What a week it was! Busy, hectic and full of excitement. It was spent installing my art for the Lyndhurst In Bloom event. Transforming a vision to reality is a process fraught with ideas, doubt, fun, tweaking, rethinking, redoing, second guessing everything and, finally pulling it all together. A roller-coaster ride.

And then the preview night arrived – it had all come together and I was ready to enjoy the evening. Whew!

The feedback that evening and through the weekend was good and gratifying. I’m really glad I’d said ‘yes’ to this opportunity. It made me stretch and explore, dig deep and think out of the box. It was truly exciting. I’m very pleased with how the final installation looked as well the public response. I learned a lot too.

I had many requests to share as much as possible about my project from those who could not attend. So I submit here the mission statement for it and lots of photos. Lyndhurst had a professional photographer take pictures but I will receive them only later.

And now, after a day spent collecting my thoughts and decompressing, I head into the garden and onward to the garden’s Open Day!

Before Flowers, Beyond Flowers

Lyndhurst Mansion will forever be connected to the Gilded Age. A time associated with rapidly expanding industries, significant progress in science and technology and of course, opulence and excess. What is often overlooked is that this period was also when Environmentalism as a national movement got started. It was a seminal moment when Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872. The first of its kind in the world.

We are now at a similar inflection point where we must renew our covenant as protectors of the environment.

On that note,Welcome to The Gilded Age 2.0. What was the scullery has become an ode to seeds.

The very fundamental source of all life is highlighted. Every seed contains the past, present and future. Seeds hold the history, geography, science and art of life on earth.

Yet, while there is universal agreement that seeds are important, one tends not to pay serious attention to them. Benign, diminutive, innocuous with an appearance perceived as dull, they’re easy to go unnoticed. When was the last time you deliberately examined a seed pod, capsule or head?

They are exquisite in design and each uniquely suited to its natural environment and manner of seed dispersal be it by gravity, wind, ballistic, water or animal.

The viewer is invited to take the time to examine the watercolor art works, displays of the real materials themselves, various ways to propagate – seeded paper hung like prayer flags as testaments of faith, hope and service, seed bombs to broadcast generously, seedlings started in flats/)pots for assigned places and purposes, some set aside to exchange with fellow gardeners,

“A lot of gardening is focused on flowers. People don’t realize plants can be beautiful after flowering, and they cut them down before they can even see it. I look outside now and see the clematis that flowered in the summer but is more interesting now that it is showing seed heads.

If you make a four-season garden you have to learn to accept decay and see the beauty of it. It’s about the texture and shape, the seed heads and the skeletons. So instead of using the scissors you use your eyes.” Piet Oudolf

Note: The dried materials seen here were gathered from my own garden with some treasured additional contributions from Harnek Singh – @plantstani and Timothy Tilghman of @untermyergardens.

Sustainability at its best!

My garden is open to the public May 4 through the popular and highly acclaimed Open Days Program of the Garden Conservancy.

– Shobha Vanchiswar

Artist, gardener, designer, environmentalist

Welcome To Before Flowers, Beyond Flowers-