 in the morning to check on my 'treasures' and the 5 cats. Your two small cuttings are growing well and David's Guaraniticas are flourishing but my Salvia patens 'Guanajuato and Spathacea have succumbed to the heat. David your water feature is very clever. The sound of water is always welcome in a garden. Having spent 2 weeks in the company of two artists was exciting and useful. One is a Fine Arts graduate and the other studied and taught Art for many years. She spent time in Ravenna so she knows her 'mosaics'. There are many examples of different forms of Art in the shop. All interesting. I have been asked to make the Byzantine Eagle' by a young friend for our local church but it is a difficult piece of work. It will have to wait for a convenient time.
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Your water feature is very inventive David and you are so right about the beauty of many pebbles only being revealed when they are wet. Definitely a work of art that you should be proud of and one that will give you much pleasure when tending your plants - that's what it's all about surely! - intrigued by the use of solar power.....can you elaborate?
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It's lovely, David! (And very ingenious.) Also, thanks for revealing that there are such things as small solar-powered fountains.
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Charitea, your mosaic is absolutely ravishing! I love the delicate shading of the colours and the different textures of the trees and walls. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. You are a true artist.
David, I also love your lotus water bowl with the fish. I don't think it is at all kitsch, and even it if were, as long as you enjoy it, that's the most important thing. I also love the way your idea was "marinading" for some time before it all came together: the wet stones, the bowl, the fish -- sometimes, it takes time for everything to come together just right.
If you find the time, I'd be grateful for more info on the solar-powered pump, its design and how you mounted it into the bowl. Trickling water doesn't go with the waterlilies in my garden water feature (a large stone bathtub) so I have been hatching plans for a small fountain for the patio and keep being stumped by wanting to be green, ie not use electricity.
I am not very artistically gifted, so my 'art in the garden' is purchased: two cast-metal cranes, with a beautiful green patina, recently found on a Spanish second-hand/flea market/antiques website. They are perfect in the lush planting around the white stone bathtub.
The sound of trickling water in summer is so refreshing, as the Moors here in Andalucia and Arabs well knew. The Japanese also use water to evoke coolness, perhaps more the sight rather than the sound of it, and in summer it is very popular to place wind chimes to catch cooling breezes.
Sorry for rambling... it's hot!
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Thank you Pallas. The castle is a well known landmark in Cyprus so we had to keep ttrue to the colours. We used natural stones for the castle so it will age well . I am not a natural artist but I studied maths , science and art and while teaching young children it was necessary to create things with them. Practice helps. I do love David's creation. It is also very smart.
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Not exactly Art in the Garden but after finishing the Castle mosaic my wife decided to replace the table outside the front of our house with a more substantial one. Following on from all the classical and realistic stuff she has been doing she obviously had a brainstorm and went all contemporary, or as she claims a bit 'Daliesque'!
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Wow, no need for a table cloth there!
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Hello Juron. You are correct . No tablecloth needed. I had written a reply to your commends but somehow it did not come up. I must have made a mistake as usual. Anyway, I left the blue period behind for a bit knowing that I can use my diamond cutter to change the colour of my new table. I am waiting for my granddaughter to see it when she returns from Halkidiki where she is holidaying with her parents a a group of friends.
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A belated reply to Umbrian and Pallas and a belated thanks to others for comments re water feature. The pumps are easy to find on Amazon. The exact one I bought didn't come up but something very similar did. Mine only works in full sun, I should add. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anself-Landscape-Fountains-Pluggable-decorative/dp/B01CQTUIT0?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_4
Pallas' cast metal statues made me think of faking it in my garden. I got some very cheap (no pun intended in the case of the sparrows) ornaments - a couple of euros each. I bought them for their shape not their quality as the intention was to spray them over with cast iron effect paint - 8 euros for a large can. I don't trust the paint to hold out against rain or full sun but that doesn't matter as the snails will be attached to table legs under awnings where I keep most of my succulents. The sparrows can gossip away about me up in the fittings for the awnings.
A few before and after the make over shots.
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Very inventive David but can't think why you want to introduce snails into your garden!
They are very cute though......
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Very clever way of decorating David. John is replacing some of our old gardening implements. I wonder whether I could spray-paint them and place them stratigically in the garden.
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Think that is a wonderful idea Charithea- I have a collection of old tools that I intend to display somewhere in my new garden - when the planting is finished...
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Carole you have Gary to give you ideas. I thought of showing my metal worker friend a photo of Gary's Having tea piece. I wonder if he could do something similar without infringing copyright.
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Is this what is meant by a fish out of water? ???
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Maybe not art in the garden. Street Art, perhaps? :-\
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OK, definitely not art in the garden but certainly the art of advertising so that there can be no doubt as to what is on sale at this particular establishment. ;)
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The expression on the face of the ' statue' says it all for me....dubious?
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The statue is a copy of The Lady of Elche .
The original in in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain, Madrid
The museum reopened a couple of years ago and a must if you visit Madrid
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Exactly, Hilary. We saw it on the MGS AGM tour in the Costa Blanca, that we have just returned from, as we walked between gardens in Elche. The organisers were taking us to see the Vertical Garden on the way.
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Earlier in this thread I have mentioned the fact that an attempt is being made to create a garden from an area adjoining the main village church that has been allowed to go to waste. This is still ongoing and my wife and others have been making mosaic inlaid tables and place mats that will be raffled off in the coming months to raise more money for the project. In the meantime we have been begging, borrowing (but not stealing!), small trees and other plants, soil, tiles, anything that could be useful, from the Forestry Department, local nurseries, builder's suppliers, etc, so as to be ready once we can go ahead. One task that we delegated to the village workers was to prune a couple of olive trees that were already in situ on the land. Below is what we found when we went this morning. Almost enough to make a grown man weep! :'(
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Below are photos of the tables and place mats that my wife and her group of ladies have made to be raffled off to fund the church garden.
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Finally, just to illustrate the effort that is going into this project. Grouting one of the tables, and grouting a large mosaic that the group have constructed on the approach to the garden. The breeze blocks will be used to make a raised bed above the mosaic to set it off.
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Don't let the Olive Tree episode dampen your spirits too much. The project's much bigger than that and they will come back - albeit slowly. Great work going on :)
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Hi David, it seems I owe the village workers an apology as they were not responsible for butchering the olive trees. According to the priest it was the old guy who does odd jobs around the church. He lopped off the branches so that it would be easier for him to pick the olives, with obviously no consideration for future crops over the next few years! >:(
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Lovely mosaic work as always and I agree in a very good cause.
Shame about the olives but given time they should recover.
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Our latest acquisition, fitted this morning, to close in our side patio. My wife commissioned it from a local metalworker who just happens to be married to one of her relatives. The bougainvillea had to be sacrificed but it was getting too big anyway and now can be controlled more effectively as it regrows.
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Hello to all you Forum readers. Thank you for your wonderful postings. I used to read them quickly before dashing out to clean the Church Garden mosaic. Unfortunately because we were working during the rainy days some of the pieces were getting waterlogged and coming unstuck. This necessitated cementing them down again during the grouting and it got messy. We tried using different cleaning materials but the going was hard. I discussed the problem with a gardening friend who is a geologist and he advised me to use lemon juice. We had lots of Bitter oranges and I took his advice. Hence the bin with the bitter oranges in the photo. We have finally finished the cleaning today. Now we are waiting for the 'builder' to build the breeze stones then the wall will be plastered and painted and we will plant the narrow trough with succulents. Bit by bit 'our garden' is coming along.
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Your enthusiastic posts are something to look forward to on the Forum Charithea, I can see the frustrations of working on your latest mosaic project have turned your world upside down!
Well done for persevering and sharing your skills so generously. Look forward to seeing the finished results.
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I decided to post some of the photos that show how the Church 'garden' looked and how it looks now,
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Wonderful transformation - when do you find the time to do all that work?
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Seen this morning in the garden of the Forestry Department Visitor Centre, Troodos.
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I was never truly convinced with the little water feature that I posted about (page 11 this thread). Just before lock down I found 2 fish more suited to the purpose. As there are 2, I have one spare should this one ever have a mishap. Now that I have a little more spare time as most of the exam and report writing work is out of the way I decided to revamp the feature today. Still the same old colourful pebbles and still the same "lotus-flower" container but I am more satisfied with the outcome this time.
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Lovely David - even a small water feature adds so much to a garden I think.....as long as it doesn't attract too many zanzare. :)
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Well done David. I can send you some zanzare eating fish if you get any problems.
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Thanks for your concern re mosquitos. I put a couple of drops of swimming pool anti-algae liquid in the water. I also bought an anti-mosquito larvae prduct that comes in large tablets designed to treat hundreds of litres of water. I crushed them up into a powder and add a bit every now and again so that mosquitos don't breed.
Unfortunately (this word is not strong enough to convey my feelings but expletives are not allowed on this forum!), we have the dreaded Tiger Mosquito here in Rome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aedes_albopictus. These get you in the daytime and the local ones take over at night time. I only hope that Tiger Mosquitos haven't arrived in your neck of the woods yet. When they do, you'll know about it. You can follow their invasion of Europe under the chapter heading "Invasive Species" in the article link above. The chapter headed "Control and Suppression" offers little comfort.
Luckily they only make me itch. Other visitors get more extreme reactions. Applying a Deet based repellent is the only way to keep them at bay.
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David, that made horrible reading. I don't know if I have been bitten by one of these mosquitoes through my travels but I hope it does not come to Cyprus. We have enough of biting insects. I am lucky as I don't seem to have any adverse reactions but other members of the family do.
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Keep them in Rome please - perhaps I better withdraw my offer of a stay unless some hide away in your backpack!!!! (Only joking of course 😊)
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I have just received my April edition of the MGS Journal - it has been sitting at the office for a couple of months. By coincidence pages 41-43 contain an article by Angel Pérez Sànchez (apologies for the "approximation" of the accents, I am using an Italian keyboard) who writes "Hospitals and medical centres were close to collapsing when so many patients who had been bitten by the tiger mosquito appeared for treatment".
What is also interesting is that the increase in numbers in dragonflies noted in the article may be associated with the arrival of the tiger mosquito. I have had one dragonfly and one damsel fly in my garden this year. Never seen before. Is it just that I am more present in this lockdown period or are they really coming for the tiger mosquitos? I truly hope the latter.
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Alisdair's dog (first posting in this thread) might have fun chasing this guinea pig around the garden. The guinea pig would be less happy, I imagine.
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Strange how things just come together. I had a metal structure - no idea what is was. Then I saw a nice dish for a bird bath in a second-hand shop. Next, the the gas board took away the old meter which was standing on a block of bricks no longer needed for the new meter. Hey presto - a new bird bath.
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I love your bird-bath. You are very inventive.
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My wife has a cousin who's husband is a metalworker. She commissioned an arch from him to go over one of our pathways. It was delivered yesterday. Now all it needs is for the temperature to go down so that I can set it in the ground without passing out from the heat!
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Great. What are you going to grow up it? Any ideas? It would be a shame to cover it completely and thus lose all the detail.
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That's the point, David, it wasn't meant as a support for a climber, but as a feature in its own right. Some of the shrubs close by will no doubt encroach on it a bit, and we plan to move a couple of blue-flowered salvias from their current position, where they are suffering from too much sun, to alongside it on one side. As I said my next task is to get it set into the ground.
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Very pretty and indeed a feature in its own right. A dainty small leaves climber might be OK - I had an Akebia quinata climbing up part of a similar structure in my former garden and it never seemed to dominate.
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That's an idea, Carole, but our thoughts were that a climber might make the area look too 'busy' and possibly detract from the shrubs and trees that are already in place. A few low-growing perennials around the base was what we were looking at.
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Think you are right John - it is a very organic and sympathetic design without added embellishment😊
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Pauline wrote in this topic about lettering in the garden. I replied saying I had some tiles I planned to write something on. Since then I have got some slate tiles which brought back the old idea of writing on them. To my eternal shame the original post was in 2015! Anyway, I have made a start. Nothing like the tasteful chiselled lettering Pauline was referring to, I'm afraid.
The Italian one was cribbed from some street art in Rome. It works better in Italian than English as the article "la" can be used both for the planet earth and the material we grow our plants in.
https://www.nikonclub.it/gallery/1485956/finalmente-compatibili-con-la-terra-di-sandrol
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Well done David. In this case it is called 'omaggio' no theft of an idea.
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Thanks Charithea. I'm not sure a judge would agree with you but let's hope it never comes to that.
Unfortunately, a very close friend died a while back and I have been mulling ideas over in my head how to remember him. His partner, who never missed one day at his bedside in over 2 years of sickness, deserves recognition too. I found a free program for making anagrams and thought of making a garden name plate from their names, Craig and Howard. Some interesting things came up but nothing that really fitted the bill. From their surnames, Delmonte and Willis, up came "let, in, smile and wold",. Perfect. Wolds recalls my home county of Yorkshire and Howard was ever ready for a smile and a laugh. He is buried in a bluebell wood and I grew up with a bluebell wood at the back of my garden. Hence the, somewhat stylised, bluebell on the name plaque too.
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This time a saying that caught my eye on the internet, Written with a pen designed for writing on ceramic, as you suggested Charithea. Thanks for that tip :-)
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David, both of your latest Art in the Garden are rather beautiful. I love the colour of your delicate bluebells. You might have to go over your writing, in your second piece, with the pen again in a few years as the sunlight unfortunately will fate it.