Chapter 8: The Mighty Douglas Fir

Paying tribute to the mighty Douglas Fir in what we call the 'Secret Garden' ('Secret' because it's a long, narrow, fairly dense stretch of garden, to which entry is gained through a clearing leading to what feels like an entrance gateway guarded by two large pine trees; like entering a hidden, 'secret' place. Probably also romanticised memories of the book...).
Difficult to do justice to this magnificent tree in a photograph as it's not possible to stand at a sufficient distance from it to capture all its grandeur.
It took me considerable time over the summer to find a way properly to connect with this Douglas Fir. And by properly I mean adequately, to do it justice. 
I am in awe of its size - height and girth - and of the beauty of its bark, the latter of which initially led me to considering exploring the bark texture using clay in some way. The danger, of course, was that this would be too close to what I'm seeking to do with the Redwood Imprints (The Redwood). I also felt that introducing a 'foreign' material would do neither the material nor this particular tree proper justice (powerful though clay can be). 
I forgot to mention that as I have passed beneath the Douglas Fir over the years I have loved the pine cones that are scattered over a huge radius beneath it. So, one day, the solution seemed so obvious: do something with the pine cones ...
So: 

The tree

And the fir cones

I went about gathering them up from within a fairly close radius and brought them together directly beneath its canopy, radiating out from the base of the trunk.

After the first session

After the second session, with the cones from slightly further out; cones now reaching right up to the fence and the beginnings of a meaningful shape/flow forming on the ground

After the third session, with cones from the outer perimeter of the canopy radius; having cut back a couple of the overhanging branches from a neighbouring magnolia on the left to allow more light in on that side

And some further images just to indulge my enjoyment of all this textural beauty:  

And this is how it's looking at the moment; Nature playing its Autumn hand! I shall clear the leaves once we've moved a little closer to winter and pick up where I left off. Lots more Douglas Fir cones freshly blown down by the recent strong winds ...

An Interlude: The Beauty of Wasps Nests

Nature's own sculpture in the garden: two wasps nests in our garden this summer.

Amazing how they building their nest around/encompassing the leaves

I love the textures and the rhythms

And a second, much - MUCH!! - larger one, deep under the roots of a fir tree.
A hungry badger came in the night; this is how it was left in the morning:

Still beautiful, despite the devastation

This is what he/she was after

The preditor's trail

And then the subsequent repair job, a couple of days later: 

Here too beautiful textures and rhythms and patterns; Nature does that so well ...

The beauty of these shapes!

And these exquisite hexagonal cells

Including the grub (escaped the badger!)

Inside

And outer side

INSPIRING!!

Chapter 7: Homage to the Eucalyptus

A magnificent eucalyptus stood in the walled garden until a couple of years ago, when it came down in a winter storm:

The base of the trunk, and a piece of bark from higher up on the trunk that had previously come loose and dropped down onto the neighbouring tree: 

This piece of bark was the inspiration for what follows - first the hand of Nature:

and then the human hand (the first version):

with the pieces of sawn up trunk grouped together nearby

the marks of the chainsaw cuts, and over time the bark shrinking away from the trunk as the wood dries out 

The very base of the trunk, with on the other side the exposed roots torn from the ground:

And a slightly different angle:

And then the second, slightly more elaborate progression:

I have now taken this installation down and stored the bark away for the winter.
A third to follow in the spring ...

Chapter 6: Bamboo Sticks

Living here on Ashdown Forest we share the landscape with the deer. 

Beautiful as they are, their taste for magnolia and camellia buds does present somewhat of a problem in the garden. The usual protection used to prevent extensive damage is wire netting held in place with bamboo sticks. Pretty unsightly and not always very effective. Hence the subsequent, more efficient, approach of putting up a deer-proof fence on the outer boundary.
This of course produced a - glorious - pile of beautifully weathered bamboo sticks:

   

And here together with the post-and-rail fencing posts - as per my previous blog posting (More on Post-and-rail fencing):

My approach with any new material is always to 'get to know' it before I begin to think about how it could be used. In this instance I decided to sort them all by size. This 'getting to know' process frees up the dialogue between me and the material. It begins to inhabit me, and I carry that consciousness with me through the different stages of preparation and creation.

I enjoyed the pattern the bundles formed and the play of light as the sun shone through the trees above at different times of the day: 

It was then time to tie them into bundles for easier handling. Again, I enjoyed and love the lines, the patterns and the rhythms as they stand stacked again the Shed wall:

I have since discovered another - huge - pile of bamboo sticks and am in the process of sorted those by size. An update will follow once that stage is completed ...