It’s been two weeks since the Horticultural Fair, and I’m still groveling in the garden.  (Weeds and edges are strict taskmasters!)  Eighty people came by over the course of the Sunday afternoon to look at the pathways and stone.  I demonstrated my preference for curving lines in the hard-scape of the garden to accentuate the curve of the shoreline and contrast the sharp angles of the house.  Houses with pergolas and porches harshly project their angles onto the land.  Curved garden spaces will soften the angels and transition toward the more natural curves of the garden and the shoreline.  Thus, the stone staircases curve and the pathways curve.  Even the stone patio within the garden is curved, distinguishing a garden “room” for furniture from a home extension with outdoor furniture.  You could say one is for looking and living within, and one is for looking over and out.  Confused?  Come by next with the next wave of garden explorers during the Mahone Bay 250^th Celebration Heritage Home and Garden Tour on July 10^th and 11^th, 2004.  There is more information on the new town website:  www.mahonebay.com.  

One of the tasks still before me is the cleaning of the teak furniture exposed in the garden “room”.  I learned a bit more about this from one of the teak distributors in Toronto.  I prefer to let my teak silver, although I help it along with lifetime wood treatment (www.valhalco.com).  To maintain the silver finish, use non-toxic Simple Green (www.simplegreen.com) diluted in a bucket of water and lightly scrub away grime and moss on the furniture.  Fuzzy teak grain can be smoothed with 0000 steel wool or a Scotch Brite pad.  Stains like bird droppings can also be sanded out, while the most stubborn stains my need an application of a spot remover like K2R.  I have a sample Hyde Park bench arriving in July.  Although I ordered it in April, it probably won’t make the tour deadline, but know that it will be quickly silvered with the lifetime solution.

(The Bench Arrived!)

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Sarah Susanka, the author of “The Not So Big House” has an excellent new book, “Home by Design”.  With words AND illustrations, she explains the architect’s design concepts of “space”, “light”, and “order”.  She visually develops the reader’s eye to “see” a house in order to create a home.  House as home—wwwwwhat a concept, eh?  I’ve been talking about this for more than a year with interior decorating and furniture arranging techniques.  Now you can have this brilliant visual reference.  Explore more on her website:  www.homebydesignshowhouse.com.       

Finally, I’ve been taken to task for excessive punctuation, so now I feel somewhat vindicated mentioning “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” by Lynn Truss.  If you have not heard about it yet, then go to her website, www.eatsshootsandleaves.com, and explore what you haven’t heard or seen since grammar school.  There’s even a punctuation game to challenge your skills.  I’ve always had somewhat of an advantage with the surname Grammer (correct and wrong) and the fact that my mother was head of the English department in her schoolteacher years. 

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