Borealis by Techo-Bloc

Borealis-Hazelnut Brandy

Borealis-Sauvingnon Oak

Borealis-Smoked Pine

Boy have precast pavers come a long way. The options for achieving a beautiful landscape on a budget are increasing every year. I have many clients tell me, “I don’t want those ugly pavers anymore.” But not many people can afford (or want to afford!) natural flagstone. So thanks to some of these amazing companies out there, like Techo-Bloc, they are creating some really innovative precast (which is just a fancy word for a block-formed concrete product) materials for us to use. This Borealis is one of my favourites….stone made to look like hardwood. You have an option of a 5″ or 10″ wide plank, the colours are modern, and the pattern is incredibly realistic. They even offer a wallstone that looks like those old railway ties. So don’t think that you are stuck with a standard tumbled paver anymore….explore your options and think outside the box.

Flower Constructions

This is some of the most amazing plant art that I have ever seen. The artist, Anne Ten Donkelaar, takes pressing flowers to a whole new level. Instead of gluing flattened, pressed flowers to a page, she preserves the colour and beauty of these flowers, and elevates them on the page using pins. And she uses some of the most unique varieties, so whimsical, so creative. My brain literally hurts just thinking about how tedious this whole exercise must be. To me, you can tell how passionate an artist must be to be able to complete a process such as this. Each an every piece tells some sort of a story, and I love that Anne wants people to make up their own rendition of what they see.

“A damaged butterfly, a broken twig, a bumblebee, some strangely grown weeds: I find all these unique discoveries in my path and then take them home to my studio. Here, I take my time to explore the objects and try to work out how I can show each one to it’s best advantage. My finds inspire me. While looking at them I can invent my own stories about their existence and their lives. By protecting these precious pieces under glass, I give the objects a second life and hope to inspire people to make up their own stories about them.” (Anne Ten Donkelaar)

Woodcuts

Cedar Burl

Honey Locust

Compression Wood, Red Oak

Red Maple

While shopping in one of my favourite local digs, Centro Garden, I was able to snag the last copy of Woodcut by Brian Nash Gill. A small, beautifully captured collection of various species of trees. “You look across all of the tree’s living years, exposed at once. And yet, as you move from the center of the periphery – to the final present of that individual tree – you’re also looking along time, along the succession of growth cycles that end in what is, after all, the death mask of a plant, the sustained rigour mortis of maple, ash, spruce, locust, and other species.” (p.13 – Verlyn Klinkenborg). These photos look like a bleed, an cell that evolved and bled into the space it needed to survive. I am always fascinated by trees that grow and morph around objects like fences and sidewalks, and nothing will stand in its way. It will adapt and spillover, and survive. A tree’s protection system is incredible. It is as incredible as the healing system of the human body. A small wound, and the tree will fold over and protect its vulnerability to survive. A sun-thriving tree placed in the shade will literally bend over backwards to find the light and get out of the darkness.