Twilight Wishes

Thanks to all who came out to the tea party tonight. It's been a longtime dream of mine to have an outdoor event like this on a long summer's eve and I was so pleased the weather co-operated. It's an important thing to witness twilight as a collective. The garden becomes mysterious and enchanted. I hope people enjoyed themselves. Now that I've done one moth cape, I'd like to do a series of them, maybe playing with dyeing, batik, and stenciling. It would be fun to be able to give them out to people to wear at an event.

Tomorrow we tackle the bamboo fence and Tuesday I am going to Granville Island to buy myself a treat. All will be revealed.

Seeking the Pollen Path

"We are stardust, we are golden
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

--Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

"Remember always to walk in the pollen path of peace and of blessing. Be still within yourselves, and know that the trail is beautiful. Whenever you are in danger walk carefully and quietly. Your feet will be blessed with pollen and your hands will be blessed with pollen. Let your mind and voices go forward on the pollen path."

-- The Pollen Path: A Collection of Navajo Myths retold by Margaret Schevill Link


Performance artist seeks spiritual path: that's how my personal ad would read right now, and the path always leads me to one garden or another. In fact, my life in Vancouver is lived in a series of gardens and the pathways between them: UBC Farm, The Means of Production Garden, various community gardens and the plot in my own back yard. As this year closes, I am already planning my traffic patterns for next year, which days of the week I will travel to which garden. I am making sketches of the costumes I will wear, the seeds I will plant and the gestures I will perform. Our new artist collective is planning to create a series of projects for 2009, for which we are laying an imaginary framework and support system. We've written proposals and we've opened a bank account in the hopes that money for community art projects in the garden will fill it enough so that our ideas can be planted, tended and come to fruition.





It's winter. I miss the MOP garden, but even though it is covered with snow I have to go and visit the dead sunflowers, the bare willow branches, and the benches and hard furnishings now upholstered with soft, yielding snow. I make a rough map in my mind of where I'm headed, grab my camera, my bus fare for the way home and I'm off. I decide to start at Shaktea tea house because it's close to me and it's a public place that's dear to my heart. I find some stunning Chinese lanterns to photograph along the way as well as some red rose hips in the snow and dead cosmos from this past fall. In some places the snow covers the sidewalk and in others there is room for "single file only." By the time I arrive at the MOP, the wind has whipped the snowflakes up so that the children tobogganing look as though they are sliding down the hill in a snow globe. Snow flakes stick to my camera lens and my knees are feeling stiff and cold. Time to catch the number three bus to Main Street and the number twenty-five up the hill.












At home I warm up my comfort bag in the microwave oven and make hot peppermint tea. I heat up a latke from Solly's bakery and eat it with Liberty yogurt and smoked salmon. The latkes are crunchy around the edges and salty, with perfect potato goodness. I curl up with an Agatha Christie Mystery. Simple holiday pleasures. I love to walk and take photos. I love to curl up on the couch with a mug of hot tea and a book, but am I getting stuck in my ways, and too comfortable for comfort? At this time of the year especially, I crave spiritual renewal. I have a tradition of writing down one hundred new year's resolutions as quickly as I can, without thinking too much about it. (You should try it!) All those little steps towards becoming a better person--some change has got to happen along the way. I make diet and exercise plans, organization strategies and try to do some goal setting with a sense of the "big picture" in mind. Maybe this will be the year I lose the weight, learn to dance like a goddess and get my house in order. By this time next year I'll be so enlightened I'll have to wear shades. Ha! We'll see. Wish me luck!

Means of Potato

A harvest of new potatoes from the vegetable garden--new potatoes sounds so much better than middle-age potatoes, doesn't it?

Yesterday we did more tidying up for the tea party on Sunday. We had an extra helper today, the Balcony Gardener. Under a thicket of tansy, bindweed and thistle we discovered some beautiful piles of willow branches. Nettle Lady was immediately inspired so we all collaborated to create an ephemeral installation under the cedar.


Sharon devised a herringbone pattern to begin with.




I can't believe it's late enough in summer for the echinacea to be blooming. With the late start in the spring our summer seems so short.

Bees love these mint blossoms. We will use some leaves to make tea on Sunday. I also received a cup of Oregon grapes to experiment with. I found recipes for jelly combining oregon grapes with salal berries or crab apples. I don't think the crab apples are ripe yet. I think for Sunday I will boil them with water like I do currants, put them in the moule and make an oregon grape syrup I can make into refreshing spot of iced tea. Rawther! Apparently it's the root of this mahonia that is used to make medicinal teas, but hey, maybe the Vancouver mixologists will start using native berry syrups in their cocktails. Like, we could start a trend. Must bring gin to tea party. (Just kidding.)

As you can see from the photos last week the phacelia is already going to seed. I gathered some of the tiny seeds for Sunday's seed balls. The stems are quite prickly. I love the sensuous ritual of gathering seeds. It's an obsession of mine. I'm a bit of a gleaner, I am.

Good-bye artichoke. Hello parsnip? Is it time for winter gardening already? (Choked sob.)

I am very excited about the tea party. Hopefully the flying monkeys won't poop all over the garden. Please come!

Sunday, July 27 3-5pm
Artist's Potluck Garden Tea Party
With your hosts: Sharon Kallis and Lori Weidenhammer Bring your own tea cup, napkin, perhaps finger food to share, join us in making seed balls and don't forget your garden party hat.

At: Means of Production Garden (MOP), in the North West corner of North China Creek Park, at the corner of St. Catherines Street and East 6th Avenue. Wear good walking shoes, as the ground is uneven, and children will need to be supervised due to steep hilly nature of the garden MOP is managed by the Environmental Youth Alliance and has a mandate to provide urban artists who use natural materials in their artwork with a place to learn about, grow and harvest the materials we require.

Sound installation by the Legion Of Flying Monkeys Horn Orchestra!
Mark your calendars for future tea party dates, August 24, September 7. For tea party visit www.EYA.ca

MOP July 9

Last week at the MOP Nettle Lady and I continued to wrestle with broom and blackberry. This time I brought along my leather gloves and wore my real gardening pants to get right in there and do some serious work. However, I was so tired that the work seemed futile. So NL and I were relieved to hear that the MOP workers would help us out.

This little arbutus tree has more light to grow by now that the space around it has been cleared.

NL showed me how to tuck the edges of the brambles into a ball.

Last week I went to a talk on invasive plants and I learned just how invasive Scotch broom is. These seed pods are part of the problem. eventually, we should clear this patch out with a major work team and a tool called a weed wrench that will pull the stalks out by the roots. However, the soil is steep here and for now these plants prevent erosion.


It's a good thing we are pulling out the morning glory and false dandelion before they set seed.

Scotch Broom Wranglers

Nettle Lady and I have taken on the challenge of cutting into the patch of Scotch Broom at the MOP Garden. We wrestled blackberries and cut switch-backs into the broom. NL found that we could twist the broom and form it into loops and arches. We also twisted and braided the grass to make the edges of the wild garden more sculpted and accessible. We have also been inspired to create balls out of the detritus as objects to play with or to add into the Scotch Broom-scape. I molded some poplar seeds into a popcorn ball shape for fun. Nettle Lady was ecstatic as she put on two pairs of gloves and started rolling a giant ball of blackberry brambles.

On another note, I saw that the lupin seeds are already starting to ripen and decided they would be perfect for fall seed balls since they need a cold snap to germinate in the spring.

Means of Production

The Means of Production Garden is a project created by Oliver Kellhammer. The site is in East Vancouver near Fraser and Broadway. I'm very interested in turning part of this site into an Artist Run Bee Garden with two working hives. Right now I'm putting together a proposal to work with a mentor who is a beekeeper to create this project. Last week I went to the garden and took a few photos for inspiration.





The day I visited, members of the Environmental Youth Alliance were creating willow fences for some of the garden beds. The Bee Man said it would be great to add to the biodiversity of the garden to encourage many types of bees, wasps, and other insects to visit and in doing so, create a balanced ecosystem. We could certainly add some more types of herbs to the bed above containing the oregano.




Part of the garden is composed of native plants which are flourishing in this site.





Other parts of the site are cultivated with a few fruit trees and vegetables. Furthermore, there is a paper garden and a dye garden.




The Nettle Lady is doing a special artist project which entails making a tent out of nettles and Scotch Broom. She is planting a crop of nettles between some of the trees on a steep side of the slope.





The lupins throughout the garden are great attractors of bombus. The Bee Man says the mostly black bumble bees are so gentle that you can even "pet" them while they work!