Bringing Mother Nature Indoors with Garden Art

“Every garden maker should be an artist along his own lines. That is the only possible way to create a garden irrespective of size or wealth”
-Vita Sackville-West

A few weeks ago I was invited to display my “art” at the Brookside Museum, home of the Saratoga County Historical Society for the upcoming: “Women Who Work Here” exhibit. When one thinks of museum art of course you think sculpture, painting, etching, photography, historical collections,weaving, clay and such. In my heart I have come to think of my garden designs as an art form. A serious gardener takes great pains to apply palettes of color, size, shape and texture…as artists do in in a given space or medium. But my challenge became how to exhibit this among the more traditional art forms.

My love of water in gardens and desire to enhance the senses during these cold winter months helped me to create a rather unique indoor exhibit. I began with a mini water feature, we often use as garden focal outdoors, and created a tabletop display. A continuous flow urn gave me just the right amount of flowing water for sound and visual effect. Relying upon my water garden construction skills sets for outdoor features, I used natural materials like river stone, cobblers and rock to give the feature a natural look.

A variety of tropical plants became the surrounding gardens. I made sure to use “scented” plants like the vicks plant and lavender to give an outdoor-like garden experience. The bold leaves of the iron cross begonia provided nice contrast. It also gives rise to conversations on history, as this was a popular Victorian Era garden plant taken into arboretums during the winter months. Plants that like their feet wet served as naturalizers in my basin area.. A little LED lighting gave some enhancement to the water flow and sparkle to the wet stones and rocks.

And for whimsey, accented with a bit of my Irish heritage. I love the Celtic saying: “Make room in your garden for the Fairies to dance.” Just the vision of that makes my countdown to spring enjoyable!

The overall effect is one that chases away these winter blues and gives us hope for spring. Stop by the Brookside Museum in Ballston Spa to take in this unique exhibit developed by “working women”. It runs February 7th through 27th.