GardenDesignOnline

Happenings Dec 08

HOLIDAY GARDEN SHOWS
Through January 4:
City Sidewalks, Cleveland, OH
Annual Holiday Show, Cleveland Botanical Garden, 216-721-1600
Garden of Lights, Wheaton, MD.
5:30-9PM except Dec 24-25. A Show of 700,000 lights 301-962-1453
Gardenland Express, St. Louis, MO
Annual Holiday Train & Garden Show, MO Botanical Garden 314-577-9400
Windows to Wonderland, Washington DC
Annual Holiday Show, US Botanic Garden, 202-225-8333
Wonderland Express, Glencoe, IL
Annual Holiday Show, Chicago Botanic Garden, 847-835-5440
Holly Days, Boylston, MA
Annual Holiday Show, Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 508-869-6111
Trail of Lights, Littleton, CO
Holiday Show, Denver Botanic Garden at Chatfield, 303-973-3705

Through Jan 11
Holiday Train Show, Bronx NY
NY Botanical Garden  718-817-8700
Christmas at Longwood, Kennett Square, PA
Longwood Gardens, Lights, Special Displays & much more 610-388-1000

Through Jan 12
GardenFest of Lights, Richmond, VA
Holiday Show, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, 804-262-9887

SELECTED DECEMBER EVENTS

Dec 4, The Role of Beauty in Sustainable Landscape Design, Washington DC
Lecture, U. VA Associate Professor Elizabeth Meyer, Dumbarton Oaks, RSVP by Dec 2 to 202-339-6460 or landscape@doaks.org
Dec 5, Advanced Intro to Green Roof Plants & Materials, Boston, MA
9:30AM-12 noon, Workshop with Ed Snodgrass, Arnold Arboretum, 617-384-5251
Dec 5. Maintaining a Green Roof, Boston, MA
1PM-4PM, Workshop with Ed Snodgrass, Arnold Arboretum, 617-384-5251
Dec 13, Rhododendrons of the Himalayas, New York NY
4PM-6PM, Lecture by Botanist Steve Hootman, Rubin Museum of Art, 212-620-5000 x 276
Sponsored by Rubin & Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Through Jan 5, Darwin's Garden, San Marino, CA
Special Exhibition, The Huntington, 626-405-2100
Through Jan 11, Moore in America, Bronx, NY
Special Exhibition of Henry Moore's Monumental Sculptures, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700

Landscape Architect James Corner

The latest issue of Metropolis Magazine (November) has a terrific profile by Andrew Blum of landscape architect James Corner, who is head of the landscape architecture program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Blum, says Corner has spent the last 25 years re-inventing the profession and pushing landscape architects to "design the post-industrial city."  Blum says Corner believes landscape architects "are best prepared to tackle the complex, large-scale, often environmentally damaged sites that have become the hallmark of urban regeneration. He approaches them with the intellectual assurance of a philosopher and the political bravado of a pow­er broker. “I don’t want to be embarrassed to be a landscape architect because we’re thought of as tree people who come in at the end of the day,” he says."

If you're in any way interested in landscape design, you should definitely read this great piece of journalism.

Read the entire article here.  And check out Metropolis Magazine while you're at it.

And, read about the park Corner is building atop a trash heap on Staten Island -- detritus from millions of New Yorkers.  The New York Magazine article is here.

Stocking Stuffers 08

My top gift for gardeners is always the same every year:  a membership to your favorite local botanical garden, arboretum, public park, horticultural society, or the like.  Not only does it help support these important green spaces, most offer a wealth of educational opportunities and of course the gift of free admission whenever you like.

Eco Pots
These little eco-pots measure just 5 1/2" x 6 1/4" -- and the wide variety of colors make them extremely attractive.  They're made from grain husks and are said to last up to five years under normal use.  Resistant to freezing and thawing, pre-drilled drainage holes, and the matching saucers are included.
Only $8 each, less for members, and other designs available.
New York Botanical Garden Shop. (NYBG Shop)

Paving Weeder
Know anyone with a patio?  Or a brick walkway or driveway?
How handy would this little tool be? 
It's made of stainless steel with a beveled blade and plastic handle, and the blade is ground on both sides so that weeds and grass can easily be removed.
Sounds like a real winner to me, and I haven't seen anything like this before. (Beats the old kitchen knife or swiss army knife).
Only $6.95 from Kinsman Company.

Color Wheel
Also from Kinsman, a good-sized gardener's color wheel.  This one is printed on plastic, so you can take it outdoors without risk that it's going to fall apart if it's left out in bad weather.  There's an eight-page booklet that explains how to use it to create smashing color combos, and it has colors and tints on both sides, allowing you up to 252 color combo choices, probably more than you could ever imagine.  One of these belongs on every gardener's potting bench or in the tool shed. $10.95

Trendy New Planting Ideas

Landscape designer and author Scott Calhoun traveled all over the country to put his new book together, and it's a magnificent reference for home gardeners and professional designers alike.

The best thing about Designer Plant Combinations (Storey Publishing, 2008) is that each featured garden plan uses a total six plants or less. The chapter subjects direct you exactly where you want to go:  Perennial Partners; Masses of Grasses; Annual Acquaintances; Accent Plant Associates; Ground Cover Groupies; Buddies for Woodies.

As Calhoun explains in the introduction, he firmly believes that plants do matter, despite the fact that recent garden trends concentrate on outdoor living and hardscape.  "I got into this business to work with roots and shoots," he says, "rather than simply promoting the masonry trade."

His philosophy is detailed in every entry of this book.  In "Tweaking the Coneflower," he features a design by 'Lisa Delplace of Oehme, van Sweden Associates at the Chicago Botanic Garden that combines the dwarf coneflower  'Pixie Meadowbrite' with two types of yellow daylilies and 'Big Ears' lamb's ears.  In this entry, Calhoun tells you how to find the dwarf cultivars that go so well in today's small gardens.

Each of the book's design schemes is accompanied by an introduction about the theme, a photo of the full design, a photo and description of each plant, and a paragraph of "designer tips."  In the entry on New Agave and Yucca Frontiers, Calhoun notes in the "designer tips" that rocky outcrops are most convincing when each boulder is submerged one-third below grade; that odd numbers of boulders look best in a planting design; and that nooks and crannies should be built into the design to allow for good drainage. The tips for each entry are well worth noting.

Some of the designs in this book are simply breath-taking, and the subject matter is quite different from what you'll find in similar books.  I particularly liked the monochromatic color scheme featuring coffee-colored plants; and the stunning combination of Mexican feather grass and 'Raspberry Delight' hybrid bush sage.

This book is more than inspiration ... it's a handbook of first-class design ideas that can't help but produce spectacular results.

(click on text link to purchase book)

In the Magazines Nov Dec 08

Garden Design Nov Dec 08

• This issue highlights the top winners of residential design awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).  Ten gardens are profiled, from Maine to California, along with two international gardens in Lebanon and China.  OR -- to see all the winners, go to the ASLA winners' website.
• Six "way hot" plants to bring indoors for winter.
• Plants with showy fruits for winter interest: winterberry, mountain ash, coralberry, beautyberry and moe.
• Groundbreaker: profile of landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson.
• Martha Schwartz's new design for Arizona's Mesa Arts Center.

The American Gardener Nov Dec 08

• Profile of the late California author & plant hunter Lester Rowntree.
• Plants with striking stems for winter interest: redstem willow, black bamboo, ghost bramble, ocotillo and more.
• Great plant mutations: witches' brooms: one of the very enchanting ones is Ginkgo biloba 'Spring Grove,' with a compact habit and a maximum height of five feet in 10-15 years.
• Author Ken Druse with some fascinating tales of great plant explorers.

Fine Gardening Dec 08

• Fine-textured plants to perk up any garden
• Native grasses with spectacular features for gardens all over the country.
• How to prune shrub roses
• Design tips for light and shadow from landscape architect Raymond Jungles. 
• Narrow trees for tight spaces
• Great containers for shady places

Going Local: MA Fences

  A Fence with Real Style
  They use a lot of granite in the northeast part of the country, and why not replace those normal old fence posts with posts of granite?  The posts pictured here definitely add some heft to the style of this fence, which otherwise would look like any old pedestrian wooden fence that you can see in almost any part of the country.

It's just a small design change, but it makes a real difference in this landscape: it goes perfectly with granite setts on the drive and the granite posts used in a matching gate.

And if you have a place on the water, a quirky "fence" like this one, made of painted red posts and rope, fits right in with the nautical theme.  This fence, in Marion, Massachusetts, denotes the property line, and it extends on down to the water, where there are loads of sailboats docked in the summertime.  As you're strolling through the yard, the fence almost makes you feel like you're on deck.  So think where you are when you begin to design a fence, and you might come up with something as perfect as this for the setting.

This MA fence is a pretty classic design, but there's something about the top cap -- stained a dark burgundy --  that sets it apart from the normal.

It also picks up some of  the colors of the perennial garden in front of it, reinforcing the elegant lines of the curved gate and the stepped down fence. It's a simple way to get some oomph out of fence that could be very ordinary.

This MA fence really caught my eye the first time I saw it.  It runs along the property line next to the road, defining one length of the site.  Rather than constructing a massive, unbroken stone wall, this rustic design combines a series of stone walls with rustic logs, an excellent choice for the country-like setting.  It's hard to say how long the logs are going to last, but it sure looks like they could easily be replaced when they begin to deteriorate.

It's well worth taking pictures of unusual fences whenever you see them -- to remind you that the addition of just one simple element can turn a humdrum feature into a standout.  

(images ©Jane Berger - click on images to enlarge)

A Public Garden Gem

Cleveland Botanical Garden

Don't quite know I missed visiting Cleveland in the past, but it's surely worth going for one reason alone, and that's to visit the botanical garden. It's just down the road from the art museum, Severance Hall (home of the Cleveland Orchestra), the natural history museum and the Cleveland Clinic. 

This is a smallish garden, just ten acres, but it's absolutely  packed with myriad elements -- each in itself a stunning jewel.  Our visit to the garden was in mid-October, and the classic rose garden (above) was still in bloom.  Once home just to hybrid teas, it's now dedicated to the latest trends in rose gardening.  You'll encounter every type of rose you can imagine, and although the garden is at its peak in June, it's charm is evident any time of year.

The Hershey Children's Garden not only features a tree house, but also a worm bin, a sizeable pond crossed by decks above the water, fountains, plants to touch, a cave, an herb garden, and even a clubhouse with a green roof, shown here. It's also the first public children's garden in the state of Ohio -- and definitely a place to put on your family vacation list.

Election Day Rose

Rose for Election Day

Apparently there is no "Election Day" rose, but I think Le Président will do just fine. According to the best and most comprehensive rose site on the web -- Help Me Find/Rose -- Le Président is a light pink hybrid tea bred in Britain back in 1860 by Adam Paul.  It has large, light pink blooms with a petal count of 26-40 and is hardy in US zones 6b-9b.

Help Me Find says that according to some, this rose is identical to the rose called 'Souvenir d'Ami,' shown here; and it's also been imported into the United States as 'Adam.'  It's available in the United States through Ashdown Roses in South Carolina.

In any event, it's a great rose for election day every four years -- and everyone be sure to vote!

(image: Ashdown Roses)

DNA Tests to Combat Florida's Invasive Pines

Australian pines were first brought to the United States in the early 1900's as lovely ornamental shade trees, thought to be a perfect solution for many yards in hot, sunny sites.  The "pine" is now a troublesome invasive plant that has escaped into the wild in south Florida, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Hawaii.  The plant, which is not related to our north American pines, has become a highly invasive problem weed that is choking out native species in southern US coastal areas, and it is a particular problem in Florida's Everglades National Park.  It is commonly referred to as ironwood, horsetail tree, or Australian pine.

There are actually three different species of Casuarina -- C. equisetifolia, C. glauca, and C. cunninghamiana,  but the three look so much alike that it is very difficult to tell them apart.  Scientists at USDA's Agricultural Research Service are now conducting research to positively identify each species by its specific DNA and then finding insects for each one that might be used as biological control agents.

ARS scientists have traveled in recent years to Australia, where they collaborated with Australian colleagues to collect DNA samples from native Australian trees and to identify insects that might be used to stop the spread of the plant in the United States and its territories. ARS entomologist Greg Wheeler says that although Casuarina has some "fine qualities ... its negatives far outweigh its positives."  Wheeler and Australian scientists collected over 300 insects that might be used to control the weed, and narrowed the field of potential control agents to just 12, including a wasp that eats the plant's seeds and a moth that attacks the foliage.

By the end of this year, the researchers expect to complete their DNA studies, which will allow them to positively identify which species is which -- and then match them with an insect that will help stop the spread of a now-deadly plant that inhibits the growth of native American species.

(image: ARS, courtesy Amy Ferriter, S. Florida Water Management District, Bugwood.org)