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Laurie likes to take cuttings, and has found that terrariums provide an environment that helps them root more readily. No surprise she also makes her own terrariums (seen at right)—using large jars and making ordinary plastic lids more decorative by attaching cheap figurines and giving the whole lid a faux metal finish. She especially favors using birds for the tops. |
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Scenes from the real garden of Laurie Parker, author/illustrator of Garden Alphabet (continued) |
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Rosemary rooted from sprigs, candytuft and white alyssum are seen in the circle planter above. The fountain is solar. The turtle is a mosaic turtle, a gift from friends just before the release of Parker’s book The Turtle Saver in 2001. Below—Parker has salsify in her garden, a ”gourmet“ vegetable that taste like oysters! The blooms are pretty, too! (It’s a biennial she grows from directly-sown seed.) |
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Above is a small planter made from an old mailbox. It contains “diamond frost” euphorbia, a bromeliad, a wild violet, and creeping jenny . It is hanging on a metal screen (seen behind the fountain in the photo just left). Below is the homemade fountain as seen from the back patio when the self-sown cleome are blooming... |
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Above and left are views of the roses growing on the pergola which covers the patio. She planted them as two 6-inch cuttings in 2012; photo above is from 2014.
Below is a view of the “secret garden door” when the ajuga is blooming. Between it and the river birch on the left is the arch that enters into ”The Spiral Corner.“
The little chair covered in rose petals seen on the left was a plastic chair a neighbor had thrown out. Parker rescued it, painted it and made the applique on the top. Laurie isn’t a dumpster diver—she just likes to repurpose stuff other people discard! |
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Click here for more on Author/Artist Laurie Parker |
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Laurie plants a moonvine on an arch every year; she starts them from seed. Above is the MOONVINE arch in 2011. AT RIGHT are two shots of the sphinx moth that visited Laurie’s moonvine every day for a week that year! Laurie was a big entomology buff as a child, so she was thrilled to see him come back night after night...and he showed before it even got dark! Below is the flagstone patio that is just to the left before the arch above. And Wordworth the cat showing off. |
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Below, seen through yet another arch she made—by connecting the arching branches of eleagnus to a metal T-bar, you can see her charming little garden bridge. She designed the bridge (to go over one of the ditches she dug to try to redirect the ”river“) and Buck Swain, her cousin, built it for her in 2012. But she had to do something right away to give it an ”aged“ look, so she did a wash with gray and green paints. Since then, the elements have aged it naturally. This ”room“ is enclosed by spirea, an Arizona cypress, nandina, and elderberry. She has started a moss garden here (between the round stepping stones arranged in a spiral). She calls this shady area ”The Spiral Corner.“ |
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To the left is a path through another shaded area in the garden...Blue-foliage hostas can be seen by the moss ball. |
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Above is the ”foyer“ of The Spiral Corner. Laurie found the gnome thrown out on the side of the road in a neighbor’s trash; now he greets visitors entering this fern-abundant corner! That is, unless they enter through the althea arch from the other direction; in that case, they are greeted by the little sylvan fellow on the tree stump below. He has ivy growing from his head. Hard not to take a lichen to him. |
