Join us in the Osmosis Meditation Garden for an unforgettable, heart and soul filled performance. All proceeds will benefit the Ceres Community Project.
The evening begins with a cheese and wine reception on the front garden at Osmosis. An exquisite farm to table dinner will be prepared and served by the Ceres Community Project. CERES is a local non-profit teaching teens to cook while providing wholesome prepared food to families facing life-threatening illnesses. After dinner, guests will be ushered into the outdoor theater for the performance.
The Performance
BrightSide Blue is a duo from Nevada City that combines heart and soul filled vocals with virtuosic guitar-work to create brilliantly colored musical portraits. Ananda and Lindsay carry a powerful yet sensitive approach to their songwriting and performances, leaving audiences smiling and spellbound.
“This love story has a soundtrack.” Lindsay Bellows and Ananda Vaughan have found the perfect complements in each other: Lindsay is a soulful songbird, who soars and dives over the lush textures of Ananda’s musical landscapes. Equal parts groove and melody, their songs keep audiences delightfully engaged — tapping feet, singing along, and basking in the love for life that radiates from this couple.
Ananda trained for many years as a jazz guitarist and has found inspiration in other guitar masters from rock, folk and world music. Lindsay grew up with pop and R&B music, and studied the influencers of her childhood idols — the soul and blues singers of the mid 20th century. The pair brings together the best of all these genres to create a sound that is authentically and uniquely their own.
BrightSide Blue has just released their latest EP, BETWEEN WORLDS. Their debut EP “Two Hearts, One Take” was released in Spring 2017.
Tickets are all-inclusive with dinner from Ceres Community Project, Wine, and Cedar EnzymeFootbaths.
Menu
Moroccan Chicken with green olives, dates, orange, and preserved lemon
Mushroom White Bean Cassoulet
Roasted Red Pepper Polenta
Kale and Cabbage Slaw with carrots, toasted sunflower, and sesame seeds and maple tahini dressing
Local Bread Basket, Strauss butter
Local Berry Crisp with Straus vanilla whipped cream
The Ceres Community Project creates health for people, communities and the planet through love, healing food and empowering the next generation.
♥ Supporting individuals dealing with serious illness with free and low-cost, delivered and nutrient-rich prepared meals, nutrition education, and a community of caring.
♥ Involving young people as volunteer gardeners and chefs, giving them direct, hands-on experience of the difference that fresh, healthy foods and community make, and of their own capacity to contribute.
♥ Educating the broader community, including health professionals, about the connection between fresh, healthy food, strong social networks, healing and wellness.
♥ Connecting people of all ages and from all walks of life to one another, and to their value as an integral part of the community.
Here in west Sonoma County, California, 5 miles from the Pacific Ocean, March is the turning point of the seasons. In the Osmosis garden, winter work is nearly finished with the anticipation of spring’s soft explosion at hand. Though the weather varies, the seasons are consistent. Winter is marked by the loss of leaves on deciduous trees indicating the relative inactivity or dormancy of all plant material. Among the first signs of spring are the flowers of plum, which precede leaf growth.
Window of Opportunity
The window of opportunity for winter pruning is in this dormant period indicated by bare branches. Insect activity is also reduced at this time, lessening the chance for infestation. Winter work falls into two categories: Structural Reduction & Correction and Refinement of the winter silhouette (look).We learn from Japanese gardens that within the garden walls trees are kept at human scale, not towering above, as is their wont. Therefore, a consistent effort to contain trees and shrubs throughout the year is ramped up in winter as dormancy allows for more aggressive pruning.
One such situation in the Osmosis garden is the presence of a planted Monterey Cypress. Left on its own it would dominate and outgrow the limited space it is afforded. Yet for nearly 20 years we have managed to keep it at approximately 15’ with a fairly natural appearance. Normally this tree would not be a good candidate for a garden but, it was a gift and we have taken it on as an experiment to see what might be the possibilities and limitations of this native plant.
We have a large Mayten tree (broadleaf evergreen) anchoring one corner of our tea garden.This fast-growing tree is necessarily reduced and thinned each winter. We also have two Douglas Firs (another native) which are maintained in our bath garden as large shrubs (!) at about 8’.
Osmosis has a limited number of Japanese Maples with each being planted at a primary location (path or pond) in the garden. Ranging in size from diminutive (18” x 36”) to person-sized (6’ x 5’) these trees must look excellent all through the year. This means winter pruning is required not only to set up a beautiful spring/summer look but also to treat the eye in winter to the intricate delicacy of bare branches.
Pine Trees
Along with the evergreens previously mentioned Osmosis has a number of Pines that get close attention.We have three Red Pines and three Black Pines.Two of the red pines are structurally pruned in winter to maintain proper scale.All the pines are groomed of excessive needles both as a matter of appearance and to help limit spring growth by reducing photosynthesis.
Support plants such as Grasses and Tamamono (mound-shaped shrubs) are also seen to in winter.Grasses are cut to the ground in anticipation of spring’s regeneration while the sheared shrubs may get a thorough opening up with hand pruners to allow light and air to reach inner branches that back budding may occur. Back budding is the breaking out of new leaves on bare wood. The vitality of inner wood helps ensure fullness at the time of spring shearing.
Bamboo
Thinning of Bamboo is begun in fall and may continue into winter.Third-year culms (canes) will be dying back and are thus removed along with weak or excessively crowding culms.
Transplanting is also scheduled for winter again because of dormancy. This year we flip-flopped Hellebores with Red Buckwheat plants that found themselves in each other’s microclimates.We also removed a large and languishing Rosemary from our entryway and replace it with a grouping of three small Hinoki trees and an array of Manzanitas.
Advent of Spring
With the advent of spring, the gardener sharpens tools, restocks sunscreen and cinches up her belt in preparation for the marathon to come.The surge of the plant world is both inspiring and
daunting.With so much growth at once, the garden pruner must establish priorities.Decisions are based upon the degree of unruliness and visual prominence.
Though Japanese Maples are amongst the most meaningful plants in the Osmosis garden their gently soft spring growth is so welcome and complacent that pruning may be set aside for more pressing matters.
When the time comes, Maples are both thinned and reduced for proper scale and a natural look.The one caveat is that when maples are in full sun or receive a lot of afternoon sun care should be taken to not open large holes in the canopy as inner leaves and bark can burn if suddenly exposed to strong heat/light.
Importance of Hedges and Shrubs
One of the possibly more pressing matters mentioned above is the 30’ Green Dragon Hedge separating the meditation garden from its entry gate.The importance of this hedge cannot be overstated as it provides the hide-and-reveal effect so integral to Japanese gardens allowing for a gradual revelation as guests follow the path.Once grown out wild, this element becomes more of a distraction than subtle influence so it’s imperative to keep it in bounds.
At Osmosis, we use manual hedge shears rather than gas or electric powered.The cleaner, sharper result is well worth the extra time and effort in a garden where aesthetics encourage a peaceful meditative state.
Along these lines, the individual sheared shrubs(we use variously Berberis, Euonymus, SpiraeaandGermander) are sometimes overlooked in deference to the dramatic appearance of pines and maples yet their function in the garden is paramount as a grounding element and counterpoint to the focal trees.These smaller shrubs (Tamamono) must be tended with consistent care especially with spring’s first burst.
Flowering Trees
Perhaps flowering trees such as Camellias, Rhododendrons, Ribes and Magnolia present questions as to when to prune them.In all these cases, as with Plum, the flowers appear before the leaves.This means that a well-maintained plant won’t need pruning (except grooming and deadheading) until after the new vegetative (leafy) growth occurs and extends.Observation leads to pruning guidelines.
Lastly, in our discussion of spring pruning is the Japanese Black Pine.Whiles there are many approaches to pine pruning, here at Osmosis we
remove the candle growth in spring followed byselective thinning in fall and winter. Candle is the term for the initial spring shoot growing on pines. Candle growth generally signal the strength and will power of the tree as it tries to attain its genetic height (60’).This size being beyond “human scale” in the garden, forces us to meet the tree’s will with skill and an aesthetic will of our own. As they extend, candles initially look like tubes; when they stop extending needle open out from the tubes.It is at this time they are removed in favor of their replacements, which develop over the summer in greater numbers and lesser length.
We who garden are fortunate to be so attentive to the seasons as this draws us closer to the unseen world. Make sure you leave time to visit our gardens during your next visit to Osmosis. We also offer Horticultural Garden Tours throughout Spring and Summer for a more in depth look at the underlying Zen themes built into the rock arrangements and pond layout, as well as information about the planting themes and plant materials.
Along with the evergreens previously mentioned Osmosis has a number of Pines that get close attention.
One of the possibly more pressing matters mentioned above is the 30’ Green Dragon Hedge separating the meditation garden from its entry gate.