What is a Dolly Tub?

One of the interesting things about going on garden tours in other areas is that you get to see the local trends. One thing I noticed at the APLD 2019 National conference in Seattle, WA this year was that almost every garden had Dolly Tub planters, from fancy French vintage ones, to reproductions, to plain old galvanized tubs. This is a very french garden look to my mind and I just love the PNW twist all the local designers gave their pot designs.

This one is probably vintage and fancy but couldn’t you just use a trash can? LOL. Here the pic and then my trashy interpretation.

A dolly Tub is just an old fashioned wash tub and the ‘dolly’ part was the agitator stick women used to swish the washing around. The tubs are barrel shaped to keep splashing to a minimum. Some of the old authentic ones you can see the round marks on the bottom from the dolly. Pretty cool! Here are a couple of other examples from the tour.

You can find these by just searching ‘Dolly Tub’ or ‘galvanized planter’.

Once again I am writing this way after the fact and I don't have all the names of the designers, etc. It's hard to keep pictures and notes straight while out and about on a tour. There are people everywhere, there is no where to sit, the tours are actually pretty short. like how much time do we really spend in each garden. Not to mention that fact that these tours are OVERWHELMING. It is so hard to process all this info in the moment. After the tour of a specific garden you are then hustled on to a bus and I ALREADY am a bit queasy on a large bus so I absolutely do not want to be looking at and typing on my phone on the bus.

What would be ideal organizational method be going forward?

maybe,

1. create directory in Apple Photos for each garden when you get the tour itinerary. 2. then create heading in maybe the NOTES app so that I can write up any specific quick notes I have. 3. have a small notebook to take notes in while walking around?

More APLD Tour Goodness

We did a whirlwind tour of some gardens and nurseries with Nigel Dunnett when he was here giving a present ration the Bay Area APLD district.

I would love to try this naturalistic planting design that he and Piet Oldof and such talk about but I’m not sure our clientele is the best for this technique. So, Client context matters and ongoing maintenance matters.

Our work primarily involves small to medium residential gardens NOT large scale public installations we are seeing in photos. It’s not as though our clients have dedicated gardening staff.

Who will maintain these gardens post-installation? The homeowner? A standard mow-and-blow service? I’m just not sure the more loosy-goosey evolution of a garden like this will work for say, a busy family of four.

And like, detailed written-out progression plans? idk. But my sense is that any POE visit after installing one of these at some normal Lafayette homeowner is just going to show a field of weeds and oxalis. Is this cynical of me? I’m thinking particularly of a client sending me photo of her garden a year or two after it was installed and it was all just Centranthus ruber °՞(ᗒᗣᗕ)՞°. I mean.. Centrathus is a pretty pink flower and all but NO. /rant

Back to the garden tour! This was a very fun and wild garden that you can see evolved over time and at the whims of the homeowner and designer. There were so many fun paving details like this and surprise seating moments

This is a John Greenlee project and he joined us for the tour. So it was great to have him there to talk about the gardens evolution.

A nice picture of Nigel Dunnett and John Greenlee

I love an old shed with tools moment.

the planting textures really stood out to me.

There were many ‘view moments’ where you turn a corner and suddenly you have a cool view or an interesting garden sculpture or water feature to look at. At one point I was so pleased to see one of the glassword color-changing roses made by The Sun Brother’s Studio folks! I swear I took a picture but now I can’t find it.

Garden Tour - Keelya Meadows

I absolutely love the book Fearless Color Gardens by Keelya Meadows. I knew she was a local designer because she has a little exhibit at American Soil and Stone and I knew her home garden was open sometimes but I was not sure of the details. I joined the Garden Conservancy this year and lo! her garden was on the Open Days list! I made T. come with me.

I love all the quirky paving, concrete forms, and amazingly fun use of color. I wish my own garden was just like this. It was a bit over the top for T. though and I suspect he will object.

I’m desperately in love with that leopard-spotted Ligularia and must acquire one for myself immediately.

2015 - APLD Washington - Garden 2

This was a very cool modern garden. It had tons of insteresting details. I particularly noticed and liked the combination of materials. Like, where materials combine.

Corten meets gravel meets plants meets stone work etc. You know what I mean?!

Those little drain covers?!!! That Muhly grass?! So soft soft looking!

Buckle Up - There are many pictures.

I have an absurd amount of photos and I simply am having trouble picking which ones to upload so there will be a lot. I have already lost the actual garden info so this is for your eyeball enjoyment only.

This garden was amazing.

Look at this gorgeous copper gutter. I want this.

Look at this gorgeous copper gutter. I want this.

I like how they carried this purple color throughout the garden

I like how they carried this purple color throughout the garden