The Miller Library welcomes Christina Hanson for her exhibit, Paper Botanicals: Sculptures of Plants and Their Communities. A word from the artist on her process:

Completion of these sculptures is not a fast process. Some flowers and inflorescences can take a day or more to make, a finished sculpture generally takes weeks of work. The pieces are all made by hand using various papers, professional watercolor paints and pastels. They are surprisingly sturdy, lightfast and made to last for many years. Moving forward, I plan to continue to explore what flowers I can create out of paper, improve on those that I already make, expand upon the fungi and fauna components of the sculptures, and I also really want to figure out how to make an orchid with a moveable hinged lip and a Venus flytrap that will snap shut. I would love to someday work with public institutions creating botanical components of natural history dioramas.

The artist invites visitors to an opening reception on Monday, September 9, from 5 to 7 pm. The exhibit is open during library  hours September 4-28.

She has always loved plants and flowers, spends time in the deserts and mountains of Washington state and beyond, and is a frequent visitor to botanical and private gardens. While in college she began to develop a love for tropical plants and amphibians, and along with her partner began building elaborate terrariums to house plants, poison dart frogs and tree frogs. She is a co-founder of the Pacific Northwest Vivarium Society and has helped organize several local and national events to share resources about keeping tropical plants and frogs.

A: You are correct that Eremurus is generally considered unappetizing to deer, rabbits, and other creatures. If you have acrobatic squirrels, then placing the foxtail lily in a more open spot (with nothing overhanging it) that also has excellent drainage and ample sun might help. However, these bulbs are sensitive to transplanting and their shallow but widely spreading roots are fragile. It is best to wait until the leaves have died back and the plant is entering dormancy (late summer to early fall). Have a new planting hole ready to accommodate the roots, which are octopus- or starfish-shaped. According to Chicago Botanic Garden, the hole should be about 15 inches wide and six inches deep with a shallow mound in the middle over which you can drape the roots.

Of the book’s eight chapters, two deal with earlier periods and six with the twentieth century. MacLeod knew personally a number of her later subjects. The book places women in groups, such as medieval nuns, herb gardeners, and flower gardeners. Several of her subjects are known mainly for their writing about plants, but MacLeod assures the reader that she included none unless she was convinced they got their hands dirty in the soil. 

MacLeod provides a variety of information about her down-to-earth women. Some had art school training and adapted it, some learned from hired gardeners, many from family members. Ellen Willmott had 86 gardeners before she lost her fortune due to German investments before World War I.

MacLeod includes character traits: Gertrude Jekyll was an “ideal aunt,” but “Poor Miss Willmott. It is so hard to find anybody who has said nice things about her” (p. 55). Margery Fish found “clearing bindweed ... far more exciting than golf or fishing” with a reward of “a barrow-load of obscene twisting white roots and the joy of burning them” (p. 122) .

Perhaps MacLeod’s greatest skill is in describing the gardens the women created. Not only does she name plants, but she explains garden designs, often with comparisons to painting and textiles – very helpful in a book with no design illustrations. She also includes the garden’s environment and its history, as it developed and, sadly, often declined or disappeared. Black and white photos support some of the descriptions. 

"Down-to-Earth Women" contains lots of intriguing information. Like its cover, it is lively and very reflective of its creator’s enthusiastic personality.