Re: Oklahoma Garden Festival

Patricia,
Thanks for the overview of your talk - I sort of felt like I was there.  And
thanks for the tip about white, it makes sense.
Kitty

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "pdickson" <pdickson@sbcglobal.net>
To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2004 5:46 PM
Subject: [CHAT] Oklahoma Garden Festival


> I wanted to tell you all about getting to hear Derek Fell speak today at
the
> garden festival.  He
>  has written over 60 books on gardening - around 2.5 million copies in
> circulation.  He talked on Monet's gardens.
> I loved the talk but
> as much from an artist point of view as a gardeners.  I even bought both
> books.
> He talked about using white in small pieces instead of a huge clump.  He
> said a big clump looks like a hole where small pieces add to the
brightness
> of the overall picture.  He had a picture of purple iris,
> lavender iris and a very few white iris that was beautiful.  Monet had the
> most labor intensive gardens. He told how Monet didn't pay any of his
>  gardeners. They were allowed to take the excess cuttings and plants to
the
> local farmer's markets and flower shops to sell. That became their wages.
> The slide show alone was worth the drive home in the rain.
>
>
>   He told that if you are ever able to go to Monet's gardens you should
> write for a pass to be able to go on a Monday.  Artist and  photographers
> are granted a pass if you write ahead and ask. Since there are over
600,000
> visitors a year it is great to go on Mondays when very few are  there.
>
> He talked about the use of Hot colors and Cool colors like you do in a
> painting ... the hot colors up front and the cool color in the distance to
> fool the eye into thinking the garden is much further away.  He said he
used
> the straight beds with the walking paths beside them to show perspective
> again as in a painting.   He loved single petal flowers for the
translucent
> quality of them.  He loved to have flowers not only low but high up to
draw
> the eye up.  Monet loved lace and tried to use flowering vines to look
like
> lace on the trellis. He hated variegated plants ... thought they looked
> sick.
>
> I loved this quote:
> Hybrids give the garden drama!
> Reseeders give the garden soul!
>
> He told of the Americana Rose bred by Pyle from America.  He talked like
it
> is one of the best roses but you can't find it anywhere today.
>
> He was a great speaker telling great stories from his travels to Monet's
> gardens.  He told of how the gardens were restored and how Monet's step
> daughter Blanche loved the gardens.  It was she that kept the house,
> paintings and gardens from being destroyed during the war.  I did take
notes
> and there are several more  and I could go on and on but I think you can
> tell I loved it all.
> I hated to leave... knowing it will be another year before it is time to
go
> again. For those of you that live close to Buck county Pennsylvania Fell
> invited everyone to his own gardens in Pennsylvania which are open to the
> public on some of the major
>  holidays.
>
> Patricia
> zone 6b
> where it is raining but turning to ice...  30 degrees right now.
>
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