January 12th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

I’ve been casting about for a shift in how I see my life. Mainly, I’m looking for a way that work doesn’t rule everything I do or my definition of myself. I’d like to see art and creativity take over that role. I have a fair amount of frequently untapped talent for making things in a somewhat improvised but lasting manner. I’ve crafted a bench out of two pieces of limestone and a plank of wood, fountains from flower pots and scrap copper pipe, and innovative landscape features with nothing but piles of stone, a shovel and sweat. Most landscaping or garden construction techniques I have attempted I can master, adding a personal flair to them as I go. Much of what I do uses materials and tools I have at hand. Sometimes, however, I treat my lack of ability to buy materials as a handicap as opposed to the opportunity for craftiness it really is. I have to, at the very least, suppress that message of “lack” if I want to nurture my creativity.

Enter Berthold Haas. (Or in my case, hopefully re-enter.) I haven’t kept up my friendship with him in the years since I got married, but now seems like a good time to get in touch with him. I was indelibly inspired by his use of limestone in making everything, but particularly landscape features like fountains. I used to live next door to him as he transformed his rented house into a garden oasis of fountains, walls and a limestone grotto.

His particular rough-hewn, but classically-inspired forms are perfectly in line with my aesthetic given that mine is informed by Texas Hill Country landforms (lots of limestone and “cedar”, or ashe juniper) and an earlier life as a hobbyist caver (more limestone). And while I could never even begin to copy him adequately, there’s not a time I work with karst limestone (that swiss-cheese limestone named for cave-bearing landforms) that I don’t think of him.

It might be time for me to try my hand at more fountains and benches, stuff that’s a little bigger and better than I’ve already done. I’d love to try a fountain somewhat like Berthold’s – hulking slab of uncut, natural limestone with a perfect well and channel cut into it, water entering from a hidden source over a hand-hewn race or nozzle. I might not be able to match that scale – he works with pieces that weigh tons, and has the studio and employees to help deal with these thing – but I know I can at least create forms that are pleasing.

bench, berthold haas, creativity, fountain, garden, inspiration, karst, landscape, limestone, sculpt, stone, structure

January 10th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

Here comes the freeze! We only get a couple of these a year, but this is the first time I’ve been on pins and needles about it. I have a lot of vegetables seedlings out there – radishes, lettuce, onions and carrots – and they stand to fare badly below temperatures in the mid-twenties. In the past I never worried about freezes much as the natives I had planted generally withstood the cold or the they didn’t. If they didn’t I reasoned I didn’t really want them around anyway.

So, I’ve covered everything vegetable-like, and have renewed the sense that I really dislike covering plants. Still, I’m much more committed to these vegetable starts.

No stranger to last minute improvisation and experimentation, I’m trying something based on a comment my dad made here. I have a number of five-gallon plastic jugs from work that normally carry a non-toxic press chemical. I filled five of these and placed them under the covers and near the vegetables. Over a few of them, I put large clay pots as additional insulation:

(Note: the hose has nothing to do with the arrangement.)

My reasoning is that the clay pot will insulate the hot tap water in the jugs a little more than the straight plastic. And if that helps raise the surrounding temperature by even a degree or two, it might make all the difference. For some reason, the term for these contraptions that popped into my head was “heat cistern”.

On my deck, too, I covered my potted herb garden. I took the splashy “bobbler” out of my fountain and dumped 5 gallons of hot water in the fountain. Again, just a degree or two…

Update tomorrow on my experiment’s results. Wish me luck!

freeze, heat cistern, hot water, vegetables

June 27th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

Nothing particularly coherent to write about, but there were a few things I wanted to note for posterity.

Yesterday I planted green beans in the south-side bed. Originally I had saved that space for my wife to use. She wanted to get more involved in gardening, and we had researched the best things to plant given the late month. I was excited by that when she decided – it would have been a nice way to connect. But May stretched into June, and she hadn’t done anything with it. A week ago she finally admitted she wasn’t going to do anything with it. Disappointing.

So without a whole lot to lose, I planted green beans there… two rows of 3 seeds per mound… about 10 mounds. Already today they are sprouting. Beans are FAST! Now, it being almost July in Texas, it remains to be seen if anything comes of them. A long shot… but again, what’s to lose? I already had spare seeds.

Which reminds me, I need to hook up a water line to supply that bed from the sprinkler system. I have a micro-sprinkler tap nearby, but I need a few small parts to make it a go. Currently I have a hose-end sprinkler and chlorine filter supplying that bed, but with my 40+ year old brain, I’m likely to forget and leave that running all night.

And speaking of water, I have a PVC pipe over on the north-ish side of the house that captures the water from the A/C condenser. I had disconnected it over the winter – not a lot of A/C use until about February or so. I reconnected it today to water a small bed over there that contains a small thorny shrub whose name escapes me now. Damned 40-year-old brain. But it occurs to me that would make a good spot for the Gulf Coast penstemon, too… moisture and shade. I have had that plant for months, and I have yet to plant it. Poor thing. A wonder it’s still alive.

Lastly, since it has been Bug Week around here, I have to leave this post with yet another striking visitor to the yard:

June 2nd, 2010 by Marc Opperman

No, it’s not supposed to spray bamboo, and it’s a far cry from a bamboo water-knocker. But I have been trying to get creative about how I use micro-sprinkler parts. I have a lot of bamboo sitting around (cut at my parent’s house over Christmas), and I love the use of it in Japanese gardens. Plus, bamboo is one of the ultimates in renewable materials.

I’d run out of the pre-made 1-foot stakes that have micro-sprinkler heads, but still had plenty of everything else… 180º- and 360º spray heads, tubing, t-joints, etc. I also had a few extra pieces of bamboo around, stuff in the one- to three-foot range. I wanted more water going to my vegetable beds, and needed a taller sprayer to reach the tops of the plants.

So I made some 45º angle cuts in a two-foot piece, used a 1/4-inch paddle bit to drill out the nodes, and attached a 1-foot metal “spike” to the bottom of the bamboo to help hold it upright. I threaded some 1/4-inch undrilled micro-tubing through the bamboo and attached one of the 180º sprayheads to the top. I secured that with a tiny piece of copper wire threaded through two 1/16″ holes drilled in the bamboo.

I hooked it up and turned on the sprinkler system, but was a little disappointed at first. No flow from the bamboo sprayer. But everything else in the line seemed to be working, and there was adequate pressure when I removed the blue spray head. Turns out there was simply a bit of dirt clogging the spray head. I had forgotten to flush the lines before adding the spray head.

This was a quick weekend project – about 30 minutes to figure out and make. And it’s kinda cool looking. I intend to make a few more to replace some of the troublesome pre-made ones or to augment dry ares of the garden.

bamboo, make, micro, project, sprinkler, water