This fountain is in the approximate geographical center of our little Garden Sanctuary. But it’s more than that. As a water element it’s truly the heart of the garden – what else could that be but water? It’s the life force that the plants need most to survive and thrive, as do we. This is a bit of a shrine to those water energies. It also serves as a focal point to draw all the disparate elements of the garden together. Its gentle babbling sounds are just like a small stream in the forest, which this area is slowly becoming, tho a small forest I’ll admit.
We like to sit on the deck behind it and read or just sit and visit. It’s lovely to have the fountain as a backdrop to our conversations. It’s a very peaceful and calming place to be. It’s one of my favorite spots in the garden, for all these reasons, and more. Water has always been special to me and I love to hear its gentle sounds. It’s so healing to just hang out here and allow yourself to fall under its spell for awhile. There’s a small stone path that leads to the fountain. I stand there and just appreciate all the beauty.
In effect we’ve created a little grotto here and it’s filled with all sorts of cool plants to enhance that feeling of being enclosed in a small private space. The plants around it, in spiral fashion radiating out from the left hand corner are: a purple leaved Helmond’s Pillar Japanese Barberry next to the straight stems of a relatively fastigiate form of the Persian Ironwood tree named Vanessa. There is a Japanese Tassel Fern at its base and small Alpine Water Ferns covering the floor all around it. Behind these and above the ferns is a Red Tip Alpine Yew Pine, with a Ken Janeck Rhododendron at its foot.
Right behind the fountain is a Red Pygmy Japanese maple, with a lush stand of Japanese Forest Grass right below it. In back and to the right of it are a few branches of a Diana Japanese Larch that is just starting to turn golden. The whorled plant next to it in back is a Japanese Umbrella Pine cultivar called Wintergreen. To its right is an Anna Rose Whitney Rhododendron with a bit of the Radicans Sugi showing to the right of it. The red tree is a Bloodgood Japanese Maple and the evergreen at its base is an Amersfoort English (some say Japanese) Yew. The ground cover in the middle is our native Wild Ginger, while the whitish plant in the foreground is Euonymous Emerald Gaiety.
There are still a few more plants you can’t see, like a Bow Bells Rhododendron, and a small Lawrence Crocker Daphne. Near it is another beautiful small fern – the Dwarf Crisped Golden Scale Male Fern – a huge name for a 12″ plant! You can’t see the Western Bleeding Heart that comes up every spring because it’s dormant now, tho it fills the area in front quite well then. There are also some areas of white flowered Sweet Woodruff here and there. There’s a tiny patch of Victor Reite Thrift and on the left is an imposing Kelley’s Prostrate Coast Redwood that creates a large part of the feeling of enclosure. And finally there’s a wispy Toffee Twist Sedge at the base of the Barberry.
I haven’t listed any botanical names this time in the interests of brevity, which I seem to have failed at anyway. Oh well, I know I do ramble on about plants, but I get so excited about them all I can’t seem to help myself. I’m a little manic about them I guess. I love to know their names. It makes me feel closer to them as friends. I like to just hang out in this grotto and meditate on the gentler aspects of a garden. It’s a good place to do that because the energies of the plants and the water are so strong here. You definitely feel it all surround you and know they are the ones who own this little Sanctuary, not you. It can be a humbling experience if you let it be…
peace,
Steve
Gardening in Greenwood 