Last December I took the risky step of setting goals for 2016. So as that year ends and 2017 begins, it’s time to assess. How much of what I wanted to do did I actually accomplish? 1. The Cascade: As intended, I modified the plantings around The Cascade. I reduced the number of different types of…
For the last sixteen years I’ve kept a record of what happens each year in the garden. I’ve conscientiously photographed each project I’ve undertaken, each border as it changed from season to season, each modification I made or was thinking about making. I’ve stuck these photographs into albums and written comments — about my intentions for a project, or the weather, what I…
On the weekend we installed the granite slab that marks the ‘front door’ of Orin’s Sugarcamp, my latest art installation at Glen Villa. (You can read about the project here.) Doing this was tricky. It involved transporting an 800-pound slab of rock across a snowy field and a partially frozen stream on the back of an open wagon. That takes…
Is less more? I associate the familiar phrase with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, one of the founders of modern architecture and a proponent of simplicity of style. But when I went to confirm this, I found to my surprise that the phrase was first used in print in Andrea del Sarto, a poem by…
Melvin Charney’s garden made for the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal is firmly and unequivocally a city garden. It is surrounded by traffic on all sides, rising up from a piece of land lost between the entry and exit ramps of a busy expressway. It is composed of elements found in many gardens — plants,…
Just over a year ago I began work on a project in the woods at Glen Villa, my garden in Quebec. I was inspired by an exhibition I saw at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home in western Massachusetts. One piece in particular caught my eye, a collection of oddly shaped pieces of wood that contrasted in…
No, this isn’t a political post, although governments are involved. The non-political damage that needs to be repaired involves the dam at Glen Villa, my garden in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, and the pond the dam created. The pond dates back well over 100 years, to about 1870 or so, when a stream was dammed…
With Remembrance Day fast approaching, I’m remembering people who were important in my life and looking at how the Memory Posts I painted in their honour are faring. The inspiration for my Memory Posts came from a visit to the National Gallery of Australia and its Memorial Hall. Created by indigenous artists from Central Arnhem Land in Australia’s…
I missed the peak of autumn colour this year in the Eastern Townships of Quebec — where colours are as good as (or better than?) any place in North America — because of some trips that took me away from home. So when a friend sent me a photo he took a week or so ago of the hills…
Note: Recently I became aware of a technical glitz that was causing problems with the delivery of this blog. It has now been resolved. To those of you reading a blog post for the first time, even if you subscribed many months ago — my apologies for the delay and welcome to the Site and Insight blog! I…