Imaginary Worlds in Atlanta

I recently saw a very big snake in my garden. He was shiny black with a yellow stripe down his body. I watched as he slithered into his hole under a shrub. It wasn't the biggest snake I have seen this season. This past weekend I confronted a towering cobra, who was coiled and posturing with extended hood and readiness to strike. But I was not afraid.

The cobra is an example of mosaiculture, an art form that looks similar to topiary, though not topiary at all. Steel frames are stuffed with a growing medium and equipped with an internal irrigation system, and then thousands of plants are plugged into place to create colorful textures. Regular grooming maintains the artistic lines. The Imaginary Worlds exhibit is running through October 2013 at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

There are 19 living sculptures in the exhibit, including a grazing unicorn, a shaggy dog, and a 25-foot-tall Goddess rising up from the earth. Here are a few of these magical creations:

There were also some more traditional sculptures that I really liked, including this happy little girl:

And look closely at this boy playing the pipes. Do you see the dragonfly?

And, finally, here are just a few of the plants that caught my attention:

It was a great day at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, and I didn't want to return to the real world!

Sloss Furnaces: A Blast From the Past

During the 19 century, the earth birthed the city Birmingham, Alabama. Jones Valley was rich in iron ore, coal, and limestone, the elements for making iron, and Birmingham became the major industrial center in the southern US. Its population grew so rapidly from 1881 to 1920, that it became known as the Magic City.

Sloss Furnaces, consisting of two 2400 ton blast furnaces and a collection of 40 other buildings, is silent now, echoing with specters of the past. Birmingham is no longer noted for its industry but for its world class medical facilities. However, when I was a child, Sloss was still a working furnace, and I remember looking down into it from a highway overpass. One could see the fires and lava-like streams. I always thought it looked like the entrance to Hell, an opinion that may have been shared by the men who sweated and slaved in the furnace.

Old Sloss is now a national landmark, and its facilities are used for festivals, concerts, metal workshops and art exhibitions. It is open throughout the year to tourists, and self guided tours are free. Earlier this year my family walked through the behemoth. I wasn't interested in the process of making iron; I was prepared to be bored. However, the sculptural qualities of the buildings amazed me. The workmanship is both age-old and futuristic. You may wonder why I am posting this on my garden blog, but Sloss is the epitome of man's harness of nature, so there is a connection!

Here are a few of the photos I took. I hope you see some of the fascinating details I marveled over in person.

Sloss was a dangerous place to work, and men died here. There are tales that it is haunted. By this guy?No, that is my husband!

By this guy?Definitely! At Halloween, it doesn't take much to turn Sloss into Birmingham's best haunted house.

Look below and you will find some garden tools, though I doubt they were used for planting marigolds!Sometimes it's hard to tell what is original to Sloss and what is more recently added sculpture:

The same day we visited Sloss we also visited Vulcan, the world's largest cast iron statue. Vulcan is the Roman god of fire and the forge, and the statue was Birmingham's entry in 1904's world's fair in St. Louis. Today Vulcan overlooks Birmingham from his perch high on Red Mountain, so named because of its iron ore. Using a telephoto setting, I took this post's first photo of Sloss from an observation deck located just below Vulcan's feet.

Vulcan stands with his hammer and anvil and holds a spearpoint. While an apron covers his front, his backside is sometimes the butt of jokes, especially by those who live in the genteel community directly behind him. Ahem!

And that, I think, is a good end to this post!

You may also want to read my post about a wonderful cottage garden planted on the premises of Sloss Furnaces: Grandmother's Garden at Sloss Furnaces