GARDEN JOURNAL

Needed to get out of town to clear the brain with some clean mountain air, so headed up to Banff to see the current show on at the Walter Phillips Gallery. The show is titled The End by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson. Its a five-screen music video installation that was produced in Banff a year ago and featured at the Icelandic Pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale. If you are in the area, make the effort to see this one. The installation itself is really well done, the video is big, romantic, gentle and funny. Ron told us to watch the piano player first – all of the way through. It will make you smile.

Part of the class yesterday was about propagation and I scored a Agave pup during the hands-on lab part of the day. Noelle had posted about pups early in the new year, so when I saw the opportunity to add Agave to my collection I grabbed it. But carefully as these things are spiky. And see the lovely long root on this one, it’s ready to plant into a well drained soil.

We spent half of the day talking about vegetable gardening, so I’m busy trying to figure out how best to add more vegetables to the balcony this summer. So little space, so many choices.

Also found Dinny as I said I would last week. He’s tucked between a couple of fences and buildings now, but considering he was build in ‘35 which makes him 75 years old now, he’s aged well. In a city that more often than not demolishes its history, Dinny is lucky that someone was looking out for him. Unless construction equipment runs into the sculpture, there’s no reason Dinny won’t be at the zoo for another 75 years. The plaque in front of him notes that the connection to the zoo and dinosaurs was because of public interest in the fossil discoveries that were taking place at the time in the Alberta badlands. Black and white inset image of Dinny is from the plaque, Calgary Zoo.