shady hostas

currently shaded on the Manassas deck rescued old hostas

for the yellowish "August Moon" hosta a darker green pot

for the tallest simple green hosta a tall dark pot

a single blue hosta in a blue ceramic pot

my miniature hostas grouped in a low pot: blue"Mouse Ears", yellow-green edges "Cracker Crumbs" & "Stiletto"

red cut leaf Japanese maple in a pot now next to a hosta beds.

For years now, I have loved hostas, a shade loving perennial plant, round like a medallion, it comes in many shades of green emerging right after the narcissus fade. Hosta is a native plant to north eastern Asia, brought to the west from Japan's shade gardens in the 19th century. I learned that cultivating a hosta bed is pretty nearly perfect for it's ease. We have several here in our building's garden. The following hosta in Latin has a link to the Wikipedia page on hosta for more history and general information. Hosta plantaginea

When I was a kid we used to call hostas plantation lilies which is a misnomer for a common name outdated now plantain lily, it has nothing to do with 'plantations' but being dyslexic I couldn't remember the distinction. Those old hostas had scrawny leaves and sparse flowers on tall stems that were not very pretty late in summer and didn't have a scent. Hence as a kid I didn't like them or understand why people planted them in their gardens. Since then hostas have more variety and hostas even have their own American Hosta Society.

I remember first being seriously curious about hostas back in 1988 when I used to see them as I walked around the Palisades along the MacArthur Blvd. in north west Washington DC where many arts and crafts style homes had huge blue leaf hostas. They were growing as foundation plantings that didn't seem to need any attention and some had short full white blossoms. Years later I moved into a house with a tiny garden 3'x 14' that wasn't getting more than a couple hours of very early morning sun and I began studying what I could grow in that dark space. Hostas and ferns and the colorful annual inpatients and caladiums in addition to cut leaf Japanese maple were some of the best plants for shade in that garden. I have had several gardens since then moving my hosta collection with me in pots to new homes. Since I was so excited about my hostas I once planted a nice hosta and hydrangea garden for my mother in Manassas but the air conditioner replacement crew and a hemlock tree have pretty much laid that bed to waste. We rescued a lot of the hostas from the air conditioner replacement guys in 2006 by potting them up. In Manassas there wasn't another shady bed to move them to and I left them in temporary pots for her to tend. Hostas grow well in ceramic pots rarely harmed by winter freezing. Earlier this summer I got an idea when I saw a big glazed blue pot at one of the garden centers. I thought that a mix of three or more hostas in a pot would be a nice arrangement that might work for the ones that were still looking for a permanent home in the Manassas temporary pots. I got one pot and found that a single blue hosta was all we could get in it leaving a little room for it grow larger. That led me to think of my miniature hostas at home in this type of pot and I tired it this summer in my back yard. They are the round blue leaf "Mouse Ears", yellow-green with dark green edges "Cracker Crumbs" & dark green with white edges "Stiletto" none of those are bigger than a cantaloupe. In Manassas I plan to plant the trio of big hostas in much the same way using the two new pots to add to the low blue one planted earlier this summer. This will be a handsome arrangement and easier to care for since they aren't hit with hot sunshine in the summer on the shaded deck and are easily watered. More could be added later if I find time to dig up some of mine and divide them this fall or early next spring.

blogs, china and cool August blues

sweet smelling helliotrope

refreshing blue fuji morning glories

clematis flower with maiden hair fern

unique blue clematis flower

blue balloon flower

August is typically a very charged month for me and I wish we could have seen the Perseid Meteor showers this week. DC had clouds, rain and of course, way too much urban light pollution but they are saying it was a unusually big show for those with the right viewing conditions.

Surfing around Twitter I discovered an English artist's work that just blew me away it is so inspiring. Her name is Esther Coombs and she draws with a china paint marker on old "unloved" china and pottery. Esther combines her great black line drawing and good design eye to make charming new things out of old everyday items which give them swiftly add new life. I want to share some of her work with you and the best way is to send you over to one of her Internet homes. She has a web page, blog, Etsy shop, and a flickr photo page. Click on any of those links to go see a little of what I am dreaming about.

I liked her collaboration with a poet to do a cup and saucer image illustrating a short pros fiction which she displays on her blog about women traveling on trains. It is at once modern and hip but using old stuff has added to that environmentally friendly practice of recycling and reusing.

Last night at the Brookland Area Writers and Artist's poetry reading an artist military mother came and asked for donations to an art/poetry show exhibiting collaborating poets and artists to raise money for military families at the area military hospitals. Her laureled poet son asked to be remembered this way before he died on a mission in Iraq. This show is at Lorton the former prison "work house" south of Washington DC in Virginia that is developing into an artist studios and performance space. While she was telling her story I couldn't help thinking about Esther Coomb's story of her a son in the garden shed from her blog and how she used a drawing of her garden shed on a jug to tell why it had significance to her, more than met the eye. Read the short story and see the pot on this post by Esther. After I discovered Esther's work I went out in the garden and took photos with the intention of drawing some of my plants to see if I could do what Esther does. So far not much has come of out of that exercise but some pretty blue flower shots. We have a lovely garden full of color even now in the deep summer which has been cooler than normal but still pretty stuffy up in the second floor apartment under a black tar roof. My next favorite color beside orange is the color opposite orange on the color wheel blue. I find purple and orange work nicely together as a book color combo. I am working steadily binding books with the lower temperatures but mostly in the mornings.

This weekend I am going for a treat to take a day long refresher workshop at Pyramid Atlantic Studios in Silver Spring, Md. on how to use the cold metal type presses. The cold metal letters have to be set in the press facing backwards always a challenge for a dyslexic like me and always worth the effort. I am looking forward to this day of working in the print shop again. I hope to do some more printing of poems in collaboration with my poet friends from Brookland.

antiques, prints & orange tulips

art deco vase

tulips

red tiffany lamp 

glassware

my morning pages 
 

collector's fashion very predictable

green frog vase

deco pottery 

artist's signed pine cone vase $1750 negotiable 

a lot of art glass 

tiffany lamps 

color woodcut prints

orange parrot tulips

orange parrot tulips 2

Just got home from the first DC Spring Antiques Show at the Convention Center. It was a grand affair with exhibitors from all over the world but mostly from the USA. I was dazzled by two print dealers who had great woodcuts. These prints aren't easy to find on display in our museums in DC. So I was in heaven looking through the bins and at a few that were framed on the walls. many were made in the early 1900s and were nicely framed in quarter split oak that goes with the furniture of the Arts and Crafts movement which was strong back then. 

We also admired glass and pottery and lots of paintings jewelry and furniture. Keith found and fell in love with an ox blood red glass cut vase by Lalique that was about $27,000 we think or maybe it was 10,000 but either way too expensive for us to consider buying. We did see some nice things as low as $195 but even so nothing we had to bring home. I really enjoyed looking and thanked all the vendors but we could see they were disappointed that we and most of the visitors were not buyers... My mom got the free pass  and gave it to me to use  but we noted that  no one seemed to be paying at the door when we came in. While I was there looking at the prints I was invited to a Capitol Art Fair on April 4& 5th so I am looking forward to that show! More prints to admire. Wish I had some print pals here in DC to go with me. Keith likes block prints and was asking me to make some more of my own today.   I was wowed by prints by Arthur Wesley Dow, Bertha Lum, Gustave Baumann, Rockwell Kent, Milton Avery and many others! I saw full color woodcuts a plenty in this show but one that sticks in my mind. It was a Rockwell Kent wood engraving of a "tree feller" or a lumber jack with an axe,  that was a wood engraving in three colors: black, white and a light brown for the middle tones. I don't know why it stuck in my head except his designs and technique is really worth  $4,000 a copy for an original wood engraving of that 8x10 inch size. 

I was in Manassas last week for a visit and got some photos of my morning journaling with the big orange parrot tulips Keith sent out this week. I got home and had a long dentist appointment on Friday then rested for the remainder of the day. Tonight we have the clocks turn back so I may try to go to bed early. I find it is so hard to get adjusted to the change in time when it springs forward.