Autumn test flight

Do you like the new look? What am I talking about? I’ve been publishing this blog, View from Federal Twist, for about fifteen years. I’ve recently moved the blog to Squarespace from WordPress, thus the rather dramatic change in appearance. I want to start blogging more regularly again, and I hope Squarespace will make that easier to do. As subject matter, I’m using a few drone photos I took last week to document the autumnal changes in the garden, but the main point of this post is to test the blog and make sure it’s working as intended.

This is the central part of the garden taken on an overcast afternoon in late October. I’m fascinated by the patterned textures and colors, and aspects of the garden not visible from the ground. For example, you can see most of its structure at a glance. That’s not necessarily all good, however, because you do miss nuance and detail. For that, you have to walk in the garden, experience it personally.

Below I’ve turned the drone toward the north. You can see a heavily planted bank on the left rising up to the level of the house and, on the elevated gravel terrace outside the house, a small rectangular reflecting pool. This pool is about twelve feet above the square reflecting pool in the center of the image.

In this second image, the disposition of the two main paths is roughly parallel, with some smaller ‘interconnections’ at odd angles. The main paths should give you a sense of ‘flow’ because the garden’s design follows the natural hydrology of the site, roughly following the patterns of stormwater flow around the end of the house and across this part of the garden, moving ‘up’ and across to the right. These main paths ‘imitate’ the flow patterns and are intended to create a sense of emotional flow. The land gently slopes to the right, increasingly steeply, down to the Lockatong Creek about a quarter mile below.

Here I’ve turned the drone around. You’re looking in the opposite direction toward the woodland garden at the end of the house (just off screen to the right). In heavy thunderstorms, water flows through this narrow woodland area then out into the much wider garden. The arrangement of paths and the plantings reflect the flow of the water, I think quite clearly.

Because the plantings in the garden are immersive, this reflecting pool is barely visible from the path to the right though they are quite close to each other. What is veiled and hidden from the ground-level perspective is clearly visible from above. You can get to the pool from the path on the right, but you have to explore a bit to find the way. The right-hand path continues, eventually curving around to the far side of the garden.

As the main path curves around to the right, a small path with stepping stones branches off to the left. You may miss this if you’re not paying attention. The small path takes you back to either the lower reflecting pool, or up a series of steps to the terrace level and the house.

The small fiery shrubs in the upper right are Lindera angustifolia var. glabra in their autumn brilliance. These are much more colorful than our native Lindera benzoin (Spicebush). They will grow to be small, multistem trees, eventually forming a bosque that will shade the path. (I could praise these plants at length, but that’s for another post.) My friend Giacomo Guzzon urged me to make this planting last November, and I was quick to implement his design suggestion.

Marc Rosenquist’s minimalist bronze sculpture (it weighs a ton) makes an interesting counterpoint to the similarly sized Lindera. As they grow into trees, it will be interesting to see the effect of the relative changes in size on the atmosphere of this part of the garden.

Behind the sculpture, you can probably make out parts of a wavy stone wall that creates a sort of visual boundary between garden and woods.

Here are the Lindera photographed at ground level, using an iPhone camera (thus the color difference).

I flew the drone over the house to take the aerial photos. Below is a parting shot of the small reflecting pool on the terrace as I returned the drone to its landing spot on the opposite side of the house.