How did this thing come about?
One thing of which you can be sure: UD didn’t plan it. She could never have planned it.
First she bought the birdbath. If you click on the picture and enlarge it, you can just make out the drips coming from the bottom of the basin. The birdbath was beautiful but began leaking soon after I bought it. I turned it over and let it be a kind of pedestal for the buddha.
Then there was that black container. It sat empty, some distance from the birdbath on the deck. I hadn’t yet decided what to plant in it.
Then Les UDs went one afternoon to Brookside Gardens, in whose little store UD bought some Black-eyed Susan vine seeds. She did it mindlessly, vaguely, distractedly… the store was about to close… she barely checked to see if it needed full light or anything. She certainly didn’t give any thought to its climbing habit and whether she could accommodate it. She just liked the sketch of the flowers on the packet.
Weeks later UD idly dropped the seeds into the container (turns out you’re supposed to soak them, etc., etc.), and as they began to show themselves climbers, UD had an aha moment: Let’s see if we can fit the container under the structure holding up the birdbath. If we can, we’ve got legs for the vine to climb.
At about the same time, UD figured out a solution to the leaky birdbath. She went to the basement in search of a shallow but not too shallow plate that would fit into the bath and collect water. She found a silver plate that looks something like this, only the Greek design along the edges is open and lets water flow out.
The plate fit perfectly, and its silver went well with the mottled gray and black of the original bowl.
So now UD was able to turn the bowl over and let the buddha sit in the shallow water. Birds began to appear again, drinking from the plate, and excess water drained down through the openwork along the edges of the plate into the vine below. A drip system!
UD loves to watch the vine do its thing; she loves to help train it along the legs and up to the top of the basin, where she hopes to have a flowery buddha soon. When the thing does flower, she’ll take another picture. Or rather she’ll have her sister take another picture.
July 25th, 2015 at 7:18AM
Sounds brilliant to me.
July 25th, 2015 at 12:25PM
and the bowling ball?
July 25th, 2015 at 12:49PM
dmf: I was wondering the same thing but forgot to mention it.
July 25th, 2015 at 1:14PM
Just a little sculptural element, as we say. A green garden ball.
July 25th, 2015 at 2:01PM
It all looks nice, the plant looks like it is climbing to Buddha.
July 26th, 2015 at 11:35AM
yeah i figured but liked the idea of a bit of looming impermanence…
July 30th, 2015 at 1:41PM
[…] days after this picture of my Buddha birdbath with Black Eyed Susan vine, the thing has indeed begun to […]