Roadside beauty

I can recall sitting in the back of my parent's Vista Cruiser, counting the minutes, bored out of my mind, till we reached the beach. Luckily there were some roadside attractions which eased the monotony. As much as I'd complain about the delay in E.T.A., the taste of fresh watermelon and plums distracted me at least for a bit. We'd load up on fruits and veggies and sometimes my mom would score a bunch of wild flowers to plop into our motel juice pitcher.


As a kid I took that sort of thing for granted--why get excited over produce? I could have sworn our mission was beach and boys. Now, as an adult, I now look back and smile at those roadside diversions, and i thank my parents for being green before it was cool.


This year, I've taken a few of those trips that made me think about the good old days. I'm happy to report roadside stands still exist, but without the frequency of yesteryear.


As a floral designer, I can get any flower I want from my wholesaler but you know, you just can't beat bunches of the farm grown stuff. Like the glads I found in New Jersey on my way to Ventnor last June, I got 10 stems for 4 bucks- a real deal. And they were tight which means you get to look forward to them opening and lasting longer. That goes for sunflowers, too, I found a great roadside stand near Annapolis that had a great selection.


On my way back from New Jersey, I found a wonderful flower farm that sold the most amazing perennials and plants. I couldn't have picked a better time of year (late June). Talking to the owners, they were thrilled with the weather this year-- after all its how they make a living.


Some other local trips have provided me more opportunity to check out roadside beauty. I'm lucky to live close to the Chesapeake Bay, and steamed crab stands are mighty popular along most shore routes. One sign I recently saw nearly caused me to swerve off the road with excitement. It read: Crabs, Roses. Doesn't get much better than that combination.


I started to see this unusual product blending elsewhere. Produce and chicken dinners, corn and snowballs, watermelons and bar-b-que. It’s pretty crazy. Talk about neglected beauty.


But after visiting a lot of these beautiful stands on the Mid-Atlantic shoreline this summer, all I can do is pray they can weather the economical storm that's just up the road. Having them as a part of my childhood played a large role in my love of fruits and veggies but also probably started my love of flowers.


So after you read this, take the time to go check out some local roadside stands. Remember that when going, you are supporting not only the farmers, but also your community. You are being completely green, which everyone acts like they are doing, only in this case you will be. Go eat your vegetables.


ALL PHOTOS BY C. LANGRALL AND BALANCE PHOTOGRAPHY

Baltimore city's secret beauty

Orleans St., Baltimore City

It's said that Baltimore is one of the nation's "up-and-coming" cities. After all, we are located in the richest state in the Union if you believe the U.S. Census report (2008). But if you live here, you may see a different story...so much poverty and crime, it's painful. There are too many neighborhoods that are just barely surviving. It's easy to lose faith in a city as beautiful and rich in history as Baltimore when there is so much gray, starkness and despair in between.

West Baltimore

I visit the heart of the city and wonder why so few houses have tended gardens or any garden for that matter. It can depress you to the point of turning your car towards the county just to get a glimpse of some colorful annuals or a well-trimmed lawn. And it's even more distressing to see that the only forms of vegetation are from city plantings by the local monuments and office buildings or, God forbid, the "yuppie" parts of town. It's a feeling of defeat, if you're a nature lover like myself.

near Hillen St., Baltimore City

But if you dare to visit the neighborhoods less traveled, wonderful things can be found if you just keep your eyes peeled. For example, I've turned down a random street, and suddenly I'll notice something bright and growing. Amid the gray paneled doors and abandoned row homes there lies a vibrant presence in the form of volunteer plants, artificial flowers, plastic yard statues, wind chimes and visionary yard art.

Northeast Baltimore City

I thank God for houses like these and the efforts made by the owners and tenants who live inside them. Through their make-shift gardens and wacky yard decor, they have instilled a level of hope within myself. "Inner city beauty"....if only it were contagious.

Near Hillen St., Baltimore

These are some pictures I've taken with friends while living in Baltimore. There are many more, but these I feel these represent a cross section of the various neighborhoods and decorating styles that can be found. Some folks like silk flowers and plastic containers with porcelain yard figurines while others go all out with container gardens and yard art and sculpture. But it doesn't really matter to me. What impresses me most is the effort, especially in the poorer neighborhoods. The faded silk flower displays and mini-animal menageries on Calvert St.are my favorites. They always somehow manage to make me smile, even on the worst of days.

St. Paul St., Baltimore

The house below is in a neighborhood where many homes have been abandoned and there is a high rate of drug abuse and crime. If you are familiar with the city, the house stands out on Calvert St. going north. I actually met the owner to ask permission to take this picture. I call her Plant Lady. She is very proud of her make-shift garden, as well she should be, she had created a colorful utopia in the midst of asphalt, trash, boarded-up buildings, and branchless streets. It was as if a spotlight was on her little house, declaring to all that here lives someone who was paying attention, someone who cared. Creating beauty amongst her surroundings perhaps gave her hope. This lovely woman made something wonderful from very little. That's the true definition of neglected beauty.

But she is not alone, there are others living all around us in major urban cities where crime and poverty and hopelessness is a daily way of life. And they too have created tiny flowering oases in the midst of a very rough and desolate terrain. While they are hard to find, they do exist.

Calvert St., Baltimore City

The last picture is part of a little garden plot found near a city school in south Baltimore in need of major repairs (the school, not the garden). Right before the end of the school year, someone must have seen this little spot and bought a few annuals to brighten it up. Situated next to an alley, it will not be seen by many, but it doesn't matter; it adds life and color to another dismal section of Baltimore's urban landscape.

Calvert St., Baltimore City

Then there are those up and coming neighborhoods that are attracting wealthier professionals. They are forming neighborhood associations and planting community gardens. It's refreshing to see their efforts: hanging baskets, group gardens and creative displays of yard art. These folks surely have the advantage financially to create some gorgeous gardens, but never dismiss the neighborhoods that aren't as fortunate.

South Baltimore

"Always remember to look up in the city. Skyscrapers aren't the only things you'll find."
~Flower Spy

Bolton Hill, Baltimore City

Bolton Hill, Baltimore City

"Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired."
~Erik H. Erikson:

Calvert St., Baltimore, MD

ALL PHOTOS BY BALANCE PHOTOGRAPHY AND C. LANGRALL

Bolton Hill, Baltimore City

Statuesque beauty

The concept of beauty can overpower me, especially when I'm on one of my missions for unusual forms of it. Garden statues are no exception. I am overwhelmed by their perfect, stoic shapes that stand permanently in a garden, especially if wild flowers or vines are engulfing its form.


Neglected, beautiful statues found in nature are what I call statuesque beauty. And while many of these are intended for gardens, it's the unexpected, forgotten ones that end up there I love finding the most. There is something romantic about discovering a beat up old, antique statue sitting next to a well-manicured boxwood shrub or a field of wildflowers. It creates a beautiful living picture that's hard not to appreciate.


Living in D.C. and Baltimore has provided me a good dose of statuesque beauty through places like the Hirshhorn's Sculpture garden, the garden statues at the B.M.A. and many other historic parks in Baltimore. But when I'm not searching these places, I have found Mother Nature's very own backyard be the perfect source for finding the more eclectic samples of this beauty.


For example I have found out of the way, sometimes rural garden centers to carry some very unexpected samples of these. Getting lost can sometimes yield the best surprises. This summer, I was lost on a road near Annapolis with some friends, and we bumped into a garden nursery housing some very odd statuary. At first glimpse all we saw were wildly painted totem poles and gazing balls (of course we stopped). But when we kept on walking down the path, we discovered a section that had endless stone, plaster and wooden statues of all types. There was Poseidon, some pairings of Beefeaters, lots of mermaids (my favorite), scary wooden male faces, Art Nouveau ladies pouring decanters of water and endless Roman inspired women with laurel garlands. They all looked so pretty hanging out in the garden. It was also close to sundown, which gave each statue an amber glow that somehow made them even more lovely. Even the Beefeater twins looked sweet standing next to cages of river rocks by the busy roadside.


After we left we all agreed that garden statues can be kind of cool. We were on a mission to find more, but where we wondered?


As we got lost again on the ride home, it dawned on me where we could go. Cemeteries have lots of statues, especially the ones in downtown Baltimore, so why not? They fit the criterion, they are statues and they are outside and they are beautiful. It was a plan. Lucky for us, Greenmount Cemetery is close by, so we went for a neglected beauty mission and came up with some interesting finds.


From Victorian women carrying bouquets of Easter lilies to children adorned with floral and laurel garlands, the statues there were more than we imagined. And because it was raining, they quickly became haunted neglected beauty. We caught some famous names there as well, including John Wilkes Booth and Aubrey Bodine. When we turned the corner on our way out, we headed up to Baltimore's National Cemetery where we found even more forgotten statuesque beauty. The best part?...they were living in the primary source of all beauty-- Nature.


I continued my quest throughout the summer for more examples of this underrated form of beauty. Stupidly I forgot the mother load of statuary was sitting right in the backyard of some very good friends- Dolores Deluxe and Vince Peranio, two fabulously talented artists. They live in the heart of Baltimore city and have managed to create a paradise where statues, plants and animals live in total harmony. It's something out of the movies and unless you're fortunate enough to visit the "Palace on Dallas", you may not understand my enthusiasm.


Some background on this dynamic couple: Vince is an artistic designer in the television and film industry (credits include the Wire, Homicide, and all of John Waters films,and so much more). He has an incredible eye for detail and design history. Dolores is a designer of flowers (for me-how lucky), and of her insanely decorated home, when she's not serving as Vince's muse. They are an fascinating couple with an awe-inspiring garden that includes some great broken down old statues.


So off to their back yard I went for some great shots of their statuesque beauty which I hope you enjoy as much as I do.
. .
PICURES:
1) Nude in public garden, Japan
2) Garden statues of female with water pitcher/garden center, Annapolis, MD
3) Garden stature of Poseidon/garden center, Annapolis, MD
4) Beefeater twins by roadside/garden center, Annapolis, MD
5) Mermaid fountain statue at garden center shows off for traffic, Crownsville, MD


6) Woman bearing cross-Greenmount Cemetery, Baltimore, MD
7) Broken winged angel, garden center, Annapolis, MD
8) Child with animal cape, Greenmount Cemetery, Baltimore
9) Garden bust at the Palace on Dallas, Baltimore
10)Garden statues covered in ivy at the Palace on Dallas
11) Woodland Cherub with broken instrument at Palace on Dallas
12) Garden statue covered in sweet potato vine-Palace on Dallas
13) Reclining child as gravemarker- Greenmount Cemetery


The French never allow a distinguished son of France to lack a statue.
Edward V. Lucas



ALL PHOTOS BY C.LANGRALL and Balance Photography (except Japanese statue).



Neglected statues in nature being beautiful = Statuesque Beauty.

Volunteer beauty

Botanical definition of a volunteer seedling: A plant that grows on its own, rather than being deliberately planted by a gardener. Volunteers often grow from seeds that float in on the wind, are dropped by birds, or are inadvertently mixed into compost.


Flower Spy's definition of a volunteer seedling: A beautiful gift from Mother Nature for lazy gardeners like myself who just can't dedicate the time to prune and maintain a normal garden.


Years ago, I started out like all new excited gardeners--filled with lofty floral ambitions which included a never-ending lush backyard that brimmed with tropicals and perennials alike, and would be in constant bloom for at least two seasons out of the year. Fourteen years later, that exotic garden still alludes me, but not from lack of effort. When I began my gardening career I sent away for as many bulb and seed catalogues as I could get my hands on and ended up ordering some of the most exquisite flowering plants you've ever seen. When they arrived (Buyer beware: some of those companies misrepresent the product and grow zones), a few bulbs took well to my clay-ridden soil, while others seemed to dissolve within a season. As frustrating as it was, I kept at it for several years, buying new plants to replace the old ones or simply adding to the numbers to make them look fluffier. This became my yearly routine. I was slowly getting there, but this gardening stuff isn't for the meek (not me), or the impatient (me).


For about five years, I somehow maintained a nice grouping of blue lupine, purple monkshood, sky-blue delphinium and tangerine poppies and then the following season, POOF!--they were gone, as if by magic. I was so sad. I had hoped my plants would propagate like my grandmother's award-winning garden, in particular her "volkerfreiden" delphiniums, my all-time favorite.


I felt like a gardening failure. What was worse is that I am a floral designer-- people have expectations. When my 5-foot, jewel-toned purple butterfly bush dried up and died before the 4th of July, I knew I was in trouble. I mean, do you know how hard it is to kill those things? Little by little, year after year, I started noticing other areas that were starting to look empty.


Each year it seemed that when I'd step into my garden, depression would set in. I always maintained some serious hanging baskets, but more and more of my perennials were losing the war with my work schedule.


Then all of the sudden, I noticed something different in my empty flower beds. It was like a miracle-- new things were appearing, odd things in places that they shouldn't be. It seems that Mother Nature had some substitutions in mind-- volunteer plants that I didn't plant. As if by magic, I noticed flowering vinca had completely covered the area where the poppies and monkshood used to be. And next to that was a small, but beautiful aquilegea plant.


When I walked on the side of the house, I saw lambs ears all around an old plot of dirt. My favorite was the Johnny jump-ups that were sneaking out of the walkway! And to top it off, some wild grapevine had mixed in with my late blooming wisteria on my arbor, creating an even sultrier entrance.

Yes, my lopsided garden had filled in, not in the way I envisioned, but boy was it lush and pretty. Seems these volunteers did their job well.


This year I got Joe Pie Weed, a favorite! Don't ask me how these volunteers do it, because I have never planted any of these things in my garden in previous years. My guess is the birds Petal cat was chasing were dropping seeds as they flew over the dangerous cat-zone. No matter how the volunteers get here though, I am always surprised each season. And now I don't have to weed as much because things have been filling in so nicely.


So, to the garden volunteers of America, I salute you! Thank you for helping this lazy gardener find new beauty right in her own backyard.


ALL PHOTOS BY C. LANGRALL AND BALANCE PHOTOGRAPHY, EXCEPT FOR ROUSSEAU PAINTING.